New Sky Sports documentary, You Guys Are History, charts the journey of England's black cricketers as Mark Butcher explores the success stories and hardships they have been through during their time in the sport
Friday 3 September 2021 14:13, UK
"I lost count of the number of letters from the National Front saying 'if you turn up at the ground, if you play for England, we will get a sniper and shoot you and we will also kill your family.' I was receiving this two or three days before I go and play a Test match."
Those are the words of Phillip DeFreitas, as told to Mark Butcher during new Sky Sports Cricket documentary You Guys Are History, which charts the journey of England's black cricketers.
Watch episode one in the video at the top of the page.
The success stories are reflected on in detail - Devon Malcolm and Gladstone Small bowling England to victory over West Indies in Jamaica, and Dean Headley's match-winning Ashes six-for in Melbourne among them.
But the show also delves into the racism, overt or more subtle, that England's black players have had to endure over the years, with DeFreitas not the only one to suffer.
"I remember driving down to Lord's - your proudest moment where you have been selected and want to go and play for England. But in the back of my mind, I am thinking 'do I really want to now [after the letters from the National Front?'
"Police are looking after my house. I was a shambles and the only way I felt like I could beat it was to play. The information I was given was to forget it and that's what we always said. To ignore and forget those things.
"But it is very hard to. Taking the first over, I was stood there thinking, 'when's the sniper coming?' All through the five days, I am thinking 'something is going to happen.'
"You always felt you were fighting. People made judgements on you. You are just battling all the time, thinking, 'is this ever going to be right?' I am seeing those things day in, day out and nothing is being done about it."
"I would hate to think a youngster these days had a path in any way similar to mine. It really hit home to me when I said I want to play for England. Back from an assistant coach came, 'what right have you got to play for England?'
"I said, 'what do you mean?' He said, 'where were you f*****g born? You should be on the railways, McDonalds, hospital porter. That's what you should be doing, not talking about playing for b****y England.'"
"I didn't quite know where I belonged. We would constantly be told, 'go home, go home.' You are thinking, 'this is my home. I am born here, this is my country.'
"They say we have a chip on our shoulder. It's not a chip on our shoulder, it's the things we have experienced.
"I remember my first away game at Gloucestershire. Somebody knocks on my door in the evening and one of my team-mates has left a banana skin.
"I have to play with that person for the next 13 or 14 years. When that happened to me, I said 'I am going to be harder, tougher than ever. No one is ever going to push me around.'"
"Until I came to England [from Guyana], I didn't know about racism. I noticed it first of all when I moved to Leicester as a 17-year-old.
"I saw people clutching their bags tightly as they walked and actually cross the street to avoid me. There is that feeling, in some way, shape or form, that people think that you are less.
"All of a sudden, you are a little bit more aware that things aren't necessarily all equal. The idea that others may think you are less cuts deep into every person.
"I would say that if there is difficulty on that road and yet you achieve, it adds even more joy to it. Let somebody say you can't do it and then go and do it and see how much more fun it is."
Watch You Guys Are History throughout the fourth Test between England and India on Sky Sports Cricket.
