Sporting Equals honours Butcher with prestigious award

LON­DON – Bar­ba­di­an Roland Butch­er, the first black man to play Test crick­et for Eng­land, was ho­n­oured over the week­end at a cer­e­mo­ny cel­e­brat­ing his im­mense con­tri­bu­tion to the sport.

The event, host­ed by Sport­ing Equals, brought to­geth­er some of the most in­flu­en­tial voic­es in sport for an un­for­get­table evening at its flag­ship awards cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day at the Roy­al Lan­cast­er Ho­tel in Lon­don.

Butch­er and Mag­gie Alphon­si were the re­cip­i­ents of the pres­ti­gious Spe­cial Life­time Achieve­ment Awards. Both were recog­nised for their ex­cep­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions to sport and their en­dur­ing im­pact in ad­vanc­ing equal­i­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Butch­er, who was born in Bar­ba­dos, moved to Eng­land as a child and went on to have an out­stand­ing crick­et ca­reer for Mid­dle­sex in Eng­lish Coun­ty crick­et where he played at Lord’s. His first Test match was against West In­dies in his home­town Bar­ba­dos at Kens­ing­ton Oval in 1981.

“I’m de­light­ed and tru­ly ho­n­oured to be nom­i­nat­ed for a Spe­cial Life­time Achieve­ment Award and along­side Mag­gie Alphon­si. It is al­so great to be join­ing Lyn­ford Christie, Denise Lewis, Sol Camp­bell and Ja­son Robin­son, such a pres­ti­gious group who have re­ceived this spe­cial award,” he said in a state­ment

Now in their ninth edi­tion, the Sport­ing Equals Awards recog­nise in­di­vid­u­als, or­gan­i­sa­tions and ini­tia­tives that are dri­ving mean­ing­ful change and in­creas­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for eth­ni­cal­ly di­verse com­mu­ni­ties across sport and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty.

CMC