My Sabina Days
Fri, Apr 21, '17
Sabina, that is how we called it, although a few shortened that to just Bina.
The first time I met Andy Roberts was at Sabina Park. Both of us were the 12th men for our teams: Andy for the combined Windward and Leeward Islands and me for Jamaica. In the early days when the players used the Kingston Cricket Club pavilion as their dressing rooms, there were these green benches players could sit on to watch the games. We sat on that green bench for the entire game and that was the beginning of our relationship.
Right from the time I was a schoolboy at Kingston College, which is about half to a quarter of a mile down the road from Sabina Park, I used to go there on a regular basis. School ended pretty early, so us guys interested in cricket would take a walk and try and sneak in somehow and spend about sixpence (two cents now) to watch Test cricket from the bleachers area.
There were trees planted around the bleachers, which apart from adding to the aesthetics provided a bit of shade from the boiling sun. Then there were the light pylons used for night activities at the ground. Sabina those early days was not just a cricket ground but where most other sporting activities also took place before the national stadium was built in 1962. Guys would climb the trees and the pylons and watch cricket. Sadly, they are no longer there.
