The legendary swing bowler was one of a number of West Indian Test players at the top of the game who ended up in former mill towns to play Lancashire League cricket during the 1960s
Accrington’s population was only about 30,000 at the time: in modern football terms, this was akin to Cristiano Ronaldo pitching up at fifth-tier Fylde FC on the Lancashire coast
Sportsmail began making inquiries and discovered a collective enthusiasm exceeding all expectations, not least from Sir Wes in Bridgetown, Barbados. Just six weeks after our first calls, he was being driven down the bumpy old track this week and alighting in front of the whitewashed pavilion at a club where 2,000 people would gather to watch him in his pomp between 1960 and 1962.
Fully 9,000 supporters would flock to bigger Lancashire League grounds like Burnley, to watch the great West Indian stars, which is why the clubs established a tradition of employing them which extended for over 30 years.
Learie Constantine and Frank Worrell preceded Sir Wes. Charlie Griffith, Michael Holding and Vivian Richards followed him, with Rishton paying Holding £5,000 a summer and Richards double that sum. The financial scale of today’s elite sport means we will never again see the world’s best pitching up in a village like that.