Researchers from UCL History have received national recognition from the British Society for Sports History (BSSH) for a project exploring the role of cricket in the lives of Caribbean migrants in postwar Britain.
Dr Montaz Marché and Dr Michael Collins were named winners of the BSSH 2026 Inclusive Communities History Prize for their project, Cricket is My Life: Caribbean Cricket in the Workplace 1940-present. The award supports research into underrepresented communities within sports history in the UK.
Drawing on the resources and research of UCL’s Caribbean Cricket Archive (CCA), the project will investigate the histories of Caribbean cricket teams established in workplaces such as factories and transport depots from the 1940s onwards. The researchers aim to examine how these teams became important social spaces where Caribbean migrants forged networks of support, community, and belonging while confronting the challenges of exclusion and discrimination in Britain.
The project also extends themes explored in Dr Collins’ recent book, Windrush Cricket: Imperial Culture, Caribbean Migration and the Remaking of Postwar England, published by Oxford University Press in 2025.
As part of the research, the team will collaborate with former players, families, and community organisations to collect interviews, personal archives, and oral histories documenting the experiences of Caribbean workplace cricket teams. These materials will contribute to a publicly accessible digital archive preserving stories that have often been absent from mainstream accounts of British sporting history.
Amanda Callan-Spenn, who oversees the award on behalf of BSSH, said that the project had received praise from the judges for offering insights into an under-explored area of British sports history, and for being community-led.
Speaking with BSSH, Dr Collins said: “We are thrilled to be awarded this important BSSH prize and deeply grateful that it will allow us to develop our work at UCL History, empowering Black British community efforts to document the key role cricket played in Windrush-era migration, settlement, and community-building in England.”