📍St John's, Antigua and Barbuda
1952 – 1974“Viv Richards grew up in St John's, Antigua, one of four boys in a sporting family. His father, Malcolm, was a prison officer who had played cricket and football for Antigua, and the Antigua Recreation Ground, the island's cricket ground in St John's, shared a wall with the prison where his father worked. Cricket was the island's passion, and his older brothers Mervyn and Donald both played for Antigua; Viv learned the game from them, playing in the streets and yards of St John's. He won a scholarship to Antigua Grammar School and was a gifted all-round sportsman, good enough to play football for Antigua as well. But cricket was his calling, and he became a local hero in his teens. In 1969, at seventeen, playing for Antigua against St Kitts at the Recreation Ground, he was given out for a duck in a decision the crowd disputed. Spectators invaded the pitch and play stopped for two hours. He was sent back in to calm the crowd, but the cricket authorities then banned him from playing for two years. All the while, the prison where his father worked looked down on the ground. With the help of an English cricket patron he went to England, joined Somerset and soon the West Indies team, becoming one of the most feared batsmen in history, playing with a swagger and pride that he said came from Antigua. He spoke proudly of his Caribbean identity and refused to tour apartheid South Africa. In 2007 Antigua named its new national cricket stadium the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, honouring the boy from St John's.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today