THE first pieces of memorabilia bound for the sports museum were yesterday donated to the National Sports Commission (NSC) during a small presentation ceremony at the Sports Commission building on Homestretch Avenue.

The presentation party was a small one, where legendary cricket commentator Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira, Director of Sport Christopher Jones and NSC Chairman Ivan Persuad were present.
Opening the ceremony was Persaud, who spoke about the value of sports museums around the world and the value of such a centre in Guyana.
“This bodes well for our sports tourism, you can go all around the world and see such centres set up; also youngsters could go and see the history of the various disciplines in Guyana,” stated Persaud.

Persaud also congratulated Perreira, who recently resigned from cricket commentary, on the feats he accomplished during his commentating career.
Also speaking at the conference was Perreira himself who spoke about where the idea for such a museum set-up came from.
“Guyana has produced two presidents of the West Indies board, we have produced many world class and world respected cricketers and the hope is that in this resource centre we can display a blazer, a cap, a bat that these cricketers have,” stated Perreira.

Perreira added that the potential for such a Resource Centre is limitless, when the number of players Guyana has had is taken into consideration.
“We can reach out to these cricketers’ families to get contributions for the centres, regardless of what is, and this could be a really good quality memorabilia for cricket in Guyana,” he said.
According to Jones, the Resource Centre in Thomas Lands was already selected to house the memorabilia centre and the works towards getting it ready were already on the way.
“We’ve reached out to the folks at the National Museum to have the proper lights to display the pieces without them being damaged and as soon as we’ve received word we can proceed,” stated Jones.

The first piece donated by Perreira was a specially brewed can of beer from 1980 when the West Indies became the first team to win a Test match against Australia in Adelaide. Meanwhile the second piece was a cricket stump from Perreira’s 100th Test match at Sabina Park when West Indies defeated England.
“These two pieces of memorabilia are to jumpstart the donations,” stated Perreira. Also going to be donated by Perreira is the jersey signed by the Guyana Jaguars four-day cricket team on Sunday after his last match.

“I’m going to take this home and show my family and then bring it back for the collection,” he stated.
The Resource Centre would be open to members of the public who would be able to see tangible pieces of history from Guyana’s cricketing legends. When the centre is set up it will be the fourth of its kind in the Caribbean.