Windrush Day is commemorated in the United Kingdom every year on 22 June to honour the contributions of Caribbean migrants to the country.
The Caribbean is a region bordered by North, Central and South America and is made up of numerous islands and coastal areas of the continental mainland. It was colonised by the English, Spanish, Dutch and French, while the horrific slave trade saw thousands of people transported from Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Asia. It is now one of the most ethnically diverse regions on Earth.
Over 1,000 Caribbean people arrived at Tilbury in Essex on the ship Empire Windrush on 22 June 1948, and many took up jobs in industries such as steel, coal, iron and food production, and in the service sector, particularly in public transport and staffing the then newly formed National Health Service.
In the near eight decades since, millions of people of Caribbean heritage have made a huge contribution to British society, but it took until 2013 for a campaign to be launched to commemorate that contribution, led by social commentator and political activist Patrick Vernon, whose own parents had migrated from Jamaica to England in the 1950s.
Following the Windrush Scandal in 2018, which exposed the UK Government’s treatment of members of the ‘Windrush generation’ - most notably the detainment and deportation of people born as British subjects in the Caribbean who had arrived in the UK before 1973 - it was announced that Windrush Day would be celebrated on 22 June to ‘keep their legacy alive for future generations, ensuring that we celebrate the diversity of Britain’s history’.
In addition to those industries mentioned previously, people of Caribbean heritage have had a huge influence on football in the UK, with thousands of players playing at all levels, from the Premier League to non-league.
With many Caribbean families settling in east London, West Ham United has benefitted hugely from the contributions of players of Caribbean birth and heritage, helping the Hammers win trophies, inspiring young players from similar backgrounds and illustrating the Club’s commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion.
The first player of Caribbean heritage to pull on the famous Claret and Blue shirt was John Charles, the pioneering full-back who captained the Hammers to FA Youth Cup glory in 1963, having already made his first-team debut earlier the same year at the age of 18. The son of a merchant seaman from the Caribbean island of Grenada and an English mother from Silvertown, ‘Charlo’ became the first Black player to represent England at any level when he featured for the U18s in Israel in 1962. He totalled 142 appearances between 1962 and 1969, before retiring through injury at the age of 26.
John’s younger brother Clive also represented the Club as a defender, joining at the age of 12 and playing 15 games between March 1972 and August 1973. One of those games was against Crystal Palace at the Boleyn Ground on 28 October 1973, when he lined up alongside Clyde Best and Ade Coker as West Ham became the first Club to field three Black players in an English top-flight match.
Born in Bermuda, Best arrived in east London aged 17 in 1968, albeit famously travelling to West Ham Underground station rather than Upton Park, and went on to become a true hero and trailblazer for Black footballers in this country. A towering forward, Best scored 58 goals in 221 appearances, despite having to deal with terrible racial abuse, finished as top scorer with 23 goals in 1971/72 and helped the Hammers reach the 1975 FA Cup final. He was made an MBE in 2006.
Best is one of three Bermudans to play for West Ham. Forward Djair Parfitt-Williams debuted in a UEFA Europa League tie with Lusitanos in July 2015 and went on to score in the U21 Premier League Cup final win over Hull City in spring 2016, playing alongside Marcus Browne, who is of Dominican descent. Goalkeeper Nathan Trott made an FA Cup appearance against Doncaster Rovers in January 2021 and is now with top Danish club FC Copenhagen.
Browne, now with AFC Wimbledon, played his only first-team game in a UEFA Europa League tie with Astra Giurgiu in Romania in August 2016.
Jermain Defoe also has Dominican descent. His father hails from the island, while his mother has Saint Lucian heritage. The diminutive, prolific striker scored 41 goals in 105 games between 2001-04 before going on to net 20 times in 57 appearances for England. Defoe was made an OBE in 2018.
Defoe’s former England teammates Rio and Anton Ferdinand also have Saint Lucian heritage, as their father Julian hails from the island. Rio won the Hammer of the Year award in 1998, was the world’s most expensive defender when he joined Leeds United in 2000, and went on to captain England, earn 81 caps and win six Premier League titles and the UEFA Champions League with Manchester United. He was made an OBE in 2022. Anton won promotion and appeared in an FA Cup final with West Ham in 2005 and 2006 respectively. He remains a popular ambassador for the Club, and his son is at the Academy of Football.
Anton’s former teammate and long-time friend Bobby Zamora is the son of a father from Trinidad. The striker scored the winning goal in the 2005 EFL Championship Play-Off final triumph over Preston North End and played an influential role in the ‘Great Escape’ from Premier League relegation in 2006/07. He later won two England caps and reached the UEFA Europa League final with Fulham.
Trinidad & Tobago also provided West Ham with one of the Caribbean’s greatest players, goalkeeper Shaka Hislop. Hislop joined initially in 1998 and won the UEFA Intertoto Cup the following year. He spent three seasons with Portsmouth, then returned in 2005 and started the 2006 FA Cup final defeat by Liverpool. A pioneer of the ‘Show Racism The Red Card’ campaign, Hislop captained Trinidad & Tobago and appeared against England at the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals.
Also a player with roots in Trinidad & Tobago is Paul Ince, the Academy of Football graduate who became the first Black player to captain England. A prodigious talent who flourished under manager and mentor John Lyall, Ince played 95 times for the Club before joining Manchester United in 1989. He went on to win 53 England caps, two Premier League titles, two FA Cups and the European Cup Winners’ Cup, and have a long career in management.
A number of players of Jamaican heritage have represented the Club, with our all-time record Premier League goalscorer Michail Antonio being the most successful. Born in Wandsworth, south London, and signed from Nottingham Forest in 2015, Antonio has scored 83 times in total and led the line for the Reggae Boyz since debuting for Jamaica in 2021.
Goalkeeper David James played 102 games for the Club between 2001-04 and won 53 England caps, travelling to three FIFA World Cup finals. His international teammate and winger Trevor Sinclair joined him at the 2002 World Cup in Japan/South Korea, while he also provided the cross for the most famous goal in Boleyn Ground history, scored by Paolo Di Canio against Wimbledon in 2000.
In a similar era, Ian Wright scored nine goals in 26 appearances between 1998-99, having established himself as a legend at Arsenal. He won the last of his 33 England caps while with West Ham in 1998.
North London-born Jobi McAnuff spent a short spell at the Club in 2004, Ravel Morrison wowed with his outstanding talent after joining from Manchester United in 2012, and winger Blair Turgott made his sole appearance in an FA Cup tie at Nottingham Forest in 2014. More recently, England international midfielder Kalvin Phillips spent the second half of the 2023/24 season on loan with the Hammers from Manchester City.
A third member of that 2002 World Cup squad, Kieron Dyer, has an Antiguan father. He spent four seasons at West Ham between 2007-11.
Meanwhile, goalkeeper Becky Spencer and centre-back Vyan Sampson joined the Club in 2018 ahead of the women’s team’s maiden Women’s Super League campaign.
The former, who arrived from Chelsea in June 2018, went on to make 12 league appearances that term while former Arsenal defender Sampson featured in 19 matches in all competitions as Matt Beard’s side finished seventh in the WSL standings and reached the final of the Women’s FA Cup.
The islands of Saint Kitts & Nevis were home to the family of our 1999 FA Youth Cup winning captain Adam Newton, who made three senior appearances in the 1999/00 season and went on to play seven times for the Caribbean nation.
Jesse Lingard, who enjoyed a sensational loan spell at West Ham in early 2021, has Saint Vincent & the Grenadines heritage through his grandparents. Capped 32 times by England, Lingard previously won the FA Cup for Manchester United in 2016. Current Academy goalkeeper Dondre Abraham has been capped at senior level by the Caribbean nation.
Another Academy graduate, Jordan Brown, has family hailing from Barbados. The striker appeared once in a Europa League tie with Astra Giurgiu in August 2015.
While all of the above players hail from countries which were once part of the British West Indies during the colonial era, and are now independent, three former West Ham players of Caribbean heritage have heritage in a nation which was once under French rule - Martinique.
Winger Julien Faubert joined from Bordeaux in 2007 and was part of the squad which won the 2012 Championship Play-Off final. He played alongside Frédéric Piquionne, who was born in New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean, but moved to Martinique as a teenager and debuted for the latter’s national team in 2012, when he was with West Ham. Sebastien Carole appeared once in Claret and Blue in 2004.
So, as the UK commemorates Windrush Day 2025, West Ham United celebrates the huge contribution of Caribbean players to the Club’s history and achievements.
