FRANCIS MELVILLE FINDLAY
Francis Melville Findlay was born 04/22/1947 in spring village St Vincent
He began playing cricket at a very young age with a bat and ball using coconut bat and anything that could be used as a ball such as lemon, lime oranges and gru gru etc
He was selected for his primary school in 1959 at the age of 12 years and the first big day for him was the 1961 school tournament playing for spring village vs Colahill. The first innings figures were 1 over 5 wickets zero runs. Second innings 2 overs 5 wickets 5 runs. The following week he made 64 playing against Chapeau Blair and started playing club cricket with the adults that same year, playing on weekends and holidays until March 1968 he immigrated to Brooklyn, New York USA
In New York he played club cricket with St Vincent cricket club and Flambough cricket club in the Brooklyn cricket League. He was selected to play in the Brooklyn vs Montreal League game on Labor Day weekend that Year bowling figures 10 overs Maidens 8 wickets and 6 runs. In 1969 he went with a team to Montego Bay, Jamaica
From 12/69 to 12/71 he served in the US army and after being discharged he spent most of his time working and going to school, however he continued to play for St Vincent cricket club and Queensland cricket club when time permitted.
In 1977 he moved to Fort Myers FL. where he played very little cricket but moved to Tampa FL. In 1981 and joined the Westian American cricket club where he had many tours to places such as Nassau and Freeport Bahamas as well as cities in the US.
He was instrumental in forming the Central Florida cricket League in 1984 and because President of the organization in 1986.This League hosted the South zone of the US cricket association trial in Tampa and St Petersburg FL hosting teams from the Bahamas, South Florida and Washington DC. This tournament was a great success and Central Florida was invited to join the USACA where he was asked to serve as a selector on the South zone team
In 1990 he was inspired to take the Barbados cricket umpires association exam under the monitoring of the West Indies Umpire David Archer.by this time Central Florida had the youngest and strongest team in the USA. Players like Patrick Bennet, Peter Anthony, Javid Motowala, Howard Johnson to name a few were on the team Central Florida was the only team to be at the Sims New York touring team including Harold Joseph Sheldon and Larry Gomes to name a few
In1990 he was one of the organizers of the past and present West Indies team managed by Sir Everton Weeks and captained by Sir Garfield Sobers against the US national team as a fund raiser event for the team to travel to Holland for the ICC associate members tournament. He remained a selector for the US team until 1996 when a dispute within the leagues caused the USACA presidential, secretary and treasurer to resigned. A new organization called United States cricket federation was formed and led by Mr. Kamon Khan which forced the ICC president
Mr. David Richard to intervene
A nine-man interim committee was formed of which he was a member. from this committee Mr. Andrew Coward, Dr. Atul Rai and Mr. Findlay was tasked in writing the new USACA Constitution with input from the Honorable Mr. .Julian Hunt on legal matters
He served on the USA cricket selectors and other cricket committees until 2010 planning in central Florida
Mr. Findlay admitted he has many good days on the field, including hitting 5 sixes off Patrick Polachey making 100 runs in 10 overs Plant City taking 7 wickets for 21 runs in Bradenton and was considered by colleagues a very good wicker keeper and excellent slip fielder