By Ira PhilipCup Match Twenty-Thirteen what a great one!Numbers-wise, it has already been entered as the greatest on record. Spirit-wise, that’s immeasurable.It was profound, widespread, focused, a commemoration, a celebration of The Emancipation of Slavery on August 1, 1834. That was Freedom Day.Imagine how the slaves felt when freedom was on the horizon and the ‘soul force’ that has been so engulfing down through the generations and is now summed up in those two words: Cup Match.We will be aware that Bermuda is not the only territory that celebrates Freedom Day.Carnivals, fetes and other events leading up and on August 1st occur annually throughout the Caribbean.Initially this historic event took the form of parades to churches for divine services, spearheaded by the friendly societies and lodges.The former slaves had only the clothes on their backs when freed.There was no infrastructure. Only their indomitable spirits. There were no churches, schools or homes.The lodges were the centres of influence.In due course the emphasis shifted from the religious to the cultural, then to the sports field, annual cricket matches-cum-picnics, between the lodges they were Family affairs for the most.In 1902 prominent Somerset and St George’s Oddfellows proposed acquiring a silver cup for annual competition.From those simple, but highly spirited beginnings Cup Match evolved into what it is today.This writer personally knew the man charged with responsibility for ordering The Cup.He was Henry T Cann, my Sunday School superintendent at Allen Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church on Sound View Road, Somerset.Cup Match and Christmas were once the two most exciting dates on the Bermuda calendar.Christmas as defined as the ‘season to be jolly.’ But for generations scribes have been challenged to narrow down in a few words what Cup Match is all about, despite its overriding cricket connotations.It was a one-day affair, then it blossomed into a long-week end. Now it is a season!My good friend and broadcasting colleague Ron Lightbourne (who now divides much of his time between residences in Cuba and Bermuda) eloquently described Cup Match as”a unique cultural creation, an international game that has had an absolutely Bermudian stamp put on it. It has no compare in the whole of the cricket world.’Ron went on to state, he was not the only person making such a claim, as ‘people like Tony Cozier, Cary Sobers, Jeff Boycott and others from around the world who know cricket have seen Cup Match and been mesmerised by it.’Back in 1931 CB Rock the foremost correspondent of his day, writing in the Barbados Advocate about his first Cup Match experience, termed it “the annual blood and thunder contest between Somerset and St George’s, the greatest sporting event in Bermuda, the occasion on which the lion and lamb rub shoulder to shoulder, talk friendly and laugh without the heavens falling”.Rock at that point was alluding to the racial discrimination and segregation that was so rampant in Bermuda at that time.He went on to state, “All Bermuda takes an interest in Cup Match.“It is played, as far as excitement goes, at 230 degrees Fahrenheit, beyond boiling point, and is as much a test of temperament as of skill. Fifty runs made under these feverish conditions are worth any normal hundred.”Such was the case last week at Wellington Oval when more than 10,000 celebrants packed the stands at Wellington Oval and witnessed Somerset, the Cup Holders thwarted in a bid to give St George’s a two-to-one defeat.The most rabid of the Cup Match fans had journeyed to Wellington by the thousands on the Thursday, from as early as dawn to see the traditional first ball roll.Still others for days leading up to Cup Match had staked out strategic camps along the beaches and highways leading to St George’s.Those camps were fascinating, stacked with food and drink, outfitted with air beds, refrigerators, televisions and every imaginable thing that would keep them comfortably tuned in to the ball-by ball radio and TV coverage at Oval.Those not ‘in camp’ were on their boats or keyed-in to their world social media..As we stated earlier, quoting Ron Lightourne, this Cup Match as all others over the past 111 years, was an ongoing celebration of Emancipation.A homecoming, an articulation of community-mindedness, an expression of athleticism, colourful fashions, food.My own personal views of Cup Match and some of the great, sensational yesteryear personalities, were more comprehensively summed up, I think, in my book, “CHAMP: The One and Only Alma Hunt”.FANTASTIC HIGHLIGHTS TO THE 2013 CUP MATCHThere were several individual feats that highlighted the 2013 Cup Match.They were ably covered in The Royal Gazette of Saturday a week ago over the pen names of Colin Thompson, Lawrence Trott and Derek deChabert and ace photo journalists Glen Tucker, Mark Tatem and Glen Simmons.I think their efforts were simply brilliant, colourful.Maybe-and just maybe, they may not be aware of the time ‘back in the day’ when The Royal Gazette gave comprehensive coverage of events each day following the game.I was then writing for the Bermuda Recorder weekly. They were tough deadlines we had to meet. Results of our efforts are in the Bermuda ArchivesThe big hitters back then were Somerset’s Warren Simmons, Alma and Amon Hunt, brother Delbert (Shark Eye) and other Hunts, along with their first cousins, the Simons brother, Arthur, Elliott O’Brien, Austin and Ambrose.There was the first cousin to the Hunts Nigel (Chopper) Hazel, the Hortons, the Trotts; the Durrants just to name a few at random.(The Simons Brothers incidentally were the great-uncles of the man The Royal Gazette has dubbed “Mr. Cup Match”3 Janerio Tucker.).He crowned his illustrious career when he became the first in the history of the classic to score four centuries, becoming the all-time great run-getter.Back in the day on the St. Georges’ end was the all time great Edward (Bosun) Swainson, his brother Joe Swainson; the Darrells, the Brodie Smiths and a whole slew of giants.Those were the times before Cup Match was by Act of Parliament, made a two-day official holiday, the first day being Emancipation Day; the second Somers Day memorialising the event in 1600 when Admiral Sir George Somers and his ship and crew were wrecked on our shores and commenced the first permanent settlement of Bermuda.