It may be an exaggeration to say that the number of people living in Market Drayton with Jamaican origins can be counted on one hand.
But it is not hard to imagine precisely what they would have been doing at 8.35pm last Sunday evening or at 7.30pm on Thursday evening.
The exploits of Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt over the last two years has changed both the mood and outlook of a nation in a manner not seen since the glory days of West Indian cricket in the 1970s and 80s.
Many have credited the island’s government for its foresight in investing in a comprehensive sports training programme for its athletes to prevent a talent drain to the neighbouring USA.
Others say that the long-established sports structure in Jamaican schools is finally bearing fruit in a way not previously seen.
Unfortunately, because of the drug scandals that have blighted athletics over the past 20 years, the more sceptical believe that Jamaica’s success is more down to a systematic doping programme.
Despite recent positive drug tests, there is simply no evidence yet to suggest that the country’s athletes are engaged in anything like the system uncovered in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Berlin indeed - the city, the place that has changed the mindset of Jamaica and every other country’s view of it.
Because the truth behind the sudden success of athletes running in the gold, green and black lies more in the fact that they have learnt how to win.
Jamaica’s athletics history is relatively recent, with its first, real representation coming at the 1948 London Olympic Games.
Between then and before last year’s Beijing Olympics, the country had only ever won 13 gold medals at Olympic and World Championship level.
Of those, just 10 were individual golds earned by athletes from a country with less than half the population of London.
So far, Jamaica has collected 11 gold medals from last year’s Olympics and the World Athletics Championships currently taking place in Berlin.
With three days to go, there is a realistic chance that the country’s athletes could equal its gold medal haul from almost 60 years of world competition in just two years.
There is no room to mention the amount of Jamaican-born or Jamaican-origin athletes who have achieved gold medal success representing other countries.
But the island is now coming to terms with the fact that its sporting success is measured by the amount of people who reach the top of the medal rostrum, rather than the amount who get on the rostrum at all.
This is worth bearing in mind whenever you see a person with Jamaican connections walking along the streets of Market Drayton with an extra spring in their step.
