Sir Geoffrey Boycott: Dickie was my friend for 70 years and I will miss him, even if he did call me Gerald
I first met Harold Dennis ‘Dickie’ Bird when I was 15. As a young kid I played for Ackworth Cricket Club and my Uncle Algy wanted to stretch me to see how good I could be. He took me to Barnsley, a bigger club, to play for their second team and that is when I first met Dickie, so I knew him for about 70 years as a colleague and friend.
Iconic cricket umpire Dickie Bird
As a kid I admired and was slightly in awe of him because nearly every time he went out to bat he would score a fifty and the bucket would go round for a collection for him. He was a very technically correct batsman, coached properly in the Yorkshire nets. He was a fine player but he was always a nervous individual.
Nerves are a good thing. If you have nerves when batting it means you care. It is important to you. You don’t want to fail. But you have to handle those nerves and that was the problem for Dickie, as he would admit.
When I was 16 I was shocked when he would come up to me and say: “Put my gloves on for me Gerald.” I would say: “My name’s not Gerald, it’s Geoffrey.” It made no difference telling him because he would then say: “OK put the gloves on for me Gerald.” He called me Gerald for years.
My daughter Emma, when she had her 16th birthday party, said to Dickie: “You have to stop calling my dad, Gerald.” Dickie loved Emma and said he would have liked a daughter just like her so she said to him: “Well, adopt me then.” He laughed at that.
He never quite did himself justice as a player or was able to hold down a place for Yorkshire because of those nerves which was a shame because he could play. Anyone who knew him was a bit surprised when he came back on the circuit as an umpire because we knew how nervous he was under pressure.
But it did not seem to bother him. He managed to handle those nerves and became a brilliant umpire. The reason he was brilliant was not just because he made a lot of good decisions but also he had humour and a firmness. He could handle players.
You could talk to him. He was not dictatorial. He would listen. But chatting him up did not change his mind. No chance. He would laugh with you instead. Bowlers would say: “How can you give that not out Birdy?”. And he would say: “If I gave you out for that when you were batting you wouldn’t be happy.”
Dennis Lillee was bowling at the Oval and constantly appealing. In the end he was so frustrated he got down on one leg, appealed and called Dickie effing this, that and the other but said: “You’re still the best umpire in the world.” Dickie said “And you Dennis are the effing best fast bowler in the world but it is still not out.” That was Dickie: he could make you laugh.
He would never be officious about it. He just had a way of defusing situations. That was his strength and why he was rated all over the world as the best. Today we are used to neutral umpires so there are no accusations of bias. But in those days we had home umpires and rightly or wrongly, you would suspect biased decisions.
The great thing is other countries would ask for Dickie to umpire their games when they came to England because they knew he stood for fairness, firmness and had a sense of humour. He would talk to players, not down to them, and would apply common sense. The nerves might have affected him batting, while umpiring he felt at home. He could take the pressure in his stride.
Dickie, Michael Parkinson and I had a special bond. We met at Barnsley Cricket Club in 1955, grew up together and remained friends for life. It is amazing how life unfolded for us. Michael was a good player, a decent minor county standard. Dickie was better and a very good all-round sportsman. He was on Barnsley’s books as a footballer until he had a knee injury in his teens and that stayed with him because I used to watch him taping up his knees when he played cricket.
He was a great lover of Yorkshire cricket. It was his life. He gave them money to build a new balcony in the pavilion for the players and would watch them home and away. He made a lot of money from his first autobiography, which showed how much the public loved him. He was able to put that money into a foundation which awards grants to children under 16 from disadvantaged backgrounds to buy sports equipment and clothing. He has helped young kids and did a lot of good work.
His driving was legendary. He once gave me a lift back from Nottingham in his new Jaguar Sport. Neither of us knew how to open the boot so all our suitcases had to go on the backseat so we came all the way back crushed up in the front like sardines. When he first bought his Jag, he had forgotten to measure his garage. It wasn’t long enough. He couldn’t park his car in it. That summed Dickie up.
We chatted at Scarborough and Headingley this summer. Dickie was getting about, and appeared happy and in good health. He was even driving himself to matches in his beloved Jaguar.
He passed away in his sleep, and I am glad he went that way, nice and peacefully, rather than suffering for a long time. Dickie was a character and was always fun. He was respected, admired and loved. A cricket icon. He will be given a fond farewell on Wednesday at Headingley when Yorkshire play Durham and we will all be thinking of Dickie. – The Telegraph