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I spent a lot of time with Dickie Bird, one of the game’s great characters, and in all those years I never once heard him swear.
That wasn’t just because he was a man with no vices, though he’d occasionally treat himself to a glass of wine.
It’s because he got on so well with everyone that there was no need to get angry.
It was a different era, of course, and the umpire’s word was always final. Even if he was wrong, he was right, and the players accepted that.
There were a handful of players who didn’t walk in the county game back then, and Geoff Boycott told us recently that the only time he walked was when the umpire gave him out.
But Dickie commanded this respect because he just had a lovely way with the players – he had this dialogue going with them, a way of chatting that almost made them forget they were playing cricket. That was the style in those days, and he was a past master.
I spent the day with Dickie Bird at Headingley in 2023 for an article in the Daily Mail – he was one of the game’s great characters
Dickie died on Tuesday at the age of 92 – and the range of tributes that have poured in are a reflection of just how loved he was
Dickie dabs away a tear at Lord’s in 1996 after walking out through a guard of honour for his final Test match
Look at the tributes that have come his way since his death at the age of 92 from the likes of Dennis Lillee and Merv Hughes – larrikin Australian fast bowlers who were putty in his hands.
Dickie did things his way, it’s fair to say. We used to do these cricket evenings together where we’d talk to clubs, mainly in the northern leagues.
Sometimes we’d do two or three a week, and the menu was always roast beef, potatoes and some veg.
Now Dickie was a bachelor and always lived alone, so every time we had one of these evenings, he’d pop his head into the kitchen and say: ‘That beef were lovely. Do you mind if I take an extra slice for my dinner tomorrow?’
Of course they’d always say yes, and wrap up the beef in a napkin, which he’d shove in his jacket pocket. After a while, you grew used to the smell of that jacket…
I umpired with him too, and we’d occasionally do the student games at the Parks in Oxford. Dickie would say to me: ‘Go easy on these boys: they’re studying for their exams. I don’t like to give them out lbw. Let them have a game.’
Right you are, Dickie, I said.
He was also friendly with the Lancashire spinner Jack Simmons, and in those days we were all looking to save on our expenses, so Dickie would stay with Jack during games in Great Harwood, about an hour’s drive from Old Trafford.
Sharing a joke about his long socks with Princess Diana in 1989
Dickie did things his way, it’s fair to say – he’d never put up with any intimidation tactics
His idiosyncrasies made him great and he was one of a kind. RIP, Dickie
Imagine the chat round the breakfast table if Dickie had given Jack out the day before! It just wouldn’t happen now.
Not that he got many wrong. He said he didn’t like DRS, but I think his man-management skills would have got him out of some of the scrapes.
I hear stories now about teams writing on the dressing-room whiteboard: ‘Get into the umpires.’ He’d have nipped that in the bud with a joke or a smile.
I can still see him standing behind the stumps, waiting for the bowler to run in, rolling up his sleeves and pulling his trousers up – an idiosyncrasy that was very Dickie. He was one of a kind.
