It feels like yesterday. When Rob Key called, telling me he had some sad news, I instinctively knew what it was and yet, like everyone who knew Graham Thorpe, his death left me in a state of shock.
I was staying up in Richmond, North Yorkshire, with my family and my initial thoughts, obviously, were with his family: his wife Amanda and their kids, his dad Geoff.
Turning my TV on a couple of days later and watching my Sky Sports colleagues Mark Butcher and Dominic Cork fighting back tears, having to react to the news once it was public, it hit home that the game felt about Thorpey in the same way as those who played alongside him.
Not many that played with him had a bad word to say about him and we will see the love for him on Friday when the second day of the Oval Test becomes a Day for Thorpey with Surrey, the club he loved, staging it in his memory.
Last year, after his funeral, we came to the ground and I met Geoff for the first time in about 30 years. When Graham and I played together on tour, Geoff and I would have a beer, but I hadn’t caught up with him for a long time, so that was an emotional reacquaintance.
Reading the news of the inquest last week was heartbreaking. The sort of things that Amanda had to cope with: the failings in his medical care, him talking to her about ending his life.
Nasser Hussain (left) pays a tribute to his late, great friend Graham Thorpe (right)
Thorpe died after being struck by a train last year, and on Friday tributes will be paid to him
It was hard to read about the failings in his medical care and him talking to his wife Amanda about ending his life
It was a reminder of how much of a part mental illness plays in sport and how even the toughest characters are not immune. Because Graham was the toughest. The person we would all go to if we ever had a problem with the game or stress was getting to us.
He’d put things into perspective by telling you how other things were so much more important than the game of cricket. With my England captaincy, if I was struggling, although it sounds terrible now, he used to say: ‘Get over yourself, Nass.’ His mantra for cricket was: ‘Don’t get too up, don’t get too down.’
You wouldn’t know if Thorpey had just scored three hundreds in a row or three ducks, but off the field he struggled and towards the end of his career, he couldn’t compartmentalise personal issues, meaning we didn’t take him to places like Australia. Because if things weren’t great at home, you knew he wasn’t going to be there.
His sad story shows that your brain maybe can only take so much. It’s like a muscle, isn’t it? I am no psychologist or doctor but it seems like it can get injured just like any other.
And towards the end of the 2020-21 Ashes tour, having lived through a Covid bubble, when the video of him smoking a cigar emerged, it did a lot of mental damage. What did he do wrong, really? If England had won the Ashes and he was out late with a cigar, everyone would have said: ‘Great. Look at the England boys celebrating.’
Because they lost, he was criticised, and I know that hurt him a lot.
For someone who’d put so much into the game and given so much to English cricket, was that really how his coaching career with his country should have ended?
I don’t think he deserved it. Then, after losing his job, he was faced with what a lot of cricketers have to cope with. Relatively young, and cricket dominating your life, there’s an emptiness and you have to deal with the void. Obviously things spiralled out of control from there. Amanda and the kids would have had to put up with so much.
Thorpe, pictured at an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace in 2007, accompanied by his wife Amanda, and children Kitty (three) and Emma (20 months)
Thorpey was the man we would go to if ever were were stressed or struggling with things
Thorpe represented England in 100 Test matches and played for Surrey for 17 years
Hussain: I feel like I wasn’t there for him in his final months because I didn’t know what to do
Along with Jeff Banks, Thorpey’s best mate, they tried everything to get help for him, to engage with people – but he was just not having it.
When those who played with him first knew of his illness, I would WhatsApp him, and receive the odd reply. Same for the rest of our Sky Sports commentary team, which is full of people – Mark Butcher, Dominic Cork, Michael Atherton, Ian Ward – that loved him.
WhatsApping wasn’t mine and Thorpey’s thing. I guess our relationship was summed up best by something Sir Ian McGeechan said to me recently when talking about the British Lions.
He called it ‘the look’. Whenever he sees players from the victorious 1997 tour of South Africa, even across a car park in a rugby ground, it’s an acknowledgment of what you went through together. That was us.
Latterly, if he was coaching England players and I was trying to keep my distance, I would just glance across to him while he was doing throw-downs.
So what Sir Ian said to me connected. Without being forced, there was a bond between us forged in moments like his debut hundred against Australia, us winning in the dark in Karachi and the final innings of my Test career. He was always there at the other end.
The hardest thing is that he was always there for me when I needed him and, in the end, it felt like I wasn’t there for him – simply because I just didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t want to say something that put him in a darker place, but there literally wasn’t a day went by, and I’m not exaggerating, where I didn’t think, ‘shall I send him a message?’
A mural paying tribute to Thorpe is seen outside the Oval as England take on India
Hussain: I was unsure whether to send a message or jump in the car – I didn’t want to send him into a darker place by reminding him of the good old days
Thorpe pictured celebrating with Mark Butcher after England win a Test and Series against the West Indies
Multiple times in that last year of his life, I thought, ‘should I just jump in my car and go and see him?’ Others would and this bloke who was the biggest battler when the opposition were all over you, and the scoreboard read 20 for two, wouldn’t even get out of bed.
I was petrified of doing something that would remind him of the good old days, how strong he was and say the wrong thing, sending him into an even darker place, really. So no one really knew what to do.
During a playing career, you spend more time in a dressing room than anywhere else and it was not just that he was a cricket mate. In that era, you spent so much time on international tours, on A-team tours together, there was no other time for any other mates. We were as thick as thieves and they nicknamed myself, Cork, Mark Ramprakash and Thorpe, the Bratpack.
There’s certain mates you go through adversity with that, whatever happens, wherever you go, you’ll never forget. That was our bond.
We were all a part of his life, but Amanda, Geoff and Jeff were his life. Daily they are dealing with memories of Graham.
I was emotional out on the field on Thursday morning pre-play when Joe Root walked out with a GT headband on. Root was one of two England cricketers Thorpe raved about. Ben Stokes, the other. Being a lover not only of ability but character.
I’m really pleased this day is happening for two reasons. Obviously, the most important reason is the charity and raising money for Mind.
Joe Root wears one of the headbands that will be sold to raise money for Mind charity
Thorpe played 100 Tests and 82 ODIs for England between 1993 and 2005, and was a coach during the 2021-22 Ashes series in Australia, which England lost 4-0
That’s Amanda’s wish, and although we do a lot of these things now in cricket, to raise awareness in the names of people like Bob Willis and Ruth Strauss, and you’re constantly asking for people to give, I hope some thought will be given to what people like Amanda have been through and there is a will to help others suffering from poor mental health.
On Friday lunchtime on Sky, we’re doing a Thorpey tribute, replaying his hundred against South Africa here in 2003.
I wasn’t playing in that game, but I will smile when I see that pull shot of his, where he lifts his leg up. I will smile thinking of him taking his helmet off, celebrating his debut hundred in the 1993 Ashes, revealing his FILA headband. I will smile when I see supporters in the stands wearing replicas.
It is a day of sadness, but in remembering him there is happiness, too.
