Electronic gadgetry? It’s just not cricket for Dickie!

By Tony Watts - Editor - 13/09/2007

 It’s impossible to explain to non-cricket lovers exactly why the game is so engrossing, even when a match lasts five days and ends with neither side winning. In part it’s characters like Dickie Bird.

 

A modest enough player in his day, Dickie was the man in the middle whose individual umpiring style made him loved by fans around the world and respected by every player – even when the decisions didn’t always go their way. He talks to Tony Watts.

Harold Dennis Bird, MBE, native of Barnsley, miner’s son and retired international cricket umpire is in an ebullient mood. The test match series against India is bubbling along nicely but - just as importantly – he has just returned from a few days watching his beloved Yorkshire at Scarborough.

 

As he points out, he’s lucky to be still able to watch the game. “Years
of umpiring abroad, where the light really reflects off the pitch, caused my eyes a lot of damage,” he says. “In those days we didn’t wear sunglasses – I always do now. It didn’t affect my career, but a few years ago I needed surgery.” Now a convert to protective eyewear, Dickie has become an “ambassador” for Specsavers, who sponsored the England-India test series.

 

Certainly very little escaped his notice when he was umpiring, and he
has little time for the technical wizardry now  used to perform a post-mortem on every umpiring decision. “It’s all very well,” he says, “but the cameras are up high. They can’t tell you the whole picture – all the factors that determine where a ball is going to go after it has left the bowler’s hand, the way the ball is moving in the air, the state of the pitch and so on.

 

“Roger Federer, has criticized Hawkeye; and FIFA’s Sepp Blatter says there’s no place for them in football except for deciding whether the ball has gone over the goal line. They disturb the authority of umpires and give a false impression – they honestly do. Keep them for close run out decisions – they’re fine for that.”

 

Dickie’s Northern bluntness also extends to some of the players who (in
the summer series) were playing silly games – including putting jelly beans on the pitch.  “You’ve got to nip that sort of thing in the bud. Get both captains together before it gets out of hand. You don’t have to be bombastic – you talk to them properly, like professionals. Respect has to be reciprocal.”

 

Of course Dickie was famous for commanding absolute respect for his authority – based in no small part on his ability to call the tough decisions correctly. “In this game, the man who makes the least mistakes goes to the top,” he says. “They all rated me the best: Sobers, Richards, Lillee, Botham. That meant a lot.”

 

But while he was never afraid to make tough decisions (including being
prepared to upset crowds at the sign of rain or bad light, and bowlers over marginal LBW decisions) he also kept his sense of humour – and often needed to. I remind him of the occasion when Botham and Lamb gave him a mobile phone to look after at the wicket – then rang it up. “That wasn’t the worst,” he says. “Denis Lilley put a snake in my pocket. Luckily it was a rubber one, but I didn’t know that when I put my hand in there. But those men played hard – but fair. Test match cricket is no place for the faint hearted.”

 

So after years of playing, umpiring and watching the game, who does he
rate as the finest? “Garfield Sobers,” is the immediate riposte. “He was a genius and I use that word sparingly. An all rounder too – with the bat, the new ball, he could spin it and he was brilliant catching close to the wicket.”

 

These days he’s a big fan of Tendulkar, although his career is now coming to an end. “He would have been a great player in any era.” And he rates Michael Vaughn very highly too. “We’ve also got some good young players coming along at Yorkshire – Rashid is an excellent spin bowler. I do think, though, that we need to limit the number of overseas star players in order to give our youngsters more of a chance.”

 

Dickie’s life as an international umpire has meant years globe trotting – and enough memories to fill several books, including the best selling sports autobiography ever... not bad for someone who turned to cricket only after a knee injury stopped a promising football career, and who never achieved what he felt was his full potential while playing for Yorkshire alongside another well known Tyke, Sir Geoffrey Boycott. So who, I ask, buys the first round when the two meet up for a drink? “Ah, that doesn’t happen. Boycott likes to keep his own company.”

 

Touring has also meant socializing with the players over the years, but that has never interfered with his famous routine. “I always go to bed early and get up very early,” he says. That extended to his famous visit to Buckingham Palace for an appointment with the Queen – arriving hours early for the proudest moment of his life.

 

Touring has also meant, at times, braving international dentistry. “I was sat on a plane to India for the World Cup in 1986, chewing a toffee. My crown came out and I was in agony, so I went to a dentist as soon as I got there. I was a bit worried – especially when he used gunmetal. But it’s still in there!”

 

These days he may be retired from the game, but he is still making an
important contribution to sport. The “Dickie Bird Foundation” is helping promising youngsters get a start in the game by providing them with equipment when their parents aren’t in a position to. “I put in some of my own money and it has just grown from there. I’ve got five good volunteer trustees and in the last two and a half years we’ve given out 200 grants. The aim is to get youngsters away from the street corners, out of the way of drugs, getting exercise.”

 

It’s a noble testament to a man who has put so much into the world of
sport already. But Dickie is more keen to point out how much sport has
done for him – and why cricket is such a great game. “It starts friendships, comradeships, you meet so many people. There really is no finer game.”