Special Guest Blogger: Dickie Bird

So, here I am. Famous, so they tell me. When I were a nipper, running around the cobbled streets of Barnsley, the only famous person I knew were the lads who could afford a second helping of pudding. Then, I couldn’t go for a pint without someone wanting to talk about a catch in Brisbane in 1979. It’s lovely, don’t get me wrong. But it’s also… peculiar.
Me life. Well, it started with a cricket ball. More specifically, with me trying to hit one and missing it by a good three feet. I’ve always said, I were a better player than I thought. It’s just that the cricket bat had a different opinion. I could see a ball swinging in the air a mile off, but when it came to hitting the thing, I had all the grace of a falling wardrobe. It’s why I became an umpire, I suppose. It was the only way I could guarantee I’d be right at the centre of the action, without the embarrassment of being clean bowled for a duck.
And what an action it was. Suddenly I was out there, in the white coat, under the sun, with the greats of the game. Ian Botham, swaggering to the crease like he owned the place… which, half the time, he bloody well did. Vivian Richards, with a smile so wide you could see his back teeth and a bat that sounded like a thunderclap. They were all famous, see. Properly famous. Me? I was just the daft Yorkshireman in the coat telling ‘em to get on with it.
I stood behind the wicket of 66 Test matches and 92 One-Day Internationals. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? Let me tell you what it really is. It’s 158 occasions of desperately trying not to need the lavatory while the cameras are on you. It’s thousands of hours of squinting at a little red dot and trying to work out if it clipped a bit of wood or not.
But I had me rituals. Oh, aye. They’re what I’m properly famous for, I think. The meticulous polishing of the bails between overs. Making sure they were pristine. Can’t have a grubby bail, can you? It’s just not cricket. And the little signal for the telly replay, finger up, twitching like I’ve sat on a bee.
And the seagulls. Don’t get me started on the seagulls. Lord’s, 1975. One of them big, swaggering London gulls lands on the pitch. Right in the line of sight. I shooed it. It squawked. I shooed it again. It squawked louder and took a step closer, as if to say, ‘You want a piece of this, soft lad?’ We had a standoff. Me, a famous international umpire, and a bird with a greedy eye and a bad attitude. The game stopped. The crowd were in stitches. In the end, I had to get the groundsman to come out with a broom. It was the most undignified moment of my career. And yet, it’s what people remember. Not the thousands of correct decisions, but the time I got mithered by a seagull.
So what am i remembered for now I’m gone? Will it be the immaculate crease? The unwavering eye? Or will it be the story about the time I stopped a Test match because I’d lost me lucky coin? I hope it’s a bit of both because that’s what cricket is, a ridiculously serious game played by people who are, at heart, a little bit daft.