BOTHAM’S CENTURY

MY 100 GREAT CRICKETING CHARACTERS
IAN BOTHAM WITH PETER HAYTER

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Preface

Curtly AMBROSE

John ARLOTT

Robin ASKWITH

Mike ATHERTON

Douglas BADER

Ken BARRINGTON

Bill BEAUMONT

Franz BECKENBAUER

Richie BENAUD

Dickie BIRD

Allan BORDER

Max BOYCE

Geoff BOYCOTT

Mike BREARLEY

Laurie BROWN

Tom CARTWRIGHT

Sylvester CLARKE

Brian CLOSE

Colin COWDREY

Colin CROFT

Hansie CRONJE

Basil D’OLIVEIRA

John DAVIES

Ted DEXTER

Graham DILLEY

Allan DONALD

Phil EDMONDS

John EDRICH

Ernie ELS

John EMBUREY

David ENGLISH

Nick FALDO

The FISHERMEN

Keith FLETCHER

Angus FRASER

Joel GARNER

Mike GATTING

Sunil GAVASKAR

Graham GOOCH

Darren GOUGH

David GOWER

Tony GREIG

Richard HADLEE

Ian HEALY

Richard HIBBITT

Graeme HICK

Michael HOLDING

Merv HUGHES

Nasser HUSSAIN

Imran KHAN

Mick JAGGER

Javed MIANDAD

Elton JOHN and Bob HALLEY

Kapil DEV

Karim DIN

Alan KNOTT

Allan LAMB

Christopher LANDER

Dennis LILLEE

Clive LLOYD

David LLOYD

Nelson MANDELA

Vic MARKS

Rod MARSH

Malcolm MARSHALL

Glenn MCGRATH

Colin MILBURN

Muttiah MURALITHARAN

Douglas OSBORNE

Derek PRINGLE

Mike PROCTER

Derek RANDALL

Clive RICE

Barry RICHARDS

Viv RICHARDS

Andy ROBERTS

Dave ROBERTS

Ricky ROBERTS

Jack RUSSELL

A C SMITH

Robin SMITH

Garfield SOBERS

Alec STEWART

Micky STEWART

Chris TAVARE

Bob TAYLOR

Les TAYLOR

Sachin TENDULKAR

Jeff THOMSON

Sam TORRANCE

Phil TUFNELL

Derek UNDERWOOD

Courtney WALSH

Waqar YOUNIS

Shane WARNE

Wasim AKRAM

Steve WAUGH

Bob WILLIS

Andy WITHERS

Ian WOOSNAM

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Preface

Botham’s Century is not a selection of my favourite hundred cricketers; nor are the players I have written about necessarily the best hundred I ever saw or played with or against. Indeed some of the characters in the book might only use a cricket bat for leaning on. In essence the book is a collection of my thoughts and impressions of one hundred people who have had an impact on my cricketing life, however tenuous. It has been my good fortune to know them all.

IAN BOTHAM

Curtly Ambrose

‘Hey, Beefy, man.’ The drawl could only have belonged to His Royal Highness King (later Sir) Vivian Richards.

‘Yes, Smokes,’ I replied.

‘Beefy, you know Big Bird is retiring.’

The year was 1986 and I had indeed heard that Joel Garner, my buddy from Somerset and my enemy on the pitch in matches between the West Indies and England, had decided to call it a day, and it goes without saying I was gutted that I would never again have the pleasure of taking my life in my hands against him on a cricket field.

‘Yes, Viv.’ I said. ‘Shame.’

‘Well, Beef, don’t fret. We got another. Only problem is he don’t like cricket. Jeez, Beefy … he wants to play baaasketbaall, man.’

If only. If only. All those hours of torment for England batsmen might never have happened. Then again, world cricket would have been immeasurably poorer for Curtly Ambrose’s absence.

The good people of his tiny home village of Swetes in Antigua may have grown a mite tired of it, but the sight and sound of Curtly’s mum ringing the bell outside her house every time the radio told her that her boy had struck again for the West Indies is one of the great romantic images of the modern game.

Over the years from his debut against Pakistan in 1987 to the moment at the end of the 2000 series against England at The Oval when he and his partner Courtney Walsh were afforded the rare honour of a standing ovation from opponents and spectators alike, the bell tolled for the best batsmen in world cricket, for some over and over again – in total more than 300 times – Curtly’s partnership with the giant gentleman Jamaican, based as much on profound mutual respect as acute inter-island and personal rivalry, was one of the most penetrative of all time.

The abiding impression I had of Amby as a bowler and an opponent was that, for a cricketer who thrived on aggression and menace, he was one of the quietest I ever encountered. Sometimes, even in a moment of great triumph ‘long bones’ appeared the most reluctant and detached of heroes.

I can honestly say that in the Test arena I never saw him bowl badly. Of course, he was miserly accurate. Of course, he had the stamina of a horse. Of course, he never seemed to give you anything to hit, and of course, when the mood took him as it did when he obliterated Mike Atherton’s England side for 46 at Port of Spain in 1994, he could be as unforgiving and as devastating as a hurricane. In certain conditions at his peak he was virtually unplayable. But maybe, of all these weapons, the most potent was his silence.

Curtly never said much on the field and off it, particularly to the press; practically nothing. The fact is that he never needed to. Many bowlers have tried to put batsmen off their stroke by utilizing various forms of verbal and physical intimidation. Curtly intimidated you with hush.

On the field, even the idea of sledging was just a waste of energy, time and breath to him. When a batsman played and missed, instead of blathering on about it as some did, the usual response was either a ‘tut-tut’, a flash of the widest, toothiest grin in the game, or a perplexed raise of the eyebrow as if to enquire: ‘Can you really be as bad as you look?’

As for King Curt’s attitude to the media, and his mischievous sense of humour, it is best summed up for me by a story I heard concerning the attempts of one of Her Majesty’s press to interview him during the West Indies’ tour to England in 1991. The News of the World instructed their man David Norrie to find Amby and get him to bare his soul. Norrie, aware of the generally-held belief that it was almost impossible to persuade Curtly to open his mouth, let alone his heart, decided he had better try to enlist some help. Having had some dealings with Viv Richards over the years, the intrepid newshound approached the Masterblaster outside the dressing room in Swansea and asked if he would mind asking Curtly if he would spare him a few minutes of his valuable time for an interview. Viv said he would do his best and advised Norrie to wait. Soon afterwards, the huge figure of Curtly came to the dressing-room door and the reporter reached for his notebook, understandably elated that his ingenious approach had enabled him to crack the toughest nut in the game.

‘You want to talk to me?’ asked Curtly.

‘Yes I do,’ replied Norrie.

‘OK. This is how it works. You want to talk to Viv, you ask Viv. You want to talk to Curtly, you ask Curtly’

‘Fine,’ said Norrie, ‘I follow you. Sorry about the misunderstanding. I thought it might be better if I went through Viv.’

‘Fine,’ said Curtly. ‘No problem.’

‘Fine,’ said Norrie. ‘So, can I talk to you?’

‘No,’ said Curtly, ‘Curtly talks to no one.’

I can still hear the big man cackling now as he does every time he reminds me of the famous incident at the Oval in 1991, when Jonathan Agnew and Brian Johnston immortalized my failed attempt at getting my leg over the stumps against his bowling.

Interestingly, he saved some of his fiercest stuff for his fellow West Indians; either in Caribbean domestic cricket for the Leewards, or in the county championship for Northamptonshire, and I believe that was because, like Viv and Andy Roberts before him, he was immensely proud of being able to place the name of one of the smallest of those islands on the sporting map.

John Arlott

Think of the sights and sounds of cricket in the twentieth century and the voice of John Arlott will come to you without prompting.

From the end of World War II to the time of his retirement in 1980, John’s gravelly Hampshire burr and the thoughts and feelings it conveyed were more than just those of the professional commentator. For the millions in England and around the globe whose main, and sometimes only, contact with the game they loved was live reporting on BBC Radio, John represented the heart and soul of cricket.

In all that he did and all that he was, John was a gentleman and a gentle man. Imbued with a humility sadly too rare in those who make their living conveying their views on cricket through the broadcast media or in print, one of John’s great qualities was that he never believed he knew it all.

In general, and for obvious reasons, professional cricketers have always enjoyed a healthy scepticism about the views of those who have not played the game to their standard. But John was the exception that proved the rule. He earned the respect of players because, while on occasion he could be highly critical when he felt the need, he never talked down to them. In discussion, however, up to the latter part of his life, by which time bad health and melancholy had taken their toll, his almost schoolboyish enthusiasm for the game and the way he felt it should be played left people in no doubt as to the depth of his passion. In that respect, a chat with John was invariably a tonic and always left you wanting more.

As for his broadcasting, his reputation as the master was well deserved. He knew the power of silence and had the priceless ability to say more worth listening to in a few words than most of his rivals could muster if they talked all day and all night.

My first recollection of listening to his commentary as a lad exemplified that skill. Charlie Griffith, the ferocious West Indies paceman who terrorized the best batsmen in the world in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, was past his best when he toured England in 1966. But he was still plenty quick enough. What is more, for years many had suspected, and others even gone on record to state that, from time to time, he chucked his bouncer. So, while John was on air, when Charlie unleashed one on tail-end batsman Derek Underwood (breaking the unwritten rule of those pre-helmet days that bouncers were not bowled at guys down the order who were unable to defend themselves, let alone chucked at them) the sadness and anger in John’s voice were impressively moving, even to the ears of an eleven-year-old.

‘Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,’ John growled. Then he paused for what seemed an eternity, before adding: ‘Griffith has thrown in his bouncer.’

The double-meaning was quite deliberate and it left you in no doubt as to how far John believed Charlie had overstepped the line. Listening to him was almost scary. He sounded like a policeman issuing a final warning to an errant teenager in the days when that meant something. You could tell how good John must have been at his first job, a country copper on the beat.

My first encounter with John came when I was a sixteen-year-old on the Somerset groundstaff. I arrived at the county ground in Taunton one morning to perform the usual duties of looking after the first-team guys and fetching Brian Close his fags and a copy of The Sporting Life, when I was approached by the secretary, Jimmy James, who told me he had a job that needed doing.

I was to meet Mr Arlott of the BBC in the car park and help him take his equipment up the rickety stairs to the radio box. Until that moment I hadn’t realized they made lip-mikes and earphones out of glass. Once there, John thanked me, sat himself down, opened up the basket, laid out his French bread, cheese and pâté, popped open one of the bottles of claret, offered me a glass and began the first of a thousand conversations we enjoyed over the next 20-odd years. I never forgot the gesture.

Like every other cricket-mad youngster I knew who John Arlott was, but he wouldn’t have known this no-account young scruff from Adam. Yet he took the time and the trouble for a convivial chat, and gave me the impression he was genuinely interested in what I had to say. The wine and cheese were delicious, too.

John was a man of strong opinions and he expressed them forcibly. If he felt someone deserved criticism he would not shirk from making it, as he proved when filling in the section entitled ‘race’ included in the immigration form for entry to South Africa just after the Second World War. ‘Human,’ he wrote. But his most enduring quality was a generosity of spirit that never ceased to amaze those who knew what sadness he’d had to endure in his personal life.

Until his dying day John wore a black tie in remembrance of the son who died in a car crash in the sports car John had given him for his 21st birthday. And towards the end of his life chronic emphysema meant that he needed constant medical care and the use of a nebulizer. For a man who was blessed with such wonderful powers of communication and conversation, the frustration of having to take minutes to say only a few words must have been unimaginable.

There is no doubt that by the time he decided to quit in 1980 he had fallen out of love with some aspects of the modern game. He never rammed the old days down your throat, but, although he understood the players’ perspective over the Packer affair that split the game, he longed for gentler, less materialistic times. He loved the way I approached cricket, for instance, which was to try to win, while having fun as well, and he feared that as time progressed the fun simply would not survive.

He took his leave from his devoted listeners in typically undemonstrative fashion. Declining the offer from Test Match Special producer, Peter Baxter, to do the final stint of the Centenary Test between England and Australia at Lord’s in 1980, he stuck to the rota he had adhered to for donkey’s years and finished with: ‘… and after a few words from Trevor Bailey, it will be Christopher Martin-Jenkins.’ And when the man on the public-address system announced to the crowd that John had made his final broadcast for Test Match Special, he missed the applause led by the players on the field because he was at the back of the commentary box being interviewed for the PM programme.

After I bought a place on his home Channel Island of Alderney, our chats were just as regular and, health permitting, sometimes just as animated.

‘Come to the house, Ian,’ he would telephone me, ‘and bring your thirst with you.’ We often disagreed violently on various issues – his politics were as far removed from mine as it is possible to be – but however harrowing the experience was of seeing him fighting to get his words out, they were always, always worth the wait.

It was during one of these conversations, many years later, that John told me the biggest regret of his career was that, by retiring when he did he missed the chance to describe the events of the 1981 Ashes series, Headingley and all. Come to think of it, that is probably one of the biggest regrets of my career too.

Robin Askwith

There is, of course, a perfectly innocent explanation for the moment I was stopped by police on Wimbledon Common with a six-foot blow-up doll of Mr Blobby and the star of soft-porn movie classic Confessions of a Window Cleaner.

I’d been invited by actor and bon viveur Robin Askwith to appear in pantomime with him during one of those winters when that other seasonal cabaret, the England cricket team, had set off on tour without me. ‘Squiffy’ – as he is known to his mates – has been a good friend for many years.

On the 1990–91 Ashes tour of Australia, when David Gower and John Morris were fined by the England management for hiring a Tiger Moth and ‘buzzing’ the Carrara Oval, it was Squiffy who responded by chartering a plane that flew over the Adelaide Oval during the fourth Test a few days later, trailing a banner which read ‘Gower and Morris are innocent.’ Gower thought the stunt was hilarious; needless to say, tour manager Peter Lush was less amused.

Anyway, during this 10-week stint treading the boards at Wimbledon, I decided a life-size inflatable of Mr Blobby – a character enjoying popular appeal on a madcap Noel Edmonds TV show – would make a perfect Christmas present for my youngest daughter, Becky. After the performance one night, Squiffy and I took the short-cut back across Wimbledon Common as usual to our hotel at 1 am … with this conspicuous, pink-and-yellow latex lunatic for company. Some of the looks we got from late-night revellers swaying home from the pub were priceless – and then came a flashing blue light.

I can’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but once the police had established there was nothing sinister about our behaviour, they released all three of us – Squiffy, Botham and Blobby – without a caution and they accepted that the blow-up doll was all part of the pantomime buffoonery. Back at the hotel, Mr Blobby took up residence in the doorway between our adjoining rooms and he scared the life out of one night porter who brought us sandwiches on room service, only to find this rubbery monster answering the door. Becky? She loved her Christmas present. She thought it was mind-blowing.

Panto with Squiffy was always a lark. He’s one of the funniest men I’ve ever met – a natural comedian. But he is also one of the vainest. Every morning, from the room next door, I would hear him asking, ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall – who is the fairest of them all?’ And after a couple of strokes of the comb, the same voice would reply, ‘Why, Squiffy, of course!’ He was also paranoid about catching colds or the ‘flu, in case his speaking voice disintegrated into a croak, and he did more for the sales of Lemsip and Sudafed than anyone I’ve ever known. Just one sniffle, or one cough, and Robin was convinced he had contracted some weird, incurable disease.

For all the sachets in his medicine cabinet, however, Squiffy is a talented guy and great company, serious enough about his work to be a thorough professional, but also modest enough to laugh at himself. He is probably best-known for those Confessions films. One night, after appearing together in Dick Whittington at the Theatre Royal in Bath, we returned to our hotel, turned on the TV and there he was, helping a young lady out of her clothes in a re-run of Confessions of a Window Cleaner.

Keen student of the acting business that I am, I was only too glad to watch the master at work on the small screen – to see if I could pick up any tips for my own dramatic presence in pantomime, of course. But those films have aged so quickly, and the music sounds so tinny, that they just appear barmy now: within 10 minutes, Squiffy and I were laughing so much we could barely breathe.

Living these days on the tiny Mediterranean island of Gozo, next door to Malta, Squiffy has a private yacht which is his pride and joy. Whether I would set sail with him further than crossing the Serpentine in Hyde Park is another matter!

Mike Atherton

I’ve never met a man who cared less about his public image than Mike Atherton. Some cricketers can never get enough of being in the spotlight; whether it be in print, on radio or television, beaming out from advertising hoardings or at the front of the players’ balcony whenever the champagne corks are popping. Others even love the glare of notoriety. Mike always gave the impression he would rather have his teeth pulled out with rusty pliers as his extraordinarily low-key farewell to English cricket at the end of the 2001 Ashes series underlined.

Athers made an art form of being his own man. From the moment he took over the captaincy of England from Graham Gooch halfway through the 1993 Ashes series, to the emotional farewell to his defeated troops at the end of the 1997–98 series against West Indies in the dressing room at St John’s in Antigua, the main feature of his leadership was that, in pursuit of his ambition to succeed, he didn’t give a monkey’s who he upset. When he gave the order that wives and girlfriends were not welcome on the England tour to Zimbabwe and New Zealand in 1996–97, his action proved conclusively that, if and when he felt it necessary, this approach even extended to his team-mates. I didn’t agree with his decision to declare with Graeme Hick on 98 not out on the Ashes tour of 1994–95, but I admire his courage in making it.

As a senior player when Athers made his first steps in 1989, I couldn’t help feeling that he didn’t want us around much longer, and later, reading between the lines of his first utterances as skipper before he picked the squad for the following winter tour to West Indies, the message was clear: ‘Bog off, you old gits.’ I had retired by then, so that didn’t matter to me personally. But I do remember thinking such an attitude was either extraordinarily brave or extraordinarily naïve.

Regarding that tour to the Caribbean, although Gooch had decided to make himself unavailable, at the time David Gower was still musing over the pros and cons of retirement. I’m sure a call to Gower to give the team the benefit of his class and experience out there might have persuaded the outstanding left-handed England batsman of his generation to delay his exit. And even when Athers was prevailed upon to recall Gooch, then later Mike Gatting, it was pretty clear it was against his better judgement.

I know Mike himself believes that had he been allowed to pursue a new-broom policy without interruption, England might have made more progress more quickly. Then again, he never counted on the dirt-in-the-pocket affair during the Lord’s Test against South Africa in 1994 that effectively handed over the final say in selection to Raymond Illingworth, with whom he was subsequently to fight and lose too many battles over personnel.

I do think that one of the reasons the captaincy got to him in the end was that he didn’t feel able to communicate with or confide in guys like myself from a slightly older generation who might have been able to offer advice in certain situations. But whether he was right or wrong, his attempt to put his own mark on things from the start, whatever the fall-out, offered an insight into the single-mindedness that is at the core of his character.

In certain situations, of course, for single-mindedness read bull-headed obstinacy. First, consider events at Lord’s in ‘94, when he was spotted on television seeming to apply dust to the ball in what could only be described as suspicious circumstances, then copped a fine after he admitted to not telling the match referee Peter Burge exactly what he was carrying in his pockets at the time. The cricketing public were split right down the middle over whether he should quit the job, and even some of his closest friends thought he would. It took a certain kind of dog-with-a-bone stubbornness to hold on to the captaincy and his sanity while the debate raged around him. In the end he felt that carrying on was the right thing to do for the good of the side. Understanding what kind of scrutiny he was bound to be under from then on, that was an extremely courageous call.

A little more than a year later, as we went head-to-head in the Cane rum & Coke challenge to celebrate his marathon 185 not out to save the Wanderers Test against South Africa, one of the things Athers revealed to me was how much he regretted bring economical with the truth when interviewed by Burge. He genuinely panicked, I believe, and no matter how hard he tried to rationalize his actions subsequently, I don’t believe he will ever be able to rid himself of the feeling that he let himself down badly that day.

Courage, stubbornness, obstinacy, bravery. They say that a cricketer’s batting gives the clearest insight into his character; has there been a more transparent case of someone whose batting was so obviously what made them tick? Athers loved a fight; the tougher the opponent, the more he relished the challenge and, no matter what personal differences might have arisen, the longer he carried on the more his players respected him for it.

Take a look through memories of some of his most defiant innings, such as the aforementioned epic at The Wanderers to snatch the most unlikely draw. And later, to his great delight, painstaking hundreds against West Indies at the Oval and Pakistan in Karachi in 2000 to secure historic wins for his side. The vision of the full face of the bat comes inexorably towards you time and again, only occasionally barged out of the way by a full-on glare at Allan Donald, Curtly Ambrose, Glenn McGrath or Wasim Akram, or the exquisite execution of the off-side drives he unleashed with drop-dead timing when at the very top of his game.

As if the mere statistics of these and other achievements were not enough, remember this: for almost all of his career, Athers suffered from back pain that could only be kept at a tolerable level by a constant diet of painkillers which occasionally made him nauseous and cortisone injections that carried a significant health risk. He rarely mentioned his back, never made a fuss about it, and was rightly proud of the fact that he was fit enough to captain England in 52 successive Tests. A lesser character would never have come close.

Away from the fray, and for some reason I suspect we shall never fully understand, Athers put up barriers to people which he would only raise when he was absolutely sure he could trust someone. You could see why sometimes that would alienate, antagonize and offend people, and there is no doubt that at times he suffered because of it. I admit that at first I just didn’t know how to take him. But, as I came to know him better later in his Test career, I realized that the stern-faced exterior that made many misread him as aloof was probably only the defence mechanism of a paralyzingly shy person.

What I do know is that, during the second half of the 1990s, no side in world cricket relied so much upon the efforts of one man as did England. The rule of thumb during that period was that once the captain got out it was ‘man the lifeboats’. How richly deserved were the rewards that finally came the way of unquestionably the most complete England batsman of his generation.

Douglas Bader

One of the most enthralling evenings of my life was spent talking with, but mainly listening to, the amazing World War II fighter pilot, Douglas Bader.

Bader is remembered as the man who taught himself not just to walk again, but also to fly again during the Battle of Britain after losing both legs in a flying accident in 1931. His extraordinary courage and determination gained an international audience through Kenneth Moore’s portrayal of him in the successful film, Reach for the Sky. What is not so well known is that Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader, CBE, DSO, DFC – to give him his full title – was an outstanding sportsman. The accident – ‘my own bloody stupid fault’ – after attempting a low roll at 50ft in a British Bulldog biplane at the civilian airfield of Woodley, near Reading, came the week after he played fly-half for Harlequins against the Springboks, and just before his expected selection for the England debut against South Africa.

I was in my third summer as an England cricketer when Douglas Bader rang me out of the blue. I’d met him once before, very briefly. He’d been to the cricket, liked the way I played the game, heard that I was attempting to qualify for a pilot’s licence, and wondered whether I’d like to pop round to his mews house in London for a drink. I was round like a shot. As when I met Nelson Mandela, I was immediately aware that I was in the presence of someone very special. I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to have lost both legs at the age of 20 with the sporting world his for the taking. He was a talented cricketer, and had captained the 1st XI at St Edward’s School, Oxford as an attacking bat and fast-medium bowler. The summer before his accident, Douglas top-scored for the RAF with 65 against the Army, in what was then a first-class fixture. But there was no moaning about his bad luck, nor any hint of regret at what fate had dealt him, or any sense of his being ‘disabled’.

The only problem was that he wanted to talk about sport – cricket, rugby and golf – while I wanted to know what it was like to fly a Spitfire and be in a dogfight. As ever, Douglas Bader’s persistence won the day. I was astonished about his knowledge of sport, and fascinated at his fight to become a decent golfer after his accident. He was determined to compete at some sport, now that rugby and cricket was lost to him, and at first it was an unequal struggle. Every time he swung the club, he would end up in a heap. As with everything else he tried, his simple refusal to be beaten by his disability enabled him to succeed in the end. Indeed, when I told him of my own concern about missing out on a licence because of my colour-blindness, he let me in on a little secret. He also suffered.

Eventually, by way of discussing the film Reach for the Sky, I managed to coax some recollections of life in the air during World War II – being shot down, getting replacement legs flown out to the French Hospital where he was prisoner so he could attempt to escape, and his days in Colditz Castle. He felt that the movie had rather glamourized the Battle of Britain, suggesting there was not a lot of romance involved in the experience of fighting for your very existence. One of his abiding memories was just how tiring it all was. The RAF were running out of pilots and planes; every time the Germans attacked, the squadrons were ‘scrambled’ and up they went, again and again. The only respite came when the weather was bad, and the pilots would lie back on their beds, exhausted.

Douglas was much older than most of the pilots, who were in their teens or early twenties. His life in the services seemed to have ended in late 1931 with his accident, but after the outbreak of world war in 1939 a chronic shortage of experienced pilots, his desire to get back in the air and his persistence in trying to persuade the RAF that he could still do a job earned him another chance to fly. He told me to forget the war films in which the fighter pilots stayed in the air for hours with endless supplies of ammunition. The actual firing time available in the spitfire was about three and half seconds. If you weren’t on the ball and your aim was off, you would run out of ammo before you had time to blink. The fuel gauges weren’t always that accurate either, and pilots would end up having to bale out over the sea or find a field somewhere near home. It also surprised me when he told me he was not fighting an anonymous enemy; on many occasions he could almost see the eyes of German pilots that were trying to shoot him down.

Douglas Bader must have been an inspiration to the RAF Young Guns, as much as he was to the next generation in Britain when his story was told. Douglas was a guy who was determined to succeed in whatever he did. He was so enthusiastic and wholehearted and did not know any other way. But he also had a very practical view of life. That was evident even when he was awarded his knighthood. Buckingham Palace called to make sure that, with his tin legs, he would be able to kneel on the cushion when the Queen touched his shoulders with the sword. Douglas replied that he wasn’t sure but would go away and have a go. ‘No good,’ he told the Palace, ‘I’ve had two goes at it and fallen on my arse both times!’

I enjoyed my evening and it convinced me this was someone who would have been a lot of fun to be with, especially in his younger days. Those who think I’m not a fan of old ways and the older generation are way off the mark. It’s the person who impresses or distresses me. Age has nothing to do with it.

I’m not sure today’s youngsters appreciate the sacrifices made by Douglas’ generation. I did, not only because of the films. My parents had been through the War. It’s 60 years ago now and I suppose those days have passed from the memory into history. Not that Douglas was one for living in the past. I was rather saddened a few years ago when the television programme, Secret Lives, tried to slur his reputation. His widow Lady Joan Bader said at the time, ‘People either say he was a super guy or an absolute bastard.’ I’m firmly in the ‘super guy’ camp. I’m sure there was more of a touch of arrogance in his younger days, but so what? He lived life to the full. There are always people ready to try and bring down those who have made the most of their time and refuse to compromise or be beaten.

My evening with Douglas Bader was an experience I will always cherish.

Ken Barrington

Kenny Barrington and I shared a birthday, 24 November, and a whole lot more besides.

People often ask me who was my favourite cricketer when I was first getting interested in the game. Bearing in mind the way I played, most assumed that I took my lead from somebody like Sir Gary Sobers, the greatest all-rounder I ever saw, or a swashbuckling cavalier like Ted Dexter.

But when I told them Kenny Barrington was my favourite, almost all were nonplussed. Kenny could play. Make no mistake about that.

He scored 20 Test hundreds and nearly 7,000 runs in all, and if you look at the list of those batsmen with the highest Test averages of all time you’ll find K. F. Barrington at number six, with an average of 58.67. To put that in its proper context, of the all-time greats he made his runs at an average higher than Wally Hammond, Sobers, Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton and Denis Compton, and of the modern giants, higher than Sachin Tendulkar, Steve Waugh, Brian Lara and Viv Richards. He could play all right.

The problem for those who assume that someone like me takes their lead from a similar player is the way Kenny generally batted. If you wanted to be kind, you’d call him obdurate. Others, less kind, said that on occasion, watching Kenny grind out the runs was like watching your fingernails grow.

But what I loved about The Colonel, as he was known and revered, was neither the number of runs he made nor the way he made them. It was simply the look of him. Had they made a film of his life, Jack Hawkins would have been perfect for the part. Kenny brushed his teeth like he was going to war. When he marched out to bat, he looked ready to take on an army single-handed. With his great, jutting jaw and hook nose almost touching in front of gritted teeth, the expression on his face said, ‘You’ll never take me alive,’ and it made an impression on the young Botham that deepened as I grew to know him personally in his roles as England selector and later coach.

Before I met Kenny I was actually quite apprehensive about the kind of bloke he might turn out to be. Bearing in mind what he looked like in action, scary was the word that crossed my mind. But it didn’t take me long to realize that although he was ice-cold on the outside, the guy had the warmest heart in cricket. What is more, he was held in exactly the same high regard wherever he went. There wasn’t a dressing room in the world where Kenny wasn’t welcome.

One of the reasons was the humour that went with him; some of it was even intentional. The rest, down to the fact that for years he waged a losing battle with a tongue that simply refused to say what he wanted. ‘Carry on like that,’ he told me once, ‘and you’ll be caught in two-man’s land.’ ‘Bowl to him there,’ he urged, ‘and you’ll have him between the devil and the deep blue, err … sky.’

But he was far more than a figure of fun. In fact, I would go so far as to say that had untimely death not cut short his second career, I believe Kenny would have become a truly great coach. Confidant, technician, helper and motivator; these were his responsibilities as he saw them. And he was excellent at all of them.

The last thing a player wants to hear from a coach is the sentence that begins with the dreaded words: ‘In my day.’ I never once heard him utter them. He was happy enough to talk about the past and his career as a player – and I for one never tired of hearing him recount hitting the mighty Charlie Griffith back over his head for the six with which he reached a century against the West Indies in Trinidad on the 1967–68 tour, his last in Test cricket – but the crucial thing was that he only did so when asked.

The key to Kenny’s success as a coach was that he never spoke down to his players. In later years it became the norm for the coach to adopt a much more authoritarian approach and believe they should ‘run’ the team. Kenny never told anyone to ‘do this’ or ‘do that’; instead, he posed the question: ‘What if you did this?’ or ‘How would you feel about doing that?’, and we responded because we all felt our opinions were being considered.

As a technical coach he was brilliant at spotting little problems and addressing them before they took hold. On my second tour of Australia in 1979–80 he corrected something in my batting that altered the way I played for the rest of my career. I used to take guard on middle-and-leg stumps, then just before the bowler reached the moment of delivery I would move back and across to get right in line. Early in the tour I found I was getting out lbw on a regular basis and couldn’t understand why. The incident that brought things to a head happened in Adelaide, when a South Australian quickie by the name of Wayne Prior won an lbw decision against me with a ball I was convinced was drifting down the leg side.

Kenny saw I was cross when I got back to the dressing room, but when I watched the replay on the television link-up I was amazed to see that I was in fact plumb. Kenny waited until I’d calmed down then quietly took me to one side and suggested we have ten minutes with the bowling machine in the nets. That was all it took. He spotted that I was moving too far across my stumps before the bowler let go, so that balls I thought were going to miss the leg stump were actually hitting about middle and leg.

‘Try taking leg stump guard,’ he said, and for the rest of my career, apart from when specific situations demanded otherwise, I did.

He became a massive influence on me personally. Which is why his sudden death during the Barbados Test on the 1980–81 tour of the West Indies hit so hard. When I took the phone call from A. C. Smith, our manager, I just didn’t want to believe what he was telling me – that Kenny had suffered a heart attack in the night. My immediate reaction was that we shouldn’t play the next day’s cricket, but after a team meeting to discuss what we should do, it soon became clear that the only thing to do was to carry on, for Ken.

I have often wondered how my career and my life might have been different if Kenny had been around to guide me. Regrets, I’ve had a few, etc. But there were times, particularly following the amazing triumphs of 1981, that I allowed success to go to my head and in what came to be known as the ‘sex, drugs and rock’n’roll’ days of the mid-80s. Would Kenny have been a sobering influence when I needed one? Many friends of mine believe Kenny was taken at the very time I needed someone like him to make me see sense. All I know is that I missed him terribly.

Bill Beaumont

I regard Bill Beaumont as the best ambassador for British sport there has ever been. After his distinguished rugby career as captain of England and the British Lions, Bill has continued to give of his time and considerable experience to rugby as it struggled with professionalism.

The name of Beaumont is linked with mine because we spent eight years in opposition as the team captains in A Question of Sport with David Coleman in the chair trying to keep order, but our first memorable evening was years earlier, on the night that Bill led England to their first Grand Slam for 23 years at Murrayfield.

I was in the company of my father-in-law, Gerry a big rugby nut, and Tony Bond, the England centre who had broken his leg at the start of the Five Nations against Ireland. He was still on crutches. In the lobby of the team hotel, the North British, Bill saw us and invited us into the official reception for a drink. Standing around with some of the England players, chatting and enjoying a glass, we were pounced upon by some Scottish MacJobsworth and told that I had to leave. I explained I was not a gatecrasher; Bondie had been a member of the England squad until his injury, and we had been asked in by the victorious England captain and coach, Mike Davis, so I thought that would be the end of the matter. Not with this Rob Roy.

‘We are paying for this function, and we’ll decide who comes in. You are not wanted, out you go.’

‘Well, if you paid for this gin and tonic, you’d better have it back,’ I replied and I promptly tipped it over his head.

The trio of us were frog-marched out, closely followed by most of the England squad, who decided to join us. That’s why the England captain spent most of the evening sitting on the stairs outside the Scottish Rugby Union reception. Every so often, one of the players would come out with a tray of drinks to keep us going. It was the start of a very memorable evening.

Bill was forced to retire from the game a couple of years later after being told that another kick on the head could have serious consequences. His England career finished at Murrayfield, but his last appearance at Twickenham saw that famous half-time streak from the well-endowed Erica Roe. Bill had his back to the action and couldn’t understand why his emotional team-talk was not being received with the same intense concentration as usual, until his scrum-half, Steve Smith, explained: ‘Sorry Bill, but some bird has just run on wearing your bum on her chest!’

Bill and I enjoyed a tremendous rivalry during our time on A Question of Sport. Bill is as competitive as me, and his sporting knowledge is extensive. His three specialist subjects were cricket, rugby and motor racing – he loved showing up my weakness on the cricket questions. But on golf, or soccer, he didn’t have a weakness. He was hard to beat. I’m glad that we both decided to call it a day together after eight years. I couldn’t have imagined doing the show without him.

Despite his good nature, Bill was not beyond some skullduggery. I remember the night when Gazza (Paul Gascoigne) was on the show. He wasn’t supposed to be drinking, but was getting fed up with the taste of bitter lemon and tonic water. As Gazza was going to be a member of Bill’s team, when he asked if there was anything else non-alcoholic he could try, I suggested advocaat. I knew the taste would disguise the alcohol and its effects were slow-acting. Gazza promptly drank a bottle and half in about an hour and half before the show. Imagine my horror when I discovered that Bill had worked out what was going on and I found myself with Gazza on my team. We lost, and the show took twice as long as normal to record.

One of the funniest holidays Kath and I ever had was with Bill and his wife, Hilary, when we went to Courcheval in the Alps to learn to ski. Because of the insurance, I was never allowed to ski when I was playing. Can you imagine Beaumont and Botham on the nursery slopes? Even trying to get our skis on took half a morning and nearly caused an avalanche. We had these all-in-one ski suits and as we came down the nursery slopes rather sedately, all these little kids, some aged about three, were shooting past, weaving in and out, and cutting across us, regularly causing us to fall apex over tit. After a couple of days of this, Bill had had enough and was looking for an opportunity to spear someone with his ski stick. The trouble was that every time he made that sort of move, over he went. I’ve never spent so much time on my backside.

Lunch on the third day was the turning point. After a couple of bottles of Dutch courage, Bill and I decided to leave the nursery slopes and graduate to something a little more testing. We felt reasonably confident as we’d just about learnt to keep upright in a straight line. It hadn’t occurred to us that stopping was another crucial skill that didn’t come naturally. We both realized our predicament at about the same time … I can tell you that Beaumont and Botham out of control on the pistes is not a pretty sight.

Franz Beckenbauer

Just one of the true giants of football to whom I was compared during my all-too-brief reign as the leading centre-half in the English game. Norman ‘bites yer legs’ Hunter, Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris, and Vlad ‘on me ’ead son’ the Impaler, were among the others. The debate rages on.

Actually, I might have been good enough to have made a professional career in soccer. When I was 15, Bert Head, the Crystal Palace manager and, clearly, one of the shrewdest judges around, thought enough of my potential to offer me a trial at Selhurst Park.

I’d been playing for Somerset Schools and training with Yeovil Town for a couple of years. At the time, the manager there was Ron Saunders, who went on to become one of the best in the league, and he recommended me to Bert.

In the end I chose cricket, and the decision to do so came about as a result of me listening to my father, Les, for once. He was a top all-round sportsman himself, who’d represented the navy at soccer – good enough for Bolton Wanderers to try and prise him away from a life on the ocean waves – and he was the one I turned to when the time came for me to pick which horse to ride.

‘It comes down to this,’ he said. ‘You’re a good footballer, but I think you’re a much better cricketer.’

Although I never regretted the decision I made, because I had a marvellous life in cricket, met some wonderful people, enjoyed some amazing experiences, and am grateful for everything the game enabled me to do, the enormous difference in earning potential between the two sports these days means that if I had to make the same choice now my decision would be different.

When I put on my boots again ten years later I did so as an amateur with Scunthorpe United, and I enjoyed every kick. We were living about 15 miles from Scunthorpe at the time, in the village of Epworth; a mate of mine there called Steve Earle who was playing for the club invited me to do my off-season training with them, and within a year I’d progressed from the reserves to the first team. I very nearly had one of the greatest debuts in soccer history, by the way. Trailing 3–1 at Bournemouth when I came on as sub on 25 March 1980, we ended up drawing 3–3 with me having a shot blocked on the line in the dying seconds. If only. Sadly, I never got as close to the opposing goal again. We celebrated in an unusual fashion on the way home that evening, my great mate Joe Neenan and I sitting on the central reservation of the A1 scoffing daffodils for a bet. As you do.

My first manager, Ron Ashman, had a unique way of preparing us for big games. Once, the day before an FA Cup match, he called us into the directors’ lounge. You never quite knew what Ron had up his sleeve, but this time we were expecting just the usual ‘death-or-glory’ speech. Ron had other ideas, though. He’d prepared a foul-smelling potion concocted from raw eggs and sherry, and encouraged us all to take a cup of it. Although you had to pinch your nose to avoid expelling the liquid as fast as you drank it, the stuff turned out to be quite palatable. What’s more it had the kick of a mule. One or two of the lads enquired whether a second helping might be in order, Ron kept filling up the punch bowl, one thing led to another, and when the cleaners came in several hour later they walked into a scene of utter devastation. I believe we lost the match.

My greatest soccer memory – apart from Chelsea winning the FA Cup against Leeds in a replay at Old Trafford in 1970 – is of my penultimate match for the club, against deadly local rivals Hull City on Boxing Day 1983 in front of a capacity crowd of 17,500. My job for the day was simple – to make sure their centre-forward, Billy Whitehurst, didn’t get a kick. I played out of my skin, even if I say so myself, and the mission was accomplished in my usual ‘uncompromising’ style. Some years later, and completely out of the blue, I read an article about Billy, who, for a brief period in the late 1980s was one of the top players in the old First Division. In the article he was asked who his toughest opponent had been. ‘That bloody cricketer,’ he said, ‘The bugger kept coming back for more.’

My worst soccer memory involves the mad Neenan. A redhead, he was, as they say, ‘fiery’. We were playing Altrincham in an FA Cup replay, with the knowledge that victory would give us a dream tie against Liverpool in the next round. Joe had been wound up and roughed up by their centre-forward in the first match, including a blind-side head-butt, and had vowed to gain revenge. Unfortunately, he chose about the worst possible moment to exact it. With time running out, another replay beckoning and the prospect of a trip to Anfield, their striker burst clear and found himself in a one-to-one with Joe. It wasn’t even subtle. Joe ran out and booted him in the meat and two veg. Penalty. 1–0. Bye-bye Anfield. So long Wembley.

My brief but glorious career came to an end when the England management decided they did not want me risking my bones on the football field. It was fun while it lasted. Just call me ‘Kaiser’.

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