MARCUS TRESCOTHICK

Coming back to me

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

with

Peter Hayter

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

To the most important people in my life:

Hayley, Ellie, Millie, Mum, Dad and Anna

Chapter 1

THE END

‘That sadness swept over me. The thing I had feared most was happening and, if my previous experiences were anything to go by, the process was as unstoppable as a domino chain.’

In the good times, the times before the long days and longer nights when depressive illness turned stretches of my life into a slow death, I had occasionally caught a glimpse of the perfect end to my career as an England cricketer; at The Oval, pausing on my way back to the dressing-room to acknowledge the applause celebrating the Test century with which I had just secured England’s latest Ashes victory.

That was what I saw in my sunlit daydreams. That was how it was supposed to happen.

The reality? Hunched-up, sobbing, distraught, slumped in a corner of Dixon’s electrical store at Heathrow’s Terminal 3, unable to board the 9 p.m. Virgin Airways Flight VS400 to Dubai for which I had checked in alongside my Somerset CCC team-mates on the evening of Friday 14 March 2008; but which I was now in no physical, mental or earthly state to take, hanging on for the pain and terror with which I had become so familiar during the previous two years to subside, and let me breathe.

I almost made it. I got almost as far as it is possible to get without actually walking through the door onto the plane and I had wanted to so much. Until the very eve of our departure, in the weeks leading up to it, I never seriously thought that I would have a problem going on the 12-day pre-2008-season tournament also featuring Lancashire, Sussex and Essex. I was well in myself and I was cautiously optimistic about what getting through the trip might mean in terms of my hopes of a future with England, even though my last appearance for them was now 18 months behind me. England’s players, selectors, management, coaches and captains had all stated that, while they had no desire to put me under undue pressure to return, when I felt I was ready, so would they be. This was a real chance to find out if I was. The tournament was to be pretty low-key though Andrew Flintoff would be there to continue his recovery programme following his latest ankle operation back at home, with relatively little of the intense media coverage I had always found so discomforting.

All things considered I was looking forward to the test and what a successful outcome might mean, even though I knew failure would end all hope and all argument. After two aborted overseas tours with England, to India in 2006 and Australia the same winter, I knew it would be strike three – you’re out.

I had spoken to my wife Hayley, who had given birth to our second child, Millie, a sister to two-year-old Ellie, on 19 January, and, mindful that separation from family, friends and the familiar had been at the root of my problems, she had said all the right things: ‘Twelve days? You’ll be fine.’

The day before I left I talked with the Somerset coach Andy ‘Sarge’ Hurry, a former marine turned PT instructor, about what might lay in store. He had asked, ‘What can we do to make this easier for you?’ and had already arranged with the rest of the staff and players that, once I got to Dubai, I was going to be kept fully occupied. With no time to wander, my mind might just be able to stay away from the thoughts that had, on occasions, made existence seem unbearable and that way, perhaps, the illness could be kept at bay. Busy days playing, training and practising would have been followed by lengthy team planning and selection meetings and I was never, ever, to be allowed to dine on my own unless it was my choice. Not that they were going to ask me for my belt and shoelaces, just that they wanted to create a comfortable environment in which I could relax and remain calm.

I had told Andy: ‘Look, I really think I’m going to be fine …’ then added, ‘as long as nothing out-of-the-ordinary happens.’

After six weeks of disturbed sleep following Millie’s arrival, a part of me was also looking forward to the shut-eye I was going to be enjoying in Dubai.

Maybe I should have taken more notice of the slight twinge of anxiety I had felt that day, but I had known all along that this was not going to be straightforward. In any case the feeling was nothing like as intense as that warning sign which usually preceded a full-blown crisis; some people might describe it as a shiver down the spine, for me it was more like a progressive freezing, vertebra by vertebra from top to bottom.

And I wasn’t too alarmed because, in general, I had been feeling fine for a while now and the medication which had helped to stabilize me through the darkest times was, I was pretty convinced, something to turn to only in dire emergency.

True, I had hit a snag the previous summer, when I first made myself available for England’s World Twenty20 squad, then pulled out after a lengthy telephone conversation with the coach Peter Moores. While never presenting me with an ultimatum as such, he made it clear he wanted me to make myself available not just for the World Twenty20 in South Africa, a tournament I firmly believed at that stage I could manage, but also the one-day series in Sri Lanka that followed, something which, at that stage, I could not in all conscience commit to.

Nevertheless, again freed at least temporarily from having to consider the question of my future with England, I finished the 2007 domestic season with Somerset on a series of huge highs, topping Division Two of the Championship, winning promotion to Division One of the Pro 40, with my personal contribution being stacks of runs, including my career-best 284 at Northampton. And the celebration ale tasted sensational.

During the winter I had deliberately refrained from making any statements to the media or doing any significant interviews about my future plans. And I loved the anonymity of that. I had made one public appearance, as part of my benefit year, at a Question & Answer session in the Herefordshire town of Leominster, conducted by a journalist friend of mine, Peter Hayter of the Mail on Sunday, who lives locally. Brian Viner, of the Independent, another locally-based newspaper columnist wrote: ‘Trescothick talked about the emotional illness that appears to have scuppered his England career with engaging candour.’ And even I was quite surprised how much I enjoyed the experience and how easy I found it to talk openly in front of strangers, as indicated by the following exchanges:

PH: I think even now people are still somewhat confused about what happened to you and what you were suffering from, your illness and the effects of it. Can you explain what the past 18 months have been like for you, what you’ve gone through?

MT: At different stages I have had totally different feelings really. Over the last, say, now nearly a year, I would say it’s been pretty good, just being away from the environment of the England setup and the pressure that comes with playing for England and the media attention that you have to deal with. Yeah, I’m moving along very nicely. The question’s obviously always going to arise about what happens next and at this stage I’m not too sure, I want to drive it on from hereon in, but looking back to India, the first time, it was a really tough place and a tough situation to go through because I literally didn’t know what was happening. I genuinely thought I had an illness that was going to see me off and, not knowing, at that point what to do. After I came back it got worse for a while, then it got better, then it got worse again. You’re being followed by media people around your home town and they were waiting on your doorstep when you walk out the house. There were articles in papers, complete and utter rubbish, it’s just like where do you go? There was no hiding place for me and for two or three months when I came back then it was real hard work and something I never want to have to experience again because it was a real tough place to be and I didn’t really know what to do at that point, just taking advice really from people and colleagues and obviously counsellors to help get me through the situation. And it was really tough, you know. I’m such a better person for it, though. I’ve come through the other side. I’m sure I’ll never be clear of the whole process … at some point throughout my life at different stages, it may hit me again. Even now, I have the odd day when I relive memories and things and feelings that come back after a while, but I’m better equipped now to deal with situations and understand the beast that lives inside, and understand he’s going to come back and come knocking on your door again. You’ve just got to deal with that process and just keep riding the journey until eventually it dies down and you carry on living your life as normal. You know, I’m a better person, as I’ve said, and I’ve learned so much from the whole situation.

PH: In your heart of hearts, do you think you’ll play for England again?

MT: I can’t honestly answer that question. All I know is that I’d love to have another go and I’m going to give myself every opportunity to have another crack at it. I think it’s going to take a lot more hard work the longer it goes, of course. The team has changed totally. You’ve got Peter Moores in charge. The lads in the team are totally different. In my heart I still want to have aspirations to have another go. I haven’t actually got to the point where I’ve admitted to myself that I can’t do it any more. So until I get to that stage I’ll keep trying.

A couple of weeks later, Peter rang me for a brief interview for his paper concerning the trip to Dubai. It is worth revisiting my response. ‘I won’t deny I am a little nervous about the prospect,’ I told him. ‘I don’t want to pre-empt anything, but I know the signs and how to work through them. I’m feeling well at the moment and things are pretty good, so I’m 95 per cent certain that the trip will be all right. It is a big step and I’m not taking anything for granted. It will be interesting to see what happens.’

Ninety-five per cent certain?

Yet, I actually felt strong enough to offer my help to the Australian fast bowler Shaun Tait, who had recently announced he was quitting all cricket indefinitely, citing physical and emotional exhaustion, and, overall, my level of contentment could be gauged by the fact that I had only met with my personal counsellor, with whom I had been in regular contact since I returned home in crisis from England’s 2006 tour to India, on two occasions since the previous July.

First, on 27 December 2007 we had reflected on the summer I had enjoyed with Somerset, discussed my future plans and a possible return to international cricket, the impending addition to my family and my benefit season. At the end of the meeting it was left up to me to make contact if I felt I needed to, and apart from the occasional text message of reassurance that I was doing okay, I hadn’t. Closer to the time when I was due to leave for Dubai I rang him to say we must chat about this before I went and we did, at Somerset’s home ground in Taunton, where I told him: ‘It looks good. I’m looking forward to it. It’s fine.’ We arranged that I would ring him early on the day of departure, for a final check on how I was.

That morning I went over the plan one more time; first I would pack for the journey, then I would ring my counsellor. Next I would take Hayley and the girls out for lunch before they dropped me off at the ground in time for me to catch the bus along with the other lads, ready for a 3 p.m. departure to Heathrow.

Prior to my troubles, one of the aspects of touring I had enjoyed most had been packing. Ever since I can remember I had been a ‘kit bully’. As a kid, growing up in a cricket-mad household, with a playing dad, Martyn, who represented Somerset 2nd XI, and a tea-making mum, Linda, I had loved poring over the magazines advertising cricket equipment. I had loved the physical sensation of unwrapping and trying on new pads, gloves, sweaters, boots, anything to do with the game of cricket. And bats. I just loved bats. This time I had laid out my kit, meticulously, and the act of placing it in my ‘coffin’, all in the correct order, was almost meditative.

After lunch, we set off for the ground and it was there, around 2 p.m., out of a clear blue spring sky, it all started to go wrong again.

Hayley had driven to the ground with the kids in the back of the car. When the time came, I kissed them all goodbye and as the car pulled away, I was suddenly, acutely and terrifyingly aware of the shiver. Straight away, I understood. If it hadn’t meant so much to me to at least try, I might even have told the lads there and then that they had better go without me.

‘Oh, no.’ I said to myself. ‘Oh, no.’ Then, before I could close my mind to it, an image appeared of Ellie, back at home, asking Hayley ‘where’s daddy?’ and the look of sadness as she understood I wasn’t there. That sadness swept over me. The thing I had feared most was happening and, if my previous experiences were anything to go by, the process was as unstoppable as a domino chain.

I still hoped I might be able to stop it taking over completely, as it had done so many times before. I started to try and fight it and the feeling subsided as the usual cricketing banter began. ‘Maybe this time, maybe this time I’ll beat it.’

I boarded the bus and started to calm down and, as we set off, I realized something had slipped my mind, namely the prearranged morning phone call to my counsellor and that realization temporarily buoyed my spirits. I started thinking to myself that the fact I had forgotten to make the call was a great sign. I rang him on my mobile and told him: ‘I forgot to call you. We’re on the coach. On our way to Heathrow.’ I sat there afterwards, attempting to persuade myself that if I hadn’t been worried enough about the trip to have made the call to my counsellor, I must actually be okay to go. Except that, for the rest of the coach journey I was wavering between that hope and a growing sense of unease.

I don’t know whether any of the other guys could sense what was happening. James Hildreth certainly can’t have done. Somewhere around 500 yards away from and in sight of the terminal he started taking the mickey big-time. ‘Getting nervous, Bang?’, ‘Excuse me, driver, this is as far as Mr Trescothick is going,’ etc. I was used to it. I got heaps of that sort of stuff anyway from guys like Andy Caddick, my former England colleague, Steffan Jones and Jason Kerr, the two best men at my wedding to Hayley in January 2004 – normal stuff that I had been more than happy to take inside the dressing-room at Somerset for some time. Madfish, they used to call me, after Madfish Willie, a character in the gangster film Snatch. And I never minded the name-calling for a second because to me if people felt okay about taking the mick out of me, they must have reckoned I was okay enough to have it taken. Unfortunately, however, by now I was struggling badly, though they had no way of knowing as the illness had made me an expert at hiding my true feelings.

By the time we checked in for the flight at around 7.30 p.m., I was clinging on and clinging to the idea I might just be able to get on the plane and once aboard, maybe the feelings would go. Take-off time was about 90 minutes away. I had the length of a football match to try and hold myself together. We went through to the departure lounge and I made my way with Steffan and Jason to the nearest coffee bar. I ordered a bacon and egg sandwich and as I finished the last bite, time stopped for a millisecond. In that blink of the mind I was cooked and I knew it. Sensing I could go at any second, I was desperate to get up from the table and get away from the other two lads because I never liked breaking down in front of other people. I managed to make it as far as Dixon’s. ‘Oh, God.’

I rang Sarge, and asked him to come and meet me straight away, though I didn’t tell him why. He said later that he thought I wanted some clarification over what speakers I should get for my iPod or some such. When he finally arrived he could see the state I was in. This isn’t intended to earn me a badge, but this is a guy who had seen active service and he was clearly taken aback by what he saw. Later, he told me: ‘To see a grown man in this state was quite tough.’

At first he tried to talk me round. ‘Marcus,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to fight it. You’ve got to get yourself over this wall.’

I understood what he was saying. And I would have loved to have been able to say ‘Sarge, you’re right. That’s what I’ve got to do and I’m going to do it.’

The fact was I couldn’t. In between the sobs and tears, I told him: ‘Andy, I’d love to be able to but I’m not sure I can. I don’t want to get over to Dubai and f**k it up and have to come home again. That is the last thing I want to do. I’d rather walk away from it now than go over there, then have to get a flight home again, because I’ve done that twice before and it causes me so much pain.’

Andy and I walked out of Dixon’s and found a little corridor which was a bit more private. Jason had joined us but by now Andy had realized that his original approach was doomed. Now they were just listening, sympathetically but clearly conscious of the significance of the moment.

I told them: ‘I just can’t keep putting myself through this. It’s too painful. I can’t keep doing it. I don’t want to do it to myself any more. I don’t want to do it to Hayley. That’s enough.’ Someone said: ‘Okay. We’ll get your bags off. You’re going home’, and I said, ‘Yeah, sorry. That’s it.’

It’s hard to say how long it took for the symptoms of my illness to subside long enough to allow me some clear air to think about something, anything, other than how awful I was feeling. But when that moment came, so did certain truths and the most hurtful one was this: I could never again contemplate the possibility of playing cricket for my country, the love of my professional life.

I knew, finally and without a shadow of doubt, that my days as an international cricketer were over. I’d run out of road.

Transport was arranged for the trip home. It was a long journey. Whereas, after my two previous breakdowns, the overwhelming reaction to coming home had been relief, this was different. The implications of my inability to go on a gentle pre-season trip with my county were obvious and they hurt because I had so loved playing for my country. Not only did I feel dejected, but also, and, for the first time, I felt guilty because I had let down not only myself but everyone else who had tried so hard to help me get better; people at the club, my family and my counsellor, who had given so much to try and make it happen for me. I had assured them I was going to be all right and I truly believed I would be. Now I knew there was no going back.

I rang Hayley and told her what had happened and that I was coming home. I rang my parents and I rang Brian Rose, the club’s Director of Cricket, who, along with everyone at Somerset had been so incredibly supportive of me throughout my troubles. And we agreed to issue a statement the next day. Then someone at the club realized the news had to be put out immediately because Sky TV were due to meet the plane in Dubai. Imagine what kind of story would have emerged if the TV pictures had shown all the Somerset boys arriving, except me.

So Richard Gould, the club’s Chief Executive, put out the following holding statement at 10.22 p.m. that night:

‘Marcus Trescothick has withdrawn from Somerset’s pre-season tour to the United Arab Emirates.

‘The decision was taken last night (14 March) shortly before the other players boarded a plane for the 12-day trip.

‘Marcus’s absence is due to a recurrence of the stress illness which caused him to quit two England tours.’

As soon as I got home, I went straight to bed. The emotional strain of the day had left me shattered. And I didn’t feel a great deal better when I woke up the next morning because I knew what was facing me. In the meantime, another statement was issued by the club at 9.54 that morning, saying:

‘Brian Rose has assured Somerset supporters that Marcus Trescothick will be fit to play a full part in the coming county season. Brian said: “I spoke to Marcus last night and, while it is unfortunate that he has suffered a recurrence of his stress problems, I am certain he will be available to start the season for Somerset.

“I don’t see the setback as a major problem. Marcus did a tremendous job for us last season and will be a key player again this summer.

“His cricketing life is with Somerset and I am sure he will continue to enjoy playing for the club as he has done for many years”.’

It was about now that my counsellor switched on his television at home, called up Teletext and learned for the first time that I hadn’t boarded the flight. He told me later that the news had come as a complete surprise, so sure had he been from our meetings and phone calls that I would be able to make the trip.

I knew the first thing I had to do was get to the ground as soon as possible. I said to myself: ‘I’m going to go out and face people now. There’s no point p***ing about with it. I’ve got to face them at some point, let’s just do it today.’ And I walked into the club shop and bumped into an ex-colleague of mine, Mike Burns, and something lifted. I had a laugh and a joke with him, then I realized I still had my plane ticket in my pocket. ‘Burnsy,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a ticket here to go to Dubai. If you fancy a trip … the lads find themselves unexpectedly a man short.’

As far as the England situation was concerned there was only one thing left to do. Already, and not unnaturally, some of the Sunday papers, whose cricket correspondents were down in New Zealand covering the England Test tour, had speculated that my international career was now almost certainly over. I knew we had to put something out as soon as possible confirming my intention to retire immediately, but, and even though it was a slim possibility it would, I didn’t want the news to cause a distraction for anyone in the camp 11,000 miles away. Even on the day I had failed to get on the plane to Dubai, Paul Collingwood had been asked at a press conference, at the end of day one of the second Test in Wellington, for his reaction to my news; the guys certainly didn’t need to have to answer any more questions about me when they had other things on their mind, like trying to come back from 1–0 down against the Kiwis.

I met with Richard Gould and Brian Rose. We discussed the pros and cons with the club chairman Andy Nash and we all agreed the best thing would be to prepare a statement for release after the end of the third and final Test match in Napier, with a press conference at Taunton on Thursday 27 March.

Unfortunately our plans had to change when, on the morning of Saturday 22 March, the first day of the third Test, sitting at home in my dressing-gown watching Soccer AM, I took a phone call from Richard Gould.

‘Morning, Marcus,’ Richard said. ‘There’s a bit of an issue.’

My heart sank.

‘The BBC radio Test Match Special guys have been on to Andrew Walpole [the England Media relations general manager, in New Zealand with the team] enquiring whether it is true that you are about to announce your retirement from international cricket.’

Not again, I thought. This was the fourth time since my troubles began that confidential information about me had been passed on to the media – first, to the Sun regarding the possibility that I might be flying home from the 2005 tour to Pakistan to comfort Hayley following her father’s serious accident; next, to the News of the World, concerning the background to the infamous interview I gave to Sky TV on my return from India in early 2006; later, to the Sun again, about me making myself unavailable for the 2006 Champions Trophy in India in September the same year; and now this. I found all four incidents disturbing and the middle two quite damaging. But now I was simply saddened that my efforts to announce my retirement on my own terms had been spoiled by careless talk.

The release of the statement was duly brought forward to the morning of Saturday 22 March. It read:

‘Marcus Trescothick today announced his retirement from international cricket.

‘The 32 year old Somerset batsman’s decision follows his recent withdrawal from the county’s pre-season tour to Dubai with a recurrence of the health problems which caused him to quit two England tours.

‘Trescothick said: “I have tried on numerous occasions to make it back to the international stage and it has proved a lot more difficult than I expected. I want to extend my playing career for as long as possible and I no longer want to put myself through the questions and demands that go with trying to return to the England team.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed my time playing for England and I am very proud of having been selected for 76 Test matches and over 120 One-day Internationals. It has been a great privilege to represent my country and I am grateful to the game of cricket for giving me the opportunity to excel at a sport that I enjoy so much.

“My desire to play cricket is as strong as it ever was. But, due to the problems that I have experienced, travelling abroad has become extremely stressful for me. I now think that it is in the best interests of all concerned that the issue is put to rest so that the England team can concentrate on moving forward and I can concentrate all my efforts on playing well for Somerset.”

‘England managing Director Hugh Morris paid tribute to Marcus from New Zealand: “I would like to place on record my thanks to Marcus for the enormous contribution he had made to the England team in both Test and One-day International cricket. I fully respect and understand his decision to retire from international cricket and wish him every success in his future career with Somerset.”’

I was particularly touched by the response I received from the public. Down in New Zealand, the BBC’s Alison Mitchell neatly captured what I felt in her Test Match Special internet blog: ‘Far from succumbing to the strains of his illness, Trescothick is taking charge of his life,’ she wrote. Her comments had encouraged a number of replies from fellow sufferers, perhaps the most poignant from one named ‘Owls Fan’, who wrote: ‘I have every sympathy. Depression and stress over several years nearly cost me my home, my family and my life. Nothing’s more important than removing the causes and getting on the road to recovery. If it feels right, it is right.’ The website received 117 other such responses before it was closed to new comments.

I made sure the day’s play in the Test was over and done with before texting four or five of the team; Andrew Strauss, who, with his wife Ruth and young son had visited us the previous winter, Kevin Pietersen, Michael Vaughan, Paul Collingwood and Steve Harmison, my colleagues from our Ashes victory of 2005, just saying thanks.

The next time I sent a message to Vaughan he probably wished I hadn’t bothered. Prior to the final Test in Hamilton, the skipper was coming under growing pressure not just because the team had failed to dominate supposedly weaker opposition, but also because of his poor form with the bat, 7 runs in six first-class innings on the tour thus far. When I saw him scratch around for 2 in 11 balls on the first morning of the match, when England slumped to 4 for 3, with the ball zipping around, I decided the time had come to intervene. My text message was brief and to the point. ‘What the hell is going on? Just go out there and whack it.’ I told him. In the second innings he took my advice and, after amassing a glorious four in four balls, he made a ludicrous attempt to slap a good length ball on off stump from Chris Martin to the square leg boundary, only to feather a nick to Brendon McCullum behind the stumps. Vaughan didn’t text me back, but I got the message. It was definitely time to leave England well alone and get on with the rest of my life.

There was one other bit of unfinished local business to deal with. Word had reached me that, on the night of the Heathrow incident, as soon as the other lads heard that I was not going to be getting on the plane with them, poor James Hildreth was distraught. I learned later that he had spoken to one of the other guys and said, ‘I wish I hadn’t said those things to Banger.’ There was a suggestion that he felt responsible for what had happened because of the piss-taking as the coach approached the terminal building. Apparently he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that by saying what he had said he had set in motion the chain reaction that culminated in my collapse.

When I heard that I knew I had to speak to him as soon as the guys got back from Dubai and I did. I told him: ‘Listen, I have absolutely no problem with what you said. It was nothing and it had no bearing on what happened afterwards.’ He seemed pretty relieved. And by then, so was I.

Chapter 2

BANGERS AND BATS

‘In the kitchen, in the living room, in the garden, wherever she happened to be, I’d hand the ball to her [mum], she’d bowl it, I’d hit it, fetch it, carry it back to her and say again “bowl to me, bowl to me.”’

You’ve heard of people who eat, drink, sleep and dream cricket. For a large part of my life, that was me.

My earliest memories are not of teddy-bears, bows and arrows, mud pies or ray-guns, but of bats and balls, and mainly bats. I can’t recall when I first picked one up, but I have retained a fuzzy memory of what happened when I did. It felt great, and even better when I hit a ball with it. That feeling has never left me.

I was born into a cricket-mad family. With my dad Martyn – a stalwart, top-order batsman and brilliant slip fielder for Keynsham Cricket Club, in between Bristol and Bath, good enough to play second team cricket for Somerset and be offered a contract which he turned down – and my mum Linda, already well into her eventual 35 years of making the club teas, it was hardly surprising that I should have an interest in the game.

But an article in the local paper, recording the birth of Marcus Edward Trescothick at 9.15 a.m. on 25 December 1975, weighing a ‘healthy’ 9lb 4 oz, said it all. Under the headline ‘On The Team For 1991?’, it read:

The couple, who live at Glenwood Drive, Oldland Common, already have a three-year-old daughter Anna, aged three.

Said Martyn: ‘I was secretly hoping for a boy, and he will have every encouragement to become a cricketer when he grows up.’

While that first paragraph was apparently put together by someone who had necked a glass too many of the Christmas spirit, the second one was spot on.

Mum tells me I had a little plastic bat thrust into my hands at 11 months old, only a couple of weeks after I started walking, and, from that moment, I went round hitting everything I could find. If there weren’t any balls to whack I’d have a go at those square wooden alphabet bricks, an early indication of my preference for sport over academic life. When I was about two, a family friend called Roger Loader cut a small bat down to a blade of around six inches and gave it to me as a present. It had a bit more go in it than the plastic one and, by all accounts, I was absolutely lethal with it. When mum and I returned after dropping off Anna at school, we’d get back in the house and I’d plead ‘bowl to me, mum, bowl to me’. In the kitchen, in the living room, in the garden, wherever she happened to be, I’d hand the ball to her, she’d bowl it, I’d hit it, fetch it, carry it back to her and say again: ‘bowl to me, bowl to me.’ I never got tired of this. How she didn’t I’ll never know. No wonder, whenever they heard me coming, our pet cats, Cricket and Biscuit, would run for their nine lives. Anna thought I was just plain daft.

When I was four, dad went on a cricket tour to Sussex and came back with my first very own new bat, a Gray-Nicholls Powerspot which I still have at home to this day, and it was carnage. In the living room there were three sets of wall lights, each with two lamps under their own shades. By the time I had finished, of the six lamps and shades only one remained intact. I’d had all the rest. And one day, I managed to put a bouncy rubber ball straight through one of the French doors, clean as a whistle. Mum and dad never seemed to mind too much. In fact I was more likely to get told off for not hitting the ball hard enough than for the latest breakage.

From as young as I can remember, if I wasn’t tugging at mum’s skirts pleading with her to ‘bowl to me’ or outside in the garden with dad, playing cricket, and by now, football as well, I was glued to the television whenever the cricket was on, so much so that mum would often find me standing in front of it, bat in hand, repeating the shots I’d just seen. She is convinced that is how I became a left-handed batsman even though I am naturally right handed. In those days, the late 70s and early 80s, the England side was dominated by right-handed batters like Graham Gooch, Geoff Boycott, Chris Tavare, Peter Willey and Ian Botham. David Gower was about the only one who batted the other way round. So, in mirroring the right-handers I was actually adopting a left-hander’s stance and practising the shots left-handed. The shots played by Gooch and Beefy obviously appealed to me more than the ones played by Boycott and Tavare.

Inevitably there were scrapes. I’ve still got a y-shaped scar on a my left hand from when I tripped on the doorstep bringing in the milk and I very nearly became living proof of the warning passed down by parents to kids from the beginning of time: ‘It’s all good fun until somebody loses an eye’. I had my luckiest escape thus far when I tried to climb up the washing machine, planted both Wellington-booted feet through the open door, slipped sideways, and the door hinge made a deep cut along my eyebrow.

By the age of six, whenever people asked me what I was going to do when I grew up, I didn’t just say ‘play cricket’, I said ‘play cricket, of course.’ At seven, with dad running the junior section at Keynsham, I was already playing for the club’s Under-11s.

At St Anne’s Primary School, I was extremely lucky that one of the teachers, a Rick McCoy, was sports-mad. He ran the cricket in summer and the football in winter, and by then I was even branching out into other sports. Aged nine, at the 1984 Warmley & District Schools Athletic Association Annual Sports Day, for instance, I was good enough to win bronze in the Ist Year Boys’ Sack Race and, a year later, in 1985, I took the gold, with the theme to Chariots of Fire playing softly inside my head.

Football was great fun. I was always a Bristol City nutter and it was pure joy when, after the Ashes of 2005, the club made me an honorary vice-president. I played alongside a lot of good mates for the St Anne’s side: it was me in goal (a formidable barrier even then), Eddie Gregg in midfield, Lee Cole a striker and his brother Mark, a chunky, slow right-back. Lee and Mark’s dad was a printer who worked from home and we used to get together to compile a programme for every match we played, price 5p, with the proceeds going to various charities, including Dr Barnados and Cancer & Leukaemia in Children, something we would all have cause to remember years later, around the time I was starting out on my senior England career.

There must have been a few watching because one week we raised £7. Each programme comprised eight pages of articles – Manager’s Message by Rick McCoy, Captain’s Corner, by Matthew Bliss, reports of previous matches and stats – results, scorers, today’s teams and goalscorers and appearances, and two special features called Player Analysis and Player Profile. The issue for our match against Bridge Farm on Thursday, 28 November 1985 (kickoff 3 p.m.) is a real collector’s item, as I am the Player in question.

In Player Analysis, Lee Cole writes: ‘Marcus Trescothick is a very good goalkeeper and has proved to be the best St. Anne’s have ever had.’ Lee was known to be an excellent judge.

In Player Profile it was my turn:

Full Name: Marcus Edward Trescothick Birth date: 25 December 1975 Favourite Food: Bread and chips Nickname: Tres Worst Food: Meat Most Embarrassing Moment: Letting in eight goals Favourite Moment: Saving a penalty Superstitions: None Ambition: To score a goal from a goal-kick.

I never was too sure about that rule.

In 1986, aged ten, I was first picked to play cricket for the county, Avon Schools, and had a reasonable start, top scoring with 75, and later St Anne’s made it through to the regional final of the English Schools Football Association six-a-sides. Though we failed to progress to the final at Wembley, I did find time to practise my autograph all over the page in the commemorative magazine set aside for getting other people’s.

Then, in 1987, three things happened that turned out to have somewhat more bearing on my later life.

First, on Sunday 21 June, aged 11, I scored the first-ever century for Avon Schools Under-11s, 124 against Devon at Exeter School. Two weeks later, against Worcestershire at the Bristol Grammar School ground at Failand, I scored 183 not out. When asked why he declared, the manager, Mike Docherty, apparently said: ‘If I let him get a double-hundred at his age, what else would he have to aim for?’ The innings caused quite a stir. The local BBC TV asked if they could come along and film the next match, but we weren’t comfortable with that. But the Bristol Evening Post decided to scrap their weekly Top Man cricket award and nominated me as Top Kid instead. Nice to see that the photo of me accompanying the article has me pointing the manufacturer’s label straight at the camera. My interest in schoolwork may have been minimal, but, even at this tender age, I was showing signs of sound commercial sense. Slazenger, since you ask.

Their interest suitably aroused, and Bristol being within their boundaries, Gloucestershire County Cricket Club then picked me to play for their Under-11s, and when I made a century for them in my second match, against Somerset at Frenchay CC, Somerset made enquiries, realized I was eligible to play for them because Keynsham was in their territory, and my Gloucestershire career was over. From now on I would be playing for Somerset, my dad’s county, my county.

The other thing that happened? A school trip to Torquay.

All kids get homesick, of course. But this was different. This was more or less unbearable. It was our last year at St Anne’s and they decided to take us all to Torquay for a week together before we all moved on to our senior schools. It was the first time I had been away from home in my life and I hated it. I just hated it. I cried and cried and cried. Even though I was with all my mates, and we couldn’t have been more than 100 miles or a couple of hours’ drive from Oldland Common, I just couldn’t bear being away from home. I wasn’t a bit sad, or down in the dumps. I was terrified, irrationally so, and that scared me even more. Away from mum and dad and my home and my sister and my cats and my stuff and outside of my place, all I felt was dreadful, but the moment I got home I was fine again, as if it had never happened. I told my folks I hadn’t enjoyed the trip much but I didn’t tell them any more. Photos of the trip showed me joining in and smiling and it can’t have been all bad. But there were moments when it was, and, from then on, I never felt really comfortable being away from my home, family, friends and the familiar again. Not long afterwards, I travelled to Cheltenham College for a county coaching clinic, felt terrible the moment I arrived, made up some story about not being well and asked mum to come and collect me the same day. Cheltenham? About 45 minutes from home.

Those feelings stayed within me, on and off, throughout a 15-year career in county and international cricket. For long periods they would disappear or lie dormant, and initially, even when they came, they were completely manageable. Playing top-level cricket gave me such a buzz that I could force them to one side. As time progressed, however, and the exhausting effects of burnout weakened my resilience, the feelings grew stronger and stronger.

Years later, when I discussed the history of my illness with my counsellor that week in Torquay took on great significance.

For now, however, the only thing on my agenda was sport, and plenty of it, as from September 1987 I joined the Sir Bernard Lovell Comprehensive School, also in Oldland Common. It probably didn’t take long for the teachers and staff to work out that they weren’t going to win any industry prizes for their work with me. An early indication of the kind of impact I would have in the classroom can be judged by the two credit notes I received in my first term, the first for ‘Full marks in the beautiful babies competition’, whatever that was, the next for ‘Effort in gathering a most interesting collection of personal items for display in class’. By 1988 I had graduated to ‘For giving freely of your time and interest to make the New Intake Parents’ Evening a success’ and ‘Doing a week of litter duty’. My year grades were okay, not outstanding, but okay. I didn’t get into much trouble, if any. I wasn’t disruptive. I just wasn’t interested. The only subject with which I had more than a passing acquaintance was drama. I was brilliant as one of the T-birds in Grease, singing ‘We’ll get some overhead filters and some four barrel quads, oh yeah – Grease lightning, wo-oh grease lightning’ etc., though I quite fancied having a go at John Travolta’s part, as it happens. And I was growing more and more confident that cricket would not only be my passion, it would also be my profession. So much so that when someone at school recommended I spend more time on my truly appalling French, I replied: ‘The only places I’m going to go are Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Zimbabwe and West Indies. If I start speaking French in any of those places they won’t have a clue what I’m on about.’

The only thing I wanted to learn about was cricket, and not just the playing. Even at this age I was a kit bully. Unwrapping a new pair of pads or gloves, or running my hand down the blade of a new bat, was pure ecstasy for me. And, looking back, the amount of time I spent getting my gear in order and just right was downright scary. My obsession with bats and handles and grips and the like was, well, an obsession.

The runs just kept on coming, though. Still bigger than most of the other lads, still able to smash the ball harder and farther than anyone else, and still loving that feeling, I was still piling on the scores and keeping pretty well when required, for my school, for Avon Schools, for Somerset and for West of England and I was selected as one of the top 24 in the country in my age group for a national coaching course at Lilleshall. I made my first century in senior cricket, for Keynsham in the Western League in 1989, aged 14 and in 1990, after an England Schools Cricket Association trials tournament in Oxford, when England named their first-ever Under-14 squad, selected by David Lloyd among others, I was in it, alongside Andrew Flintoff and Paul Collingwood. Fred was a big boisterous bloke who could launch it miles. Colly, at that stage was an irritating dobber who bowled gentle inswing to left-handers and I whacked the living c**p out of him. If you had said to us then that, in 15 years’ time, we would be standing at The Oval drenching ourselves in Ashes champagne…

David Lloyd was impressed by my batting, less so by my size and shape, which by now was on the portly side of chubby. Unsurprising really, as my diet comprised all and only the wrong things; sausages were my favourite, hence the nickname ‘Banger’, later coined by Bob Cottam at Somerset, that has stuck with me ever since. Then, in no particular order, sausages, chips, sausages, toast, sausages, baked beans, sausages, cheese, sausages, eggs, sausages and the occasional sausage thrown in, topped off with a sprinkling of sausage. The only muscles I had in my body were around my mouth. If someone put a slice of cucumber in front of me, or any other salad item for that matter, and said ‘eat that and I’ll give you £100’, I’d say no chance. Fruit? Forget it. Vegetables? Why?

Christmas dinner in our house was a bit strange, to say the least. While everyone else would be tucking into traditional roast turkey with all the trimmings, my festive fare consisted of tinned carrots (I didn’t like the fresh ones, obviously) and a variety of potatoes, roast, boiled and mashed, which I’d stuff between slices of bread to make spud sarnies.

I cannot eat enough steak these days, but then I couldn’t stand the taste and texture of meat at all. When mum used to try and feed me meat of any kind as a toddler I would just retch or spit it out. I didn’t eat chicken until I was 20, when my Somerset teammate Rob Turner persuaded me to try a McDonald’s chicken-burger. I was so proud I rang my mum and told her, as I was washing it down with a million cans of fizzy-pop. I ate my first beef burger when I was 29. No, really. I’m not kidding.

Lloyd did mention to someone that perhaps the subject of my weight and general fitness might have to be addressed and I know it later cost me a place on the West of England Schools tour to the West Indies and possibly a place on the following year’s England Under-15 squad, but, at 14, the fact that I could hit the ball harder than seemingly anyone else my age in the entire country covered a multitude of sins. I might not have been the sprightliest in the field or between the wickets, but when you stood behind the stumps with the gloves on, and hit the ball like I did, what did I need to run for? Dad did try and take me out jogging a few times but I could barely make it to the end of our road and he soon gave it up as a bad job.

If there had been the slightest doubt about where my young life was heading, the summer of 1991 sealed my fate.

God knows how many games of cricket I played that season – for the school, for Keynsham, for West of England Schools, for Avon Schools, and, as a 15-year-old, for Somerset Under-19s under the county coach Peter Robinson, who had already bowled a million left-arm spinners to me in the freezing cold of Peter Wight’s Indoor School in Bath on Wednesday winter evenings. Sometimes I played twice in a day, a match for the club Under-17s in the morning, then an afternoon game for the 1st XI. I reckon I played more than 50 innings in all and I scored millions, including 13 hundreds and my first double. It was not enough to win selection for the England Under-15s, which hacked me right off – Phil Neville, then of Lancashire schools but later Manchester United and England, was picked ahead of me – but, by the time I began my last innings of the summer, in the last match on the last day, for Keynsham against Old Georgians, what I did know was that mum had totted up all the scores and I needed 84 runs to reach 4,000 for the season. That might be something to interest the selectors who had left me out of that England side, I reckoned.

Then the batsman’s nightmare. My sister was to-ing and fro-ing at home so we arrived late for the start of the match. All I had been thinking about was getting in early enough to give myself the best chance of making the required number of runs. But, when we arrived late and I was told we had won the toss and were already batting, that meant less chance for me. And what if the openers never got out?

Eventually I went in, but time was running out. The tension built up because everyone there knew what was at stake, and, with one ball to go in our innings I still needed two runs. I got a bottom edge on a decent yorker and groaned inwardly as the keeper parried it. I set off for the other end knowing I might be able to run a single but unless something extraordinary happened there was no way I would get two. Then, something extraordinary did happen.

Their keeper threw the ball at the stumps to try and run out my partner; he was in by miles when the ball hit the stumps and ricocheted off into the covers and I was able to scramble back for the second. I remember walking off the pitch bawling my eyes out.

And 4,000 seemed to be the magic number. Soon afterwards The Cricketer Magazine told me I had won their award for the outstanding young cricketer of the year. I duly pitched up at Lord’s to receive my award and a load of kit from Mickey Stewart, the England senior coach, Angus Fraser and Carl Hooper, who had been opponents in that summer’s Test series, and the radio commentator Brian Johnston. When he watched me in the indoor school nets at Lord’s that day Mickey made a point of querying why I hadn’t been picked for the Under-15s, and soon afterwards he made sure I was awarded a place on the MCC School of Merit training scheme there, for which I travelled up to London once a week throughout the winter, which was a wonderful consolation.

Brian Johnston’s behaviour that day was magnificently eccentric. Johnners had an absolute obsession about the Australian soap opera Neighbours. Wherever he was, if Neighbours was on the telly he had to watch it. Everything stopped for Ramsay Street. And there and then, as we were settling down to a buffet reception after the awards had been completed, Johnners set up a portable TV in the corner of the room and switched it on for his daily dose of Kylie, Jason and Madge.

After all that, then scoring heavily for Somerset Under-19s, including an unbeaten 158 against Warwickshire, followed by a 2nd XI appearance, sitting my GCSEs in the summer of 1992 seemed somewhat beside the point. Bob Cottam, the Director of Cricket at Somerset, and Peter Robinson, the coach had already indicated they would be interested in signing me. The headmaster at Sir Bernard Lovell recommended I should turn them down and go back for A-levels, but, as I’d managed the sum total of one pass in my GCSEs, a ‘B’, in Drama, I can only think he must have spotted something in me no one else had done thus far. I told him, politely, that I could get an education at any age but I would only get one chance at cricket. There was talk of me enrolling at Bath Technical College to do a sports training course or some such, but when it became clear the only thing I wanted to do for a living was play cricket, mum sat me down and said: ‘Right, well, if you’re going to play cricket, do it properly. That means you’ve got to knuckle down and train and do everything you have to.’

Just before the end of my academic career I received news that I had been selected for the England Under-17s, to play three Tests against South Africa in July and August, and, only a few days after I left school, aged 16 and a half, dad received a hand-written letter from the Somerset secretary Peter Anderson, confirming that they wanted me to join them, as of 17 August, on a contract that would see me through until 1994.

‘The salary level is in line with that of other junior players,’ he wrote.

‘There is a minimum wage agreement but that does not come into force until a player has two years’ service. I think that with accommodation paid for plus allowances on match days, it is not too bad for youngsters. However, should you wish to discuss this or any other matter, please give me a ring.

‘We are very happy that Marcus wishes to join us. He will have a lot to do and learn, of course, but at least he now has a chance to realize his ambition.’

I can’t actually remember how much they offered me to start off with. I’ve got a vague recollection of £100 per week plus accommodation. Then £3,000 for 1993 and £3,300 for ’94. It sounded and felt like a king’s ransom.

In any case, I would have paid them.

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