As a world-renowned and highly respected cricket umpire, Dickie Bird travelled the world in a high-flying career, but still lives in the Yorkshire mining village of Staincross where he was born on April 19th, 1933.
Christened Harold Dennis Bird, it was pals at Raley Secondary Modern School who nicknamed him “Dickie”, and the name stuck. Leaving school at 15, he followed in his father’s footsteps to work at the local coal mine, but soon decided it wasn’t for him, choosing instead to pursue his dream of a sporting career. Originally he hoped to play professional football, but when a knee injury put paid to that he followed his second love, cricket.
During his early career in Barnsley he played club cricket in the same team as a young Geoff Boycott and future journalist and chat show host Michael Parkinson, who would become a lifelong friend. Developing as a skilled batsman, Bird was signed by his home county, Yorkshire, in 1956 and showed early promise, notching up 181 as opening batsman in one County Championship match.
Stiff competition in a Yorkshire side blessed with talented batsmen meant he often played in the middle order or even as ‘12th man’ – the team’s first substitute fielder. He also suffered with match day nerves, which Boycott later claimed hampered Bird’s considerable ability as a batsman. After four seasons with Yorkshire, Bird moved to Leicestershire in 1960, scoring more than 1,000 runs in his first season there and enjoying a regular place in the team.
He stayed with the county side until 1964, when a combination of a loss of form, diminishing confidence and his recurrent knee injury forced an end to his eight-year playing career. After that he spent some time coaching and playing league cricket before finding his true vocation and qualifying as an umpire. Having gained considerable experience officiating in league cricket, he umpired his first county game in 1970.
The match day nerves which plagued his playing career seemed to have faded and he soon gained a reputation as a confident, decisive and, above all, fair umpire. Players respected him because of his own very creditable playing career, which gave him a strong insight for the game from the players’ perspective. In truth, his nerves were never far away, but he controlled them by making meticulous preparations for each match he umpired, his attention to detail being unrivalled.
He umpired his first Test Match in 1973, when England played New Zealand at Headingley, in Leeds. Two more Test Matches that summer – both against the West Indies – proved controversial. In the first, at Edgbaston, his fellow umpire refused to continue in protest at the conduct of some of the West Indian players, putting extra pressure on Bird who continued with a substitute umpire.
In the second, played at Lords, play was interrupted by an IRA bomb scare. Although it turned out to be a hoax, the crowd cleared the ground in record time while Bird and the players simply sat down in the middle of the pitch, knowing there was no bomb there. Bird handled both situations with a quiet, no-nonsense approach which would become his trademark.
He quickly gained a reputation for almost never giving batsmen out LBW, erring on the side of caution in the often-controversial decision. On the rare occasions when he did rule LBW, it left no doubt the batsman was out. He was also tough on ‘intimidatory bowling’, making it clear to bowlers who favoured the tactic that he knew all the tricks and would tolerate none of them.
In 1975, at the inaugural Cricket World Cup, the West Indies’ narrow victory sparked a pitch invasion in which several players and both umpires had items of clothing ‘souvenired’ by the crowd. A year later, Bird was riding on a bus in South London when he noticed the conductor was wearing a white flat cap of the type he favoured. When he asked the man where he got it, the conductor (who hadn’t recognised him, replied: “Man, haven't you heard of Mr Dickie Bird? This is one of his hats. I took it off his head at the World Cup final... we all ran onto the field and I won the race.”
At the end of a long and illustrious career which saw him travel the world, Dickie Bird umpired his final Test Match in 1996. He was reduced to tears when the players from both teams, England and India, formed a guard of honour as he entered the field to a standing ovation from the crowd. He had umpired 66 Test Matches (a record at that time) and 69 One Day Internationals, including three World Cup finals.
In retirement he wrote a bestselling autobiography and appeared regularly on TV and radio. He also set up the Dickie Bird Foundation to help disadvantaged under-18s achieve their potential in sport. As he reaches ‘85 not out’ today, we wish cricketing legend Dickie Bird a very happy birthday and many more to come.