Geoffrey Boycott – Him from the Other Side
Contrary to popular belief, me and Geoffrey get along together OK. Yes, we have had some run-ins over the years, but we get on just fine. You don’t spend decades in the game without having some seriously heated differences, stand-up rows, call ’em what you want. We have had many a spat – being two of a kind, I guess – then shaken hands and agreed to let it pass. He is, and always has been, a forthright so-and-so, and that is why he polarises opinion. People either love him or hate him: there is no middle ground. He is his own man, as everyone can tell, and quite individual in what he does, stirring up debate and clinging to one or two hobbyhorses. One thing that I have never told him is that my missus, who is cricket daft, is one of those on the love side. She thinks he is absolutely brilliant on radio, listens avidly when he is on air, and I’ve lost count of the number of times when she has recounted a period of commentary when he is ‘on one’ alongside Aggers. I haven’t plucked up the courage to ask: ‘Do you think he’s better than me?’ I don’t think I could bear the answer. He’s told me enough times himself over the years.
Diana’s fondness for Boycs is not the first affection she has felt for an England opener, of course. Discounting my own international career, my wife also recently revealed an unrequited romantic involvement with another of our surname more than thirty years earlier. To my astonishment, nay amusement, it was Andy Lloyd, known affectionately to me and many others around the English cricket circuit as Towser. Now Towser, it transpires, penned sonnets during the late 1970s expressing his affection for my good lady. However, despite them being retained as evidence by the said Mrs Lloyd, Towser denied being their composer when I quizzed him thoroughly on the subject, but freely admitted to calling her with advice to back Sea Pigeon in the 1979 Ebor.
Geoffrey and I don’t spend a great deal of time together, because he is usually on air when I am, but I have often been on the wrong side of his tongue. Now Fiery has always enjoyed a gag at others’ expense, and to his credit he is good at coming up with a punchline to emphasise his magnificence in comparison to your own measly existence. During our playing days, I remember chatting to him at the end of a game and asking whether he had been getting any runs. It was a question that got the customary raised eyebrow and curl of the lip. ‘I always score runs,’ he rapped. ‘But I did have a bit of a rough time down at The Oval last week. That Geoff Arnold, with his fast-medium outswingers, bowls off stump, gets you playing at things you shouldn’t be playing at. I thought I had it all worked out – played it when I should play it, left it when it was right to leave – when he produced a jaffa. He went wider on the crease, angled the ball into me, it pitched on off stump and straightened, squared me up a bit and just as I went to leave it I got a thin edge and was caught behind.’ There was a pregnant pause, and then it came. ‘Of course, an ordinary player like you wouldn’t have touched it.’
Another time, I got a phone call out of the blue from him. ‘I’ve booked you and me to play in a pair at a golf day in Blackpool,’ he began, barely pausing to introduce himself. ‘We’ll do well, I know it, but make sure you get some practice in first, I don’t want you turning up cold.’ He might have hung up had I not interjected: ‘When is it?’ As it happened, I was not available on the date in question. ‘I can’t do that, Boycs, I am going fishing that week,’ I told him, after checking my diary. ‘What do you mean, going fishing?’ he asked. ‘Well, I’m booked to go away on a fishing trip,’ I explained. Very abruptly he finished the conversation. ‘That were always your problem – fishing outside the off stump. That’s why you never got any.’ With that he put the phone down.
You could quite easily get a call from Geoffrey having not spoken to him for twelve months, so there was nothing much unusual in that. There was never any ‘How are you? How’s the wife? How are the kids? Have you been on holiday?’ You just got your orders, straight to the point. ‘Y’ know who this is, and y’ll be speakin’ at ma benefit dinner in Crewe,’ Geoffrey instructed me on one occasion. ‘I’ve put ye down.’ ‘Oh, hello, Geoffrey,’ I said. ‘I don’t think Crewe is in Yorkshire. Certainly wasn’t the last time I checked.’ ‘Well, it is for this f—–in’ night, so get yourself down there.’ So what do you do? You go. After all, you have received the royal command.
There were 427 people attending this do: it was dead simple to work out because there were 42 tables of 10, plus a top table of seven. I viewed the room and thought to myself what an earner he must be on. It would have been one cracking night for his benefit year. He had a good margin on the ticket, there was a raffle, an auction and sponsors all over the show. I was daydreaming about how much lucre might be in it for him when the club chairman stood up and said: ‘I’m pleased to introduce our first speaker of the night, a Lancashire and England cricketer, David Lloyd.’
I got up, did my bit, and things went well – laughter filling the air usually being a decent sign on these occasions – so I thought I had done OK as I sat down. At which point, the chairman was back on his feet saying, ‘And now the moment is here, the man you have all been waiting for.’ Up gets Fiery, who somehow failed to mention the sponsors at the front, or any of the fundraising features of the evening. He didn’t even say to the other 426 folk in the room, ‘Thanks for coming.’ The only thing he said before his arse hit the seat again was: ‘The previous speaker was introduced as a Lancashire and England cricketer. Everybody in this room knows he wouldn’t have played for England if I hadn’t been injured.’ Thank you and good night.
It is true that I made my international début in 1974 as Boycott’s replacement after he withdrew, partly due to lack of form, and partly due to his relationship breakdown with then England captain Mike Denness. I had been on the periphery of selection for a couple of years, and Boycs had not helped my cause when, during the 1973 trial match at Hove (a traditional contest involving all candidates for the forthcoming Test campaign), he ran me out in the second innings before I had faced a ball. I had gone out second time around desperate to compensate for a woeful first effort that had resulted in my dismissal, lbw for nought. So, whether he was injured, out of form or out of favour, Fiery’s absence undoubtedly offered me my chance, but he had arguably been involved in its delay as well.
You have to get used to his very distinctive ways, that’s for sure, and I got myself acquainted with them during our time working alongside each other for British Satellite Broadcasting. I was his lackey at that time, or it certainly felt that way, driving him around the country. Whenever a game was on his side of the Pennines, he would tell me, ‘You can pick me up and drop me back, see you at x o’clock.’ Now I have never been the best navigator of a route, so would often veer off track while he dozed in the passenger seat. Stop for petrol and he would awake with a judder, berating you for not filling up before you set off. ‘Preparation, attention to detail, it’s just like batting, you have to plan ahead,’ he would blather on. ‘Come to think of it, you never did any of that. That’s why you never scored any runs.’
In the early days of Sky commentary, Geoffrey was on with Charlie Colvile, whose enthusiasm during his stints in the box often spilt over. Whenever a wicket fell or a ball disappeared into the stands, Charlie would crank up the volume. He went absolutely potty with excitement every single time, something which his Yorkshire co-commentator was all too aware of from having tuned in at home. This was one of their first times together, and the pair were still getting to know each other – Charlie sounding out Boycott with various questions – when a wicket fell. ‘GOT HIM – GREAT DELIVERY – WELL BOWLED – GEOFFREY!’ That was the cue for Boycs to summarise what had been witnessed with some expert analysis. But that was not forthcoming. Instead, Fiery, live on air, rasped: ‘Don’t do that, I have heard it all before and so has my cat George. Every time you shout like that he runs up the chimney and it takes days to lure him down again!’
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