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RIP Dickie Bird


Lord Potts said:
I always loved his story about his famous white cap getting nicked at the Oval when jubilant West Indies supporters ran on to pitch at the end of their victory in a Test. A couple of years later he was traveling through London by bus when he noticed the conductor - a big West Indian guy - was wearing a white flat cap rather than the official London Transport uniform flat cap.

Dickie admired the cap and the conductor proudly told him that it used to be Dickie Bird's but he had pinched it from the umpire's head at the end of a Test a couple of years before and that he had worn it with pride each day at work ever since .

I don't think that Dickie asked for it back.

RIP Dickie
A great Umpire and by all accounts not a bad county cricketer in his day.
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Decent for yorkshire and about 1000 runs on his first season at Leicestershire. A knackered knee put paid to his career though
 
Aw man, the bloke was a legend.
One of my earliest cricket memories was him cutting Gavaskar's hair in the middle of a Test match.
Sad news.
 
A few years ago a friend bought me a ticket for his one man show as a Christmas present. he was very amusing and after the show he was happy to stand around in the foyer chatting to the customers
 
Aidan11 said:
I remember on Durham's first season as a FC county, he was umpiring in our 2nd XI match at Seaton Carew and he took the players off the field because it was freezing and he was too cold. :)
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The first class umpires always take 2nds games fairly lightheartedly. Back in my umpiring days, Gloucester 2nds game were taken by one 1st class and one local umpire. One of them told me about his first 2nds game, where he was standing with Shep. The players gave him a torrid first 20 minutes or so, appealing for anything. At that point. Shep stepped in and said "Right lads, you've tried him out - now stop playing silly buggers". Normal game thereafter.
 
RIP Dickie, remember the story he told about the '81 Manchester test (IIRC) when Briers asked him "what did he reckon, Dickie". "I reckon you've 'ad it skip!"... Brierley said "Nah, I'll bring the big gorilla on at the other end (Botham 🤣 ) and he'll win it"
 
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