We love you, Dickie Bird

Brian Sanderson says a fond farewell

Ah, Dickie. The name itself evokes a kind of cricketing innocence, a pastoral decency. News of his death has cast a long shadow over the county of his birth. My own thoughts drift back to May 25, 1959, to Bradford Park Avenue, sunlit and expectant, when Yorkshire met Glamorgan, and a young Harold Dennis Bird, aged twenty-six, made his mark in capital letters.

Ken Taylor, Yorkshire’s usual opener, was away with the MCC, and so Dickie, summoned from the ranks, took his guard and batted as if his honour depended on it. Unbeaten on 48 not out overnight, he reached his fifty next morning with a gorgeous off-drive, but at 53 was dropped behind square leg. To this he responded—as if to thank the gods—with another boundary off Shepherd, his ninth of the innings.

From there he continued with the assurance of a man who had found his rhythm, moving swiftly past his previous first-class best of 62. Glamorgan’s bowlers, honest triers all, could not disturb his composure. He reached his hundred with the total at 232, and then, as if the milestone had unnerved him more than its approach, managed just three runs in the next forty minutes. A simple catch to mid-off was declined.

By the luncheon interval, he had inscribed 112 against his name, and Yorkshire held a lead of 135—an advantage as comfortable as the sunshine bathing the 5,000 spectators. He played after the break with the resolve of a man who knew his task was incomplete—and with the freedom of a man who knew he would complete it. When Yorkshire declared at 405 for eight, he was unbeaten on 181. In all, the innings spanned four hours and twenty minutes, with fifteen boundaries.

Then a cruel twist: The very newspapers which heralded his triumph had to announce his omission from the next match against Somerset. He recalled how it happened:

The chairman, Brian Sellers, walked into the dressing room as I was taking my pads off. He came up to me and said, “Well played, Birdy, that were a reight good knock. Tha’s certainly played well, there.” Then he paused. “But,” he went on, “we’ve decided to drop you. You’re in t’ second team for t’ next match.”

Dickie played just six more matches for Yorkshire before moving on to Leicestershire, and then to umpiring, where he became that familiar figure in white coat and hat, custodian of cricket’s conscience.

Over the last fifteen years I often met Dickie at the Wombwell Cricket Society, where he presided with the warmth of a village elder. His greatest joy was presenting the shield to the best net performer. In 2014, as Yorkshire President, he declared with characteristic humility, “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would become president of the greatest club in the world.” And we believed him, because he believed it.

On match days, unfailingly, he would drop into the Yorkshire Museum, where I work, and peer at his medals in their secure cases—not with vanity, but with the quiet pride of a man who had lived a life worth remembering. He was Yorkshire cricket incarnate. Wherever he went, someone would ask for a photo, a handshake, a moment. He never refused. There will be no second Dickie Bird. The mould is broken, and the game will be poorer for his absence. Lightly lie the turf upon him.