Tributes from across the sporting and political landscape rolled in after the death of the cricket umpire Dickie Bird, at the age of 92. Bird, despite never having played a match for England, was, at his peak, instantly recognisable and transcended the game.
Bird stood in 66 Tests and 69 men’s one-day internationals, including three World Cup finals, and was much admired for his decision making, but it was the idiosyncratic way in which he officiated – with a grin, an obsession with incoming rain, and an eccentric flair – which made him such a fan and player favourite.
“He was a national treasure and I was fortunate to have shared some hugely enjoyable times with him over the years,” the former prime minister David Cameron wrote. “At 92 he had a good innings. Farewell friend.”
Bird always seemed to be stalked by incident and accident – once leading the players off at Old Trafford after bright sunlight stopped play and sitting on the covers at Lord’s alongside spectators while the police investigated a bomb threat in 1973. He also claimed to have bumped into a bus conductor who was wearing the hat stolen from his head during the 1975 World Cup final, one of a string of anecdotes that filled his many books – he sold more than a million copies of his autobiography.
Bird was born Harold in 1933, but nicknamed Dickie by a fellow pupil at Raley Secondary Modern, a name that stuck. He played cricket at Barnsley cricket club alongside lifelong friends Sir Michael Parkinson and Sir Geoffrey Boycott, who said in tribute that Bird was “loved by so many and became a legend”.
Boycott added: “Players all over the world respected and admired him for his firmness, fairness and he did it with a sense of humour.”
Bird went on to play first-class cricket for Yorkshire and Leicestershire, but it was as the man in the white umpire’s coat that he made his mark.
He was awarded an MBE for his services to cricket and later an OBE for his charity work, including with the Dickie Bird Foundation that he set up in 2004.
Bird never married or had children, and struck a chord with thousands of people during the pandemic when, wearing his Yorkshire CCC anorak, he did an interview with the BBC. Aged 88, and isolating for a year, he talked about his loneliness and his daily garden exercise regime. “It’s been a fight, and I can understand the elderly people sitting in their chair and can’t be bothered to get out, but my advice please get out, if you just walk around the block, get out of the house.”
He was made Yorkshire club president in 2014 and remained a huge supporter of the team, chatting away at the Scarborough festival this year. In tribute the club said he left behind “a legacy of sportsmanship, humility and joy and a legion of admirers across generations”.
Those admirers stretched across continents, too, with the former India spin-bowler Anil Kumble noting: “Cricket lost one of its brightest souls. Dickie Bird didn’t just umpire the game – he owned it with heart, wit and class.” The former Australian cricketer Merv Hughes said Dickie was “one of the best” umpires “and a great bloke as well”.
Only 10 days ago, Bird was at Oakwell supporting his boyhood club Barnsley FC against Reading. The club were due to hold a minute’s applause in his memory on Tuesday night.
He was given the freedom of the Borough of Barnsley in 2000, and sculptor, and friend, Graham Ibbeson was commissioned to make a statue of the town’s favourite son, which was unveiled in 2009. The statue was raised up on a plinth in 2012 after locals took to hanging the odd chip box from his raised index finger.
Perhaps the final word should go to the Yorkshire poet Ian McMillan, poet in residence at Barnsley FC, who wrote a poem in Bird’s memory, “loving and sentimental like Dickie was”.
It’s the final moment
Of the final day
And time finger’s raised
And there’s a tear in the eye
Cos past the floodlights
Flying high
There’s a lone bird soaring
In the Barnsley sky.