Cricket stars gather to mourn revered umpire Dickie Bird

Local TV Sport

Stars from the world of cricket gathered at St. Mary’s Church in Barnsley, at the funeral of famous umpire Dickie Bird, who passed away at the age of 92 in September.

Transcript

00:00Famous cricket umpire Dickie Bird passed away at the age of 92 on the 22nd of September with his

00:10funeral taking place at St Mary's Church in his hometown of Barnsley. In attendance were many

00:16guests from the world of cricket and in particular from Yorkshire County Cricket Club where Bird was

00:22revered for much of his time in the game. Injuries had prevented promising careers in football and

00:29then cricket for Bird when he was younger before he went on to be one of the best known cricket

00:36umpires in the world. He was known for his high standards in the game of cricket but also for his

00:43sense of humour and being able to talk to anyone who wanted to chat to him. Two famous former cricketers

00:51for both Yorkshire and England Michael Vaughan and Sir Geoffrey Boycott were on hand to offer their

00:57thoughts following Bird's passing last month with Vaughan praising Bird's character and personality.

01:08Just such a great character um you know you could argue he was married to cricket married to Yorkshire

01:13cricket uh his home was headingly uh so he's going to be greatly missed. Yeah we did even he was such a

01:19i mean i remember as a young player just uh having times of difficulty not scoring too many runs i might

01:25get 10 or a 12 and he saw you're playing great he'd always tell you that you were playing great so he

01:30had a positive uh kind of influence on everybody and obviously that little seat that he has at

01:35headingly uh it's going to be void but we'll give him a great standoff today. Sport there's bound to be

01:40lots of pressurized moments lots of stress players don't get the wrong way do they you know i'm batting i don't

01:49want to be given out bowlers want you to be giving them out so there's a lot of emotion and passion and

01:55you want somebody to fool it stay calm take the sting out of it not taking people's names and

02:04you know reporting them or bad language there's no women or children there it's just guys having sport

02:1210 situations it was brilliant i think he didn't know it was that's the great thing he didn't know

02:20he's gonna be a great umpire because he'd been an average candidate because of his nerve

02:25he became a great umpire great with people sorry i was all right until the coffin passed me

02:33bird's coffin was then brought into the church as the many in attendance watched on

02:53so

03:03bird's eulogy was then read out by colin graves chair of yorkshire county cricket club

03:28a true legend around the world as we've already heard it's an honor today for me to deliver this

03:34eulogy on behalf of the club and its members as we all respect it and are now from stewards

03:42office staff players and ground staff if he was one of the family he was a part of the club's father

03:51and he will be missed greatly by everyone in the club but it will never be forgotten

03:56and he was always the same from royalties to politicians to superstars to everyone in

04:11the world as a market if he was a national and your treasure what you saw is what you got he was warm

04:21very emotional with a sense of union maintaining his charlest right up to his passing as an

04:30international empire he was revered and respected around the world

04:43uh

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended