Geoff Boycott: A Cricketing Hero

Geoff Boycott: A Cricketing Hero
Leo McKinstry

Few modern British sportsmen have fascinated the public more than Geoff Boycott. In this first comprehensive and balanced account of Boycott’s life – fully updated to include his battle against cancer – award-winning author Leo McKinstry lifts the lid on one of cricket’s great enigmatic characters.A record-breaking Test cricketer and acerbic commentator, Geoff Boycott has never been far away from controversy during his long career in the game.Based on meticulous research and interviews with a host of players, Test captains, officials, broadcasters, friends and enemies, this definitive biography cuts through the Boycott myth to expose the truth about this charismatic, single-minded and often exasperating personality.What was Boycott like as a schoolboy? How did his England cricket colleagues such as Graham Gooch, Dennis Amiss and Brian Close feel about him as a person? Why was he so unpopular in his early career for Yorkshire? And what is the real truth about the relationships that soured his private world?From his upbringing as a miner’s son in a Yorkshire village, through highlights like his hundredth century at Headingley against Australia, to the low points such as the damaging court case in France, this warts-and-all account of his life makes for captivating reading.

Geoff Boycott

A Cricketing Hero

Leo McKinstry

This book is dedicated to David Robertson, another great Yorkshireman

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u63ff1d87-1140-52fe-96cb-4d195d8ee452)

Title Page (#uc77e2708-7050-5fb1-9d2d-896ab811564b)

Preface and Acknowledgements (#uf1a86def-91e6-5e42-9cbe-6ecee27e5327)

1 A Contradictory Personality (#u1ff20035-a57f-57b7-9d37-8444b4c385bf)

2 ‘A Very Quiet Boy’ (#ud6f6e0b7-b3d0-5147-baa8-8b4d42c24faf)

3 ‘Dedicated Absolutely to Cricket’ (#u3f55a101-cfd3-5f1b-ad0a-f661168f16c0)

4 A Late Developer (#u4ca96764-4199-5131-b906-4cbb1c5de021)

5 Proving Them All Wrong (#u3a816d08-1842-5512-abc6-c77e68f68613)

6 An Ideal Temperament (#u7d81df73-8d16-5556-8e1b-8e3e0608657b)

7 ‘Why the Hell Didn’t He Do That Before?’ (#u332181d0-4a37-59ed-b0d8-0e3ff85772a8)

8 ‘A Great Score, in Anyone’s Language’ (#u4f5e4380-15f8-555e-9300-73f844baa8ae)

9 ‘So That’s What You’ve Been Up To’ (#u098bae17-6e63-5ab3-a5e9-c1c4ab2751a3)

10 Disciple of Hobbs (#litres_trial_promo)

11 Master of His Own Destiny (#litres_trial_promo)

12 A Question of Captaincy (#litres_trial_promo)

13 ‘The Worst Win for English Cricket’ (#litres_trial_promo)

14 ‘I Just Want to Play for Yorkshire’ (#litres_trial_promo)

15 Achieving the Impossible Dream (#litres_trial_promo)

16 ‘Go and Run the Bugger Out’ (#litres_trial_promo)

17 The Worst Months of My Life’ (#litres_trial_promo)

18 Return of the Master (#litres_trial_promo)

19 Constructing the Image (#litres_trial_promo)

20 ‘Look, Ma, Top of the World’ (#litres_trial_promo)

21 Boycottshire (#litres_trial_promo)

22 The End of an Era (#litres_trial_promo)

23 A New Beginning (#litres_trial_promo)

24 ‘Just a Dad’ (#litres_trial_promo)

25 Before the Fall (#litres_trial_promo)

26 En Grasse (#litres_trial_promo)

27 To Hell and Back (#litres_trial_promo)

Statistical Appendix (#litres_trial_promo)

Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Praise (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Leo McKinstry (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Preface and Acknowledgements (#ulink_43b15a5e-6dee-5a75-ad56-3d33c02e2fec)

Geoffrey Boycott has been a presence in my life since I first fell in love with cricket as a Belfast schoolboy in the early seventies. For me, his appeal lies in the way he embodies a heroic ideal. His struggles to overcome the social disadvantages of his background, the limitations in his natural talent and the contradictions in his own nature are almost epic. He set himself a goal, to become one of the greatest batsmen in the world, and in the face of numerous obstacles – many of his own making – he ultimately achieved it. His story is, rightly, the stuff of legends.

Like most heroic tales, however, accounts of his life have always varied in the telling. It has therefore been my aim to look beyond much of the mythology that surrounds Boycott and build a more balanced and realistic portrait. Using extensive research and interviews with Boycott’s colleagues, friends and family, I tried to provide a deeper understanding of this flawed but compelling sporting personality. In particular, I have sought to place Boycott in a wider context than just that of Yorkshire cricket, the subject that dominated the two previous – and partisan – biographies of Boycott, one (the pro-Boycott version) by Yorkshire Evening Post journalist John Callaghan, published in 1982, and the other (the anti-Boycott version) written by the late Don Mosey, published in 1985. ‘Only a Yorkshireman can properly comprehend the character and characteristics which have given the Boycott story its unique place in the history of English cricket,’ Mosey wrote. If that were true, then I, as an Ulsterman living in Essex, have laboured in vain. Yet I believe that this robust view has been part of the problem of interpreting the Boycott phenomenon. By focusing narrowly on Yorkshire, such an approach ignores the truth that Boycott has always been much more than a Yorkshire cricketer. He has also been one of the all-time greats of Test cricket, an England captain, a brilliant coach, a widely read columnist, an iconic broadcaster, and an international celebrity.

Despite my admiration for Boycott, this is not, in any sense, an authorized biography. Boycott politely refused my requests for an interview, though I must record my thanks to him for his assistance in checking facts and in expediting interviews with several of his friends. In the foreword to his 1985 book, Don Mosey wrote of a ‘conspiracy of silence’ from Boycott’s supporters. I am grateful to say that I encountered no such difficulty.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to all those many first-class and Test cricketers who generously gave me the benefit of their views: Dennis Amiss, Geoff Arnold, Mike Atherton, Bill Athey, Chris Balderstone, Jack Bannister, Bob Barber, Jack Birkenshaw, ‘Dickie’ Bird, Chris Broad, David Brown, Alan Butcher, Rodney Cass, Brian Close, Howard Cooper, Colin Cowdrey, Andrew Dalton, Mike Denness, Ted Dexter, Keith Fletcher, Norman Gifford, Graham Gooch, David Gower, Tony Greig, Tom Graveney, Frank Hayes, Simon Hughes, Robin Jackman, Paul Jarvis, Peter Kippax, John Lever, Peter Lever, Tony Lewis, David Lloyd, Brian Luckhurst, Richard Lumb, Mark Nicholas, Jim Parks, Pat Pocock, Graham Roope, Kevin Sharp, Mike Smedley, M.J.K. Smith, Robin Smith, Don Shepherd, Ken Taylor, Bernie Thomas, Derek Underwood, Peter Willey, Don Wilson.