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I spent loads of time with Dickie Chook, one of many sport’s nice characters, and in all these years I by no means as soon as heard him swear.
That wasn’t simply because he was a person with no vices, although he’d sometimes deal with himself to a glass of wine.
It’s as a result of he received on so properly with everybody that there was no must get indignant.
It was a special period, in fact, and the umpire’s phrase was all the time closing. Even when he was mistaken, he was proper, and the gamers accepted that.
There have been a handful of gamers who didn’t stroll within the county sport again then, and Geoff Boycott instructed us lately that the one time he walked was when the umpire gave him out.
However Dickie commanded this respect as a result of he simply had a beautiful means with the gamers – he had this dialogue going with them, a means of chatting that just about made them overlook they had been taking part in cricket. That was the type in these days, and he was a previous grasp.
I spent the day with Dickie Chook at Headingley in 2023 for an article within the Day by day Mail – he was one of many sport’s nice characters
Dickie died on Tuesday on the age of 92 – and the vary of tributes which have poured in are a mirrored image of simply how cherished he was
Dickie dabs away a tear at Lord’s in 1996 after strolling out by means of a guard of honour for his closing Check match
Have a look at the tributes which have come his means since his loss of life on the age of 92 from the likes of Dennis Lillee and Merv Hughes – larrikin Australian quick bowlers who had been putty in his fingers.
Dickie did issues his means, it’s honest to say. We used to do these cricket evenings collectively the place we’d speak to golf equipment, primarily within the northern leagues.
Generally we’d do two or three per week, and the menu was all the time roast beef, potatoes and a few veg.
Now Dickie was a bachelor and all the time lived alone, so each time we had one in every of these evenings, he’d pop his head into the kitchen and say: ‘That beef had been pretty. Do you thoughts if I take an additional slice for my dinner tomorrow?’
In fact they’d all the time say sure, and wrap up the meat in a serviette, which he’d shove in his jacket pocket. After some time, you grew used to the scent of that jacket…
I umpired with him too, and we’d sometimes do the coed video games on the Parks in Oxford. Dickie would say to me: ‘Go straightforward on these boys: they’re learning for his or her exams. I don’t like to provide them out lbw. Allow them to have a sport.’
Proper you might be, Dickie, I stated.
He was additionally pleasant with the Lancashire spinner Jack Simmons, and in these days we had been all seeking to save on our bills, so Dickie would stick with Jack throughout video games in Nice Harwood, about an hour’s drive from Outdated Trafford.
Sharing a joke about his lengthy socks with Princess Diana in 1989
Dickie did issues his means, it’s honest to say – he’d by no means put up with any intimidation ways
His idiosyncrasies made him nice and he was one in every of a form. RIP, Dickie
Think about the chat around the breakfast desk if Dickie had given Jack out the day earlier than! It simply wouldn’t occur now.
Not that he received many mistaken. He stated he didn’t like DRS, however I believe his man-management abilities would have gotten him out of among the scrapes.
I hear tales now about groups writing on the dressing-room whiteboard: ‘Get into the umpires.’ He’d have nipped that within the bud with a joke or a smile.
I can nonetheless see him standing behind the stumps, ready for the bowler to run in, rolling up his sleeves and pulling his trousers up – an idiosyncrasy that was very Dickie. He was one in every of a form.
