Dickie Bird: 'I was married to cricket'

Cricket's most famous and most lovable umpire talks about his new book, his stroke, and the one thing he missed a family

The sky in Leeds is slate grey and there's rain in the air. What better day to visit Headingley cricket ground to see Yorkshire wallop Northamptonshire (weather permitting) in the company of the home side's president, Dickie Bird, the much-loved former umpire who used to be in his neurotic, comically worrisome element on days like this?

"Morning, Mr President," chirp the handful of obsessives who have turned up for this chilly early-season match. One of them suppresses a grin as he says it. We bump into Brian McDermott, coach of the Leeds Rhinos rugby league club they play at the adjoining ground and Bird tells him he's president of Yorkshire this year. "They'll let anyone do it these days," says McDermott.

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