Harold Dennis "Dickie" Bird, (born 19 April 1933), is an English retired international cricket umpire. During his long umpiring career, he became a much-loved figure among players and viewing public, due to his excellence as an umpire, but also his many eccentricities.
Bird played first-class cricket for Yorkshire and Leicestershire as a right-handed batsman, but only scored two centuries in 93 appearances. His career was blighted by a knee injury, which eventually caused him to retire aged 31. He umpired in 66 Test matches (at the time a world record) and 69 One Day Internationals including 3 World Cup Finals.
In February 2014, Yorkshire announced that Bird was to be voted in as the club's president at their Annual General Meeting on 29 March.
Bird's autobiography, published in 1997, has sold more than a million copies.
Early life
Harold Dennis Bird was born at Church Lane, Barnsley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on Wednesday, 19 April 1933, but when he was two years old, he moved with his family to New Lodge estate as his house was pulled down in a slum clearance scheme. The son of a coal miner, he gained the nickname 'Dickie' at school. In 1944, Bird failed his 11-plus examination and went to Raley Secondary Modern School, leaving at the age of 15. For a while, he worked at a coal mine, but gave it up, deciding it was not for him. Instead, he set out for a career in sport.
Playing career
When a knee injury put paid to playing football professionally, he followed his second love, cricket. In his early career in Barnsley, he played club cricket in the same team as journalist and chat show host Michael Parkinson, who became a lifelong friend; they were later joined in the team by Geoffrey Boycott. In 1956, Bird signed up with his home county, Yorkshire. Boycott has spoken highly of Bird's ability as a batsman, but feels that his attempt to forge a career as a county cricketer was hampered by his inability to control his nerves – although he was also not helped by stiff competition for the opening batsman's position. Indeed, after scoring his first (and only) County Championship century of 181* in a 1959 match against Glamorgan at Bradford, in the absence of the regular opener Ken Taylor (who was playing for England), he was dropped when Taylor returned from international duty in the next match. Bird played only five more championship matches that season (plus the MCC versus Champion County match), four in the middle order rather than his preferred opener's position, and spent most of the season as "twelfth man": hardly a situation conducive to building confidence in his batting. Shortly before the start of the 1960 season he moved to Leicestershire, where at first he enjoyed a more or less regular place in the team. In his first season (1960), he scored over 1,000 runs, including a century against the touring South Africans which would prove to be his only other first-class century. However, he faded out of the team, thanks to a combination of loss of form, confidence and a recurrence of his persistent knee injury, playing his last match in 1964. Overall, between 1956 and 1964, Bird played first-class cricket as a batsman for Yorkshire and Leicestershire in 93 matches, mostly in the County Championship.
After his county career ended Bird was a cricket professional for Paignton between 1965 and 1969, scoring over 10,000 runs. He coached cricket at Plymouth College between 1966 and 1968, and coached in Johannesburg in 1968 and 1969.