Geoffrey Boycott
Sir Geoffrey Boycott is a former Test cricketer, who played cricket for Yorkshire and England. In a prolific and sometimes controversial playing career from 1962 to 1986, Boycott established himself as one of England's most successful opening batsmen. He was a part of the English squad which finished as runners-up at the 1979 Cricket World Cup.
Boycott made his international debut in a 1964 test match against Australia. He was known for his ability to occupy the crease and became a key feature of England's Test batting line-up for many years, although he was less successful in his limited One Day International appearances. He accumulated large scores – he is the equal fifth-highest accumulator of first-class centuries in history, eighth in career runs and the first English player to average over 100 in a season – but often encountered friction with his teammates.
He was never highly popular among his peers, and journalist Ian Wooldridge commented of him that "Boycott, in short, walks alone", while cricket writer John Arlott wrote that Boycott had a "lonely" career. Others have said that the extent of his introverted nature has been exaggerated, and that while he was obsessed with his own success he was not by nature a selfish player. After 108 Test match appearances for England, Boycott's international career ended in 1982 when he was the leading Test run scorer with more than 8,000 Test match runs, earning him an OBE for services to cricket. When dropped from the Yorkshire team in 1986 he was the leading run scorer in first-class cricket. In 1965, while still a young player, he had been named as one of five Cricketers of the Year by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, and he was inducted into the International Cricket Council's Hall of Fame in 2009.
After his playing career had ended Boycott became an often-outspoken and controversial cricket commentator on radio and television, never slow to criticise modern players' techniques. In 1998, he was convicted in France of assaulting his former girlfriend Margaret Moore; he was fined and given a suspended sentence. In 2002, after being diagnosed with throat cancer, he underwent successful radiation treatment, and went into remission. He revived his commentating career in 2003, attracting both criticism and praise. He is a former member of BBC Radio 4 Test Match Special commentary team and retired in 2020.
Early life
Geoffrey Boycott was born in the mining village of Fitzwilliam, near Wakefield and Pontefract, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, at 11 am on Monday 21 October 1940. He was the eldest of three sons of Jane and Thomas Wilfred Boycott, a colliery worker from Little Dawley, Shropshire.When Boycott was eight years old he was impaled through his chest by the handle of a mangle after falling off an iron railing near his home. Boycott nearly died, and in the efforts to save his life his spleen was removed. On 2 March 1950, Boycott's father had a serious accident while working as a coalminer, suffering severe damage to his spine by being hit by empty coal carts: he never fully recovered, and died in 1967.
Boycott began to play cricket at an early age in Fitzwilliam's terraced streets, using a manhole for the wicket. He later claimed that it was at this time that he developed his favourite shots: the square cut, the clip to leg and the straight drive, "because if you hit it straight past the bowler it went right to the bottom of the street, and you could run as many runs as you could get."
He attended Fitzwilliam Primary School, at which he won a Len Hutton batting award for scoring 45 runs and capturing six wickets for 10 runs in a school match. At age 10 he joined Ackworth Cricket Club, demonstrating "outstanding ability". At the age of 11 he failed the examinations that would have taken him to grammar school, so instead went to the local Kinsley Secondary Modern School. A year later, however, he passed his late-entry exams and transferred to Hemsworth Grammar School. His cricket prowess was such that he captained the school's cricket First XI at the age of 15. During winters he attended an indoor cricket school, where he was coached by former county professional Johnny Lawrence.
While studying for his O-levels, he began to have difficulty reading the blackboard and was initially devastated when told he would need glasses. At first his cricket playing suffered, encumbered by the fragile spectacles. However matters improved when a more robust pair, similar to those glasses worn by cricketer Roy Marshall, were fashioned for him at the behest of his maternal uncle, Albert Speight. Albert would go on to be a strong influence on Boycott's early cricketing game while playing for Brierley Juniors Football Club. In 1958 Boycott left school with seven O-level passes and the school's Individual Cricket Cup. That summer he played for the Leeds United under-18 football team alongside Billy Bremner and attracted the attention of Leeds United scouts. During the winter he continued to play nets with uncle Lawrence.
Boycott told the BBC in 1965 that he chose to leave school at 17 because he no longer wished to be a financial strain on his parents, and because he wanted to pursue his cricketing career. He worked as a clerk in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in Barnsley from 1958 to 1963, at the same time playing for a number of cricket clubs. Boycott captained the South Elmsall district team and achieved a batting average of 70. He also played for the Yorkshire Federation's Under-18 team and for Barnsley, where he was noticed by Clifford Hesketh, a member of Yorkshire's County Cricket team committee.
County career
Boycott began playing for his home county in 1962 after topping the averages for Leeds, Yorkshire Colts and Yorkshire Second XI. In 414 matches for Yorkshire he scored 32,570 runs at an average of 57.85, with a highest score of 260 not out against Essex, and 103 centuries in all. He scored another 8,699 runs in List A cricket, averaging 40.08. Boycott twice averaged over 100 in an English first-class season: 100.12 in 1971, and 102.53 in 1979. He is one of only two players to have achieved this, Mark Ramprakash being the other. Boycott was appointed captain of Yorkshire in 1971, but was sacked in 1978 after failing to win a trophy while in charge. He was then dismissed as a player, but reinstated after a members' revolt. During his career Boycott frequently clashed with other strong personalities at the club, including Fred Trueman, Brian Close and Ray Illingworth, but remained popular with the Yorkshire crowds.First years
Before he played in first-class cricket, Boycott played for the successful Barnsley Cricket Club, making his debut in 1959 and becoming a regular team member that year alongside Dickie Bird and Michael Parkinson. In one match against Scarborough, Boycott faced a delivery from Bill Foord which he dispatched to the boundary for four. Foord turned to Parkinson and asked: "Christ almighty, what's this lad's name?" Bird remembered his "application, concentration and absolute belief in himself. He had one great gift, mental strength. You can have all the coaching in the world but the most important thing is to be mentally strong." Although Bird later left Boycott out of his choice XI, he would write: "of all the great players I have seen, if I had to pick a batsman to bat for my life, I would go for Geoffrey." He made his Yorkshire Second XI debut on 6 July 1959 against Cumberland at Penrith, scoring five and 15.Boycott made his Yorkshire first-team debut on 16 June 1962 against the Pakistan touring team. He opened the batting, scoring four in both innings – the first from a boundary off of his first ball in first-class cricket – and taking one catch, but he did not bowl. He went on to play his first County Championship match the next day, on 20 June, against Northamptonshire. Batting at number four, he scored six and 21*.
Early in his career, Boycott continued to play in his spectacles, and later switched to contact lenses. He feared his career would have ended had he not used such aids as his eyesight was poor. Boycott's initial appearances for Yorkshire failed to impress, and he was compared unfavourably to his main rival, John Hampshire. When Brian Close took over from Vic Wilson as captain of Yorkshire in 1963 he persuaded the committee to keep Boycott on, and was rewarded when, on 2 June 1963, Boycott scored 145 against Lancashire. His century was also part of a 249-run fourth-wicket partnership which became a Yorkshire record. Boycott cemented his place in the Yorkshire XI in the 1963 season with successive scores of 76, 53, 49 not out and 50, and on 29 August made a century partnership in both innings of a match against Leicestershire with Ken Taylor. Boycott handed in his notice to the Ministry of Pensions that same year. After a brief loss of form he kept his place with scores of 62, 28 and 113 in the following matches. This second century again came against Lancashire, making Boycott the first Yorkshire cricketer to score his first two centuries in a Roses match, as the hotly contested Yorkshire versus Lancashire matches were termed.
Boycott went on to hit his highest score thus far, 165 not out, against Leicestershire, and ended his first full season with 1,446 runs at an average of 46.64, placing him second in the 1963 national batting averages. He was awarded his county cap on 2 October. At the start of the 1964 season Boycott hit 151 against Middlesex, followed by another hundred against Lancashire in May, and then played for the Marylebone Cricket Club against the Australian touring side at Lord's, where he scored 63. On 16 May he completed a third consecutive century, and on 31 May he was called up for the First Test against Australia at Trent Bridge. By the end of the 1964 season, Boycott had topped the country's domestic averages with 59.45.
Although he later became renowned for his ability to occupy the crease for hours of defensive play, he was capable of playing attacking cricket. His highest one day score, a match-winning 146, came in the 1965 Gillette Cup final against Surrey. In his previous Gillette Cup match, the quarter-final against Somerset, Boycott took 32 overs to accumulate 23 runs.
According to the captain, Close, at Lord's after Yorkshire had slowly reached 22/1, Close promoted himself to number three in the batting order so that he could urge Boycott into action. "I joined Geoffrey in the middle and said to him: 'Listen, if I call, you bloody well run.' " Boycott later claimed this plan had been agreed on a fortnight previously, and denied such an incident ever occurring.
Boycott subsequently hit 15 fours and three sixes, even though the modern-day fielding restrictions, which facilitate rapid scoring, did not exist in 1965. One shot, a lofted straight drive off England paceman Geoff Arnold was nearly caught by Boycott's teammates on the players' balcony in the pavilion. Close and Boycott added 192 runs for the second wicket, as Yorkshire posted a then-record total of 317. Cricket writer John Woodcock wrote in The Times that "his magnificent innings contained every stroke in the book. "
In the 1966 season Boycott scored two centuries in one match for the first time, against Nottinghamshire on 18 July. Against Leicestershire on 15 June 1968 he carried his bat through an entire Yorkshire innings of 297 all out, remaining unbeaten on 114*. It was the first time he had been unbeaten at the end of an innings. He ended the season top of the national averages for the first time. On 27 July 1970 he scored 260*, his highest first-class score in England, against Essex. At the end of the season, Close was sacked by the club committee in what Boycott called in 1987 "one of the cruellest incidents in the history of sport." Boycott, on tour in Australia, was awarded the captaincy.