Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Halliday here. Another edition of Haller's playbook coming your way. And it just seems to go on and on, doesn't it? The, the drama in sport this year with South Africa crowned champions in the Rugby Championship.
The Women's Cricket World cup in session right now. Highly relevant to the guests we've got today.
We're still reflecting in the glory of the great win at the Ryder cup and plenty more to come.
So before I come on introduce our guest, I just want to say thank you to Mass Group Multi Asset Solutions covering foreign exchange gold. I mean who hasn't seen the way that the gold price is moving at the moment?
Big players in that marketplace also so in fund strategy and digital assets. So thank you to Mass for sponsoring this podcast and I'm going to want to introduce Graham Gooch to OBE to welcome Graham and before I sort of bring you in and just we get going, those of you who don't know and you should know, Graham is the all time highest run scorer in English cricket in world cricket and I don't know the exact number, I think it's 67,000 runs. But Graham might tell us exactly and I doubt that will ever be surpassed. He also, because it's all about resilience as my 8 year old son found out when he was out first ball the other day.
You can start from the bottom and Graham started his test career with a pair of big fat zeros. No doubt we'll talk through that but he also does a huge amount of work for the PCA and for his own foundation which we'll come on.
First of all, Graham, welcome and you're on the edge of the PCA awards dinner.
So very relevant to have a chat with you. But how's the summer been so far cricket wise from your angle, some with so much experience on the field and off the field as a former England cricket coach, how's it been do you think this summer?
[00:02:16] Speaker A: I think firstly it's a delight to be on your podcast and to be speaking to you about sport in general. But obviously cricket, it's been a great summer for English cricket.
One, I don't think we've had so many hours of sunshine that I can remember since 1976.
It was a fantastic summer for weather, for cricket.
England had a very tense England men that is had a very tense series against India which ended up as a two all with England last losing the last game at the oval when they probably should have won, they threw it away. They had the game in the palm of their hand. But there were. There was lots of intrigue, bit of needle in the game, bit of tension in some of the Test matches. Some words were exchanged on the field which you don't often see in cricket where the umpires had to interfere and stuff like that. But it was a fantastic summer for England.
As I said, they should have probably won three one and not drawn the series to all. But also it was great preparation for England to go from that series into the Ashes coming up. Because at the Ashes, cricket is the ultimate for an English or Australian cricketer. And, you know, the tough cricket played this summer in our English summer will hopefully stand the team in good stead for when they get to Australia and walk out of the optus Oval on November 21st.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: So picking up on that, I want you to look forward to the Ashes. We will take a trip down memory lane as well. But there was that slightly unusual. I'm not quite so certain the general public was aware as South Africa took on Australia for the title of World Cricketing Champions at Lords. That won by South Africa. Remarkable.
Bavumba, the captain has won all 10 of his Test matches, which is pretty remarkable. So we saw a good shot of the Australian side. Then just quickly, just what was the significance of that particular match and then what does Australia look like? You mentioned the Ashes. You know, England with it said a bas ball and sort of can't last five days and whatever. Give us an insight into what England can expect going to Australia.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Well, I think it was a great result for South Africa. I was at that game at Lords. They.
It was a tense game over the first few days, but South Africa ended up, you know, getting the runs to win and get over the line. It looked like it was going to be tight at one stage, but you've got to congratulate South Africa. The way they played.
They handled the pressure of having to knock off a score at the end. And I think it's great for Test cricket because it was a good game of cricket. Test cricket around the world is under pressure from the white ball game. The T20 competitions all over the world, which are no luster, has disappeared from that format. And test cricket around the world is, you know, feeling the pressure of that. If you look at South Africa, they're a country that don't play many test matches nowadays and to beat Australia in the final of the world Test champion was a great result for them.
I'd like to think that will give credence to some of the other test playing countries around the world, apart from England. Australia And India, you know, that they call them the big three. And that's mainly because of the finances in the game and a lot of the other smaller financial countries in terms of money they generate, really depend on sometimes on Indian television rights to survive. So hopefully that will, you know, increase the importance of test cricket because I like to think that format will dilute and disappear because, you know, someone of my generation, we were brought up on, you know, tense test matches over five days and that was really exciting and a real test of character. You know, as a cricketer, I have nothing against T20 cricket. I mean it's been super popular. It's given, you know, huge riches and finances to the players around the world, especially if you play in the IPL and every country in the world and some, some countries that don't, don't play cricket regularly, you know, have T20 competitions.
So I think we can all look back on the summer in England, as you know, in the men's team was a, as a great summer to promote the traditional form of the game.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: And obviously a lot of the, the best English batsman score runs at a very quick rate. Take Harry Brook for example. So if you're an Australian fast bowler, you're going to fancy your chances, aren't you, against these stroke playing Englishmen who smash the ball everywhere.
And you said the first test of the Optus Oval is going to be key. Will it be for the Australian fast bowlers to put a, a marker down to some of these English batsmen?
[00:07:38] Speaker A: I, I think, I think it's difficult to predict what's going to happen. I mean historically, England don't start that well in, in Ashes series, we've only won four times in 55 years.
70, 71, 78, 79, 86, 87 and 2010, 2011. They're the only four times that we've taken the Ashes in Australia.
In, in, in modern times, if you like.
Normally the first match is at the Gabba at Brisbane and I'm not quite sure why it's not there. It might be something to do with the, is it the Commonwealth Games or the Olympic Games or something like that is taking place there in the not too distant future.
So I don't think the Australian bowlers will be licking their lips, but they know England have a designated plan to attack. They go on the attack and they, they, you know, try and force the issue in the matches.
I'm not particularly happy with our preparation. Okay, we're having one match versus our own players, the England Lions. That's like the backup team that will be there as well.
I don't think that's adequate preparation for an ashy series because I think you need to embrace yourself in the Australian style of cricket. You know, hard nosed, competitive in your face type of cricket. I think you need games against the Stateside, two or three games and maybe Australia.
Last time we won in 2010, I was on the coaching staff of England. We beat the two stateside we played and we nearly beat Australia.
So if you just look at the British Lions, British and Irish Lions, who've just been to Australia, they had nearly a month's preparation before the first test match and it paid dividends for them. So I'm not happy. And I think they're taking a huge risk by only having one game against your own people as well, which I said I don't think that's adequate. Having said that, England player, certain style of cricket, I think it'd be the Australian bowlers against our batsman. If we can get enough runs, we'll be in the game. And when people ask me, how do you think Ashes ago, I think, as I said, the key will be the first game because if England can play well in the first game, either win or perform well so they go to the second match at Brisbane level, then I think that increases their chances of maybe winning the series no end. If they go down in the first game, I think it's going to be very, very difficult, but there'll be some good matchups.
Ben Duckett has done very well for England opening the bats, batting, but he's very aggressive. Play square of the wicket. Ball generally bounces a lot more in Australia, the Kookaburra ball early on. So that would be a challenge for him. And of course, the Australians will be not short at telling Joe Root that he's not scored 100 in Australia.
So you can expect from now, from the beginning of November up to the first day of the first Test, the only thing that will lead the sports news is Joe Root in whatever form, not scoring 100 in Australia. And it'd be quite key for England because he's the only one.
He's a class act in my opinion. He's got a chance of beating Tendulkar to the most Test runs ever if he plays for another two or three years.
But England play around him. He's their glue, he's their rock in the middle. And the expansive game they try to play will depend on him being a solid, you know, like anchor at one end. So there's a lot to play for.
I don't think the Australian batting lineup is as secure as it has been in previous years, that all their class bowlers are still there. There's a doubt about Pat Cummings, the captain, great leader, great bowler, being fit. I think I understand he's got a bit of a knee problem.
But you know that bowling attack has been together for a decade or more and they've been classed for that decade. So it's going to be a good matchup and we'll see.
England only know one way to play and that's to attack.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: Well, I think we're all looking forward to it and it, it'll round off the the year nicely. Before we go all the way back in into an era which were arguably some of the greatest ever cricketers, including yourself took part the. You mentioned the white ball game and it might be impacted some of the way England's men's batsmen are playing. But the women's World cup is ongoing. We've had the women have won the euros and the red roses won the World Cup. There's a huge amount of growth in women's sport and obviously the hundred and the franchise and that's all been caught up in it. So you've got the men in the women's game moving forward very fast. I mean to just talk about obviously the white ball game and that's providing huge growth for the women's game, isn't it? And so we've got to welcome that is where's the balance do you think in all of this because it's commercial but it's also staying true to some of the traditions too, isn't it?
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Well I think obviously the girls play very little test cricket in a series. If you take the ashes in the UK, the women's Ashes, there's one Test matches, I think there's other three T20s and three 50 overmatches matches that, that they don't play much long form cricket. So I think T20 as a professional game has been around since 2003 in our domestic game and then obviously it's spread around the world and now it's the, you know, if not the most popular format. I think the women are benefited by that hugely because the profile that that has given them as cricketers, the skills that they've got and the turned professional. Now we have a team at Essex and they have the new professional league there as, as well as their T20s in internationals.
You know the growth of women's cricket in the UK and I assume around the world has been such that all the T20 competitions have women's competitions, which is brilliant. And the opportun young girls to get into the game and earn a living at the game as well as well as coaching and just the profile in schools like my granddaughter's 15 plays a school, they play cricket there, the girls. And that mirrors itself across the UK I think is absolutely fantastic. And their standards and their commitment is improving all the time. You know, the standard of the fielding, the athleticism, the technique, every aspect of the game in the women's game is improving year on year.
I can't hear you now. You can hear me.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: Sorry, that was me.
It's. It's great, it's great to see that happen. And I think it also changes, of course the profile of the audience, doesn't it, that people come in for a full day, the back to back games, the families come along and it's much more of a demographic, isn't it? Which I guess is going to just feed the game long term into all the broadcast deals which there was a lot of traditional broadcasting back in your day. But the new world demands something more, doesn't it? And cricket seems to be moving with those times pretty quickly.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
You know, in Your sport, Simon, 84,000 people to watch the women's World cup final in rugby there the other week.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Phenomenal. Yeah.
And.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: And the skill levels and you know, the entertainment as I say is it's just growing, you know, all the time and, and that, that's great to see because creates so many spin offs for lots of other people.
Lots of other, you know, people, women to play the game. It just promotes the game all down the line, you know, with the families and everything. Because it's not just the males who play cricket or rugby now. It is both, you know, agendas. So just increases the number of people playing sports. So also increases the enjoyment because I'm sure you did when you started.
We all play these games for enjoyment initially.
Some of us are lucky and very privileged to go on and earn a bit of a living doing it and playing professionally. But we all play these games and love these games, you know, because we love sport 100%.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: And let's just look back a little bit.
I've always professed, even though I played many years international rugby, that the cricket was my passion. It just wasn't good enough. And that's just one of those things we did actually play against each other. You probably won't remember in a NatWest game when you didn't score that many runs. I didn't either. But certain Kenny McEwen scored 70 and you won with many, many overs to spare. But, you know, having a shot at the big time was. Was a great privilege for us. But you look back at your career and talking to someone who perhaps has an ambition to come in and, you know, be the best, and you did that. But you started somewhere and so just give a little insight, those two things that sort of. How did you get into it and how did it kind of start for you? And then talk to us a little bit about that test when you came off with a pair, because a lot of people would have really suffered from that. But you used that as a platform and on you went. So, yeah, I'm interested to hear how it all happened for you.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: Well, I started my sporting career because of my dad, really, because he was a cricketer. He played football for Oxford City as well, soccer, that is.
But I, from the time I was born, he used to. He and my mum Rose and my sister Brenda, we used to go to cricket to. He played for a club in East London called East Ham Corinthians. Very low level club, village standard, really, every Sunday.
And I've been going to cricket since I was born, to be honest, every Sunday. And then as you get a little bit older, you pester the other players to throw you the ball. He taught me how hold the bat. He taught me how to play. I didn't. And, and I didn't have any formal coaching until I was about 13 years of age when dad took me to the Ilford Cricket School in Ilford, where I came across a guy called Bill Morris who was an ex Essex player. He was a white Jamaican guy and he played a bit for Essex in the 50s. And he was coach at the Ilford Cricket School, which was run and owned by Trevor Bailey, who you've probably heard of, and a guy called Harold Farragut. And that's when I got my first formal coaching. So I came a traditional route. I played for my school. I only went to a state school, but the, the junior school played cricket and the senior school played cricket. And they still play cricket, Norlington Road School, they still have a very good cricket team and I go back there occasionally to see them and. And then I, I played for the district, played for. Because where I lived in Leytonstone, I played for London schools and I played for Essex schools because it was sort of on the border, you know, where I live. So I managed to play together.
Went on a London schools cricket tour in 1969, age 15. And that's where I met John Embry, who's still my lifelong sort of best friend.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: He.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: He played for Surrey. We went to East Africa on a tour to Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. So that was back in 69.
I left school, I wanted to play cricket. I'd already played one game for Essex, second 11 as a wicket keeper. Batted number 11, which I weren't that happy about, to be honest. Thought I should have batted number 10, but anyway, but dad, dad insisted. I did an engineering apprenticeship, okay.
So I became a. I qualified to be a tool maker. Now there's a very prominent person in the British government who always claims to be a tool maker or his father. That's our Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer. Anyway, so I did the apprenticeship. The day I qualified is the day I signed professional for Essex. And I never really went back to that. And that was about 1974, so played for about 27 years. So it's a very traditional route actually, you know, through the school system, through the young cricketers at Essex, played a few second team games and then managed to get into the professional game. Because when I signed professional for Essex the year before in 1973, because of the financial situation of the club was not special. They had 12 professional players.
So when I signed, they signed three players. So we went up to 15 players and they used 15 players for the whole season.
So you couldn't afford to be injured, to be honest.
And if you got injured, they had to get someone out of club cricket basically to play.
So. And then I met people like Keith Fletcher and I learned a lot off of him. And then, you know, I was fortunate to make my test debut two years later. And of course you mentioned the pair.
Quite convenient to have your first test score in your surname. Okay, need to note that. Okay.
And then it didn't go well. But I played, I played a couple of games and I, I didn't really play for three years after that. Actually came back as an opener three years later. And then such things started to take off for me.
And was it one of those classic.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: Scenarios where they, you, you didn't score in the first. I mean, because in rugby it happened all the time. You know, you have one bad game and they kick you out and try someone else.
Is that kind of what happened? You didn't score and so they just left you out for a while or.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: Well, I mean, when you're only having, I don't know, a handful of balls in both innings, you can't really decide whether you're any good or not. I Mean I, I, your listeners and viewers might not realize but the first Test I played 1975 at Edgeworth in Birmingham was on what's called an uncovered pitch. Now that doesn't happen in test cricket now. So what that means is that the pitch is covered and once the game starts, if it rains, they cover the run ups, the bowlers run ups but they leave the pitch uncovered so it gets wet. Of course what happens is that what happened is that Mike Dunness, our captain and I'm not, well, I am sort of blaming him, a little bit bitter he's not with us now. He was a top man, came to play for Essex later on in my career but he's a Kent man.
He's a Scotsman actually. A Scotsman captain in England. There we are, that's different, isn't it? For a start.
And then we had Owen Morgan a bit later, an Irishman captain in England to the first World Cup. There we go.
But anyway, so on an uncovered pitch, if you won the toss, okay, you don't care what the pitch looks like, you bat first. Okay. Because if you go halfway through the game and it rains, you're going to be on what they call the sticky wicket, if you see what I mean. Now it doesn't mean that every pitch that gets rain affected is a nightmare to play on, but a lot of them are okay. So Australia got 350. We batted for a little while, then it, we had a days.
The day of the game was rained out, okay. So the pitch was soaking wet. So we, we came back on the Monday because there's rest days in test matches then which were very, very popular with the players. You played three days, then had a rest day and he played the next two days.
I think we got bowled out for 100 and 150 I think in our two innings. So we lost comfortably on the rain affected pitch.
So to answer your question, Mike Dunes resigned as captain, Tony Greg took over and I played the next game at Lord. I don't think Tony Gregg fancied me as a player too much. And then I didn't come back and play again till three years later, 1978. I played a few One Day Internationals in 1976 but in Test cricket I didn't come back till 78 when Mike Brilley was captured.
And the difference is I was opening then opening the batting.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Then later on I do recall that Tony Greg made some prediction about making the West Indies grovel or something.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that was in 1976. Yeah, yeah. It didn't turn out that way. England were the team that were groveling, to be honest.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
The, the. I mean, and you mentioned some names there. I. You played in the era, certainly. Let's talk about bowlers for a second. Because you played all around the world and, and with the heavy run making you made against the best of the best. You, when you think about, you know, Garner and Marshall and Robert and Patterson and holding or, or in Australia, you obviously had Lilly and Thompson primarily who was, who was the bowler that, when you came out to bat you thought, wow, I've just got a, that this is serious stuff. I'm, I'm not too sure I can cope with this.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: I think that was most of them actually. But you know, there are people that stand out. It's the one thing I do want to say about my first test and it's quite interesting because I, I say it when I do after dinner speaking.
So I was 21 years of age when I made my debut for England. Okay. So possibly 10, 10, 12 years before, I used to play a little cricket game called. How's that? All right. Some of your listeners and viewers might have heard of the game. Couple of little rollers. You had like a little game, you had a score book. You would write your team in the score book. Yeah. And you'd roll these rollers and score the runs and you'd get the wickets and whatever and you put all the names in the score book.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:26:44] Speaker A: So all the names that when I was about 12, I used to put in the scorebook were all the same people I made my test debut with. Okay.
Dennis Amis, John Edrich, Mike Dunness, Keith Fletcher, Tony Gregg, Alan Knott, Derek Underwood, Jon Snow, Chris Old and Jeff Arnold. They're pretty much the whole team that I then made my test debut with when I was playing this little game as a kid. So I was very much the odd one out, if you see what I mean. Australia had beaten England comfortably, giving them a real kick in, in 74, 5. That was Lillian Thompson, obviously that did that and they wanted some young blood and I started the season well and I got the call up for the game. So it was, it was, yeah, it was challenging, but I mean, you know, you've got to take your chances. You know, when you play top level cricket, you play international sport, you've got to grab your chance. But it didn't happen going back to your bowlers, right? So in my era there was a lot of quality world class fast bowlers on the scene.
Now it would sound quite sort of Odd and bitter. If I said name me 10 world class 5 fast bowlers now, you wouldn't be able to. It's not possible because there isn't, there isn't. But in that era, you got your Dennis Lilly's, your Jeffrey Thompsons, your Glenn McGrath's, your Merv Hughes, Brett Lee and I'll go through the West Indies or Richard Hadley, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Wazi Makran, Waka, Eunice, then we go to the West Enders. You know, I run out, I run out of time to say all these bowlers. Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holden, Joel Garner, Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Colin Croft, you know, Andy Roberts. So I, I didn't think like you said there for any of them because I think, and you played at the top level. You've got to believe you're going to do well, Simon, haven't you? You've got to go out there believing you're going to do well. You can't go out there thinking, I don't think, thinking, well, I had a terrible game against this guy last time and you know, because I think if you think that you're, you're waiting for it to happen, you've got to believe you're going to do well.
So my, my top fast bowlers and there's not much to choose between them would be Malcolm Marshall, number one, Dennis Lilly, number two, probably wasn't a crown, number three. And they're all high class but all the other names I mentioned wouldn't be far behind them. It's all about backing yourself, isn't it, and getting yourself into the right frame of mind, you know, that to compete and I think in my career, I always wanted to play as I got into my career, I'm a big believer in evolving yourself. You have to evolve yourself in life, you know, you don't stay the same when you started as you move through. If you're a smart, you don't have to be the best player around generally, you have to be the smartest player. If you're a smart player, you can move forward and I think you have to evolve yourself by trying to improve yourself all the time.
And you know, I think as my career developed I improved my mental attitude towards my play, my belief in myself, all those sort of things. And I think, I don't know how you felt when you played international rugby, but I think you want to compete. I wanted to compete against the best because, yes, you want to do well for your team, yes, you want to do well for your country, but you Also want to put your skill up against the best and see how you match up.
That is one of the things I, I think every sportsman should want because I, you don't want to avoid the best, put it like that because I, I, I don't think that's the right frame of mind. You, you got to challenge yourself against the best. And certainly in that era, we're talking through my career, the sort of late 70s, all through the 80s and then and the 90s, there was plenty of great fast bowlers and great spin bowlers as all very challenging. And of course if you do well against the best, it's more satisfying.
[00:31:19] Speaker B: And, and so you did and I think, I think you're right that all you ever want to do. And I remember, you know, running out Twickenham, you just wanted to leave your best out there as well, and you wanted to play against the best and you wanted to play your best against them as well so that, you know those missed opportunities where you, you go in front of a lot of people and you're achieving your goal of running out to the field just as the first point. But then what do you do about that? So it's just about being there, it's about performing. And I'm sure you've been asked many times, you know, Is it the 333, the record score at Lords after which you named Winebrand? We'll come on to that. But the, Is that what sticks in your mind or is it the gritty innings of, you know, what inning sticks in your mind most? Is it, was it the marathon 300 or the 100? I know you scored against all four West Indies firing at you and no one else is scoring any runs or is there one innings that sticks in your mind? Or is it over such long.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: No, not really. I mean, to get big scores is great and it influences the game. And what I say when someone asks me a question, a bit like you just have now, is I think what you should remember as a sports person is that when your performance, okay, so if you want to be the best, you've got to beat the best, okay?
And when your performance makes a difference in the contest, okay, that's what you should remember. To me, it's not about the numbers. The number of runs, the number of tries, the number of tackles, the number of wickets, number of goals you score as a soccer player, it's when your performance helps your team get over the line. That's what you should remember. You know, when your contribution makes the, you know, the telling difference. In a game, that's what you should play for, you know, not, not just to score big scores and obviously if you get a big score in cricket or whatever, you know, that helps your team to win the game. So in that 300 we won the game. So that was a, that was a major contribution. And other innings I played maybe in 91 in the West Headingley when we got under 54 and we won the game on a low scoring game, you know, I think that's the satisfying thing, you know, in sport and that that's what you play for, is to, as you said, leave everything out on the pitch, give it your best and, and look yourself in the mirror afterwards and say, well, I couldn't have done any better.
[00:34:08] Speaker B: And that has got such a correlation to life in general, to business. You know, there can be plenty of people sitting at the top of their profession, but it's the difference that you make. And I think that for me comes across very strongly that what can you do that causes an outcome that we can all look back on and say I was part of that team effort and you know, that's what sport is after all. And it's for other people to make the judgments in the, the years to come, which they've certainly done with respect to you. And I think the other thing is the value you can bring through your power and the career that you've had as a sports person.
And I want to cover some of the things off field because you're very central to the pca, the Professional Cricket association and you have your foundation support, Professional Cricketers Trust. Tell us a bit about that because obviously someone like you with all of those years of experience and performance, you know, for you to take that lead is incredibly important for players. So give us a bit of an insight into what that actually entails.
[00:35:18] Speaker A: Okay, so. So I retired from playing 1997. I was an England selector at the time. Even when I was playing for Essex, believe it or not, I wasn't playing for England and I'd retired from playing from England and I went to coach at Durham for a few years, not full time, part time. Then I went back to Coach Essex in 2002.
Myself and my partner Julia run a dinner at Lord's and we raise quite a bit of money on 60 people in one of the rooms, the committee room, dining room at Lords. Anyway, we did that for one of our ex players, John Stevenson. He had a benefit year or testimonial and then when I came back as coach to Essex, I said to Julia, let's run that dinner again.
And with the money, we will send a couple of players over to Australia to the Paul Terry Oz Cricket Academy in Perth. Okay. They can spend the winter, improve their game, come back, spend about three months each, there, which we did.
So that's where it started. And really starting the, the foundation, or the Graham Goes Scholarship Fund it was called then, but now it's called the Graham Goose Foundation.
My motivation was very simple, to put something back into the game that had served me so well and a lot of people helped me in my career like they probably did in your career. A lot of people give you a lot of assistance down the line. So it was my small way of putting something back into the game.
Now we're still going 23 years later and we raised millions of pounds and we support all sorts of things like the Essex Cricket Academy, the things I've already mentioned with the Professional Cricketers Trust, players who fall on hard times.
We support gambling awareness courses for young cricketers, alcohol awareness courses for young curriculas, all these sorts of things, which is, you know, trying to help youngsters find their way in the game.
So we've taken a lot of inspiration from that and, and we just, you know, people are very, very generous in terms of giving money and we try and, you know, help present past and future players in various projects and things like that. So it's a very simple sort of motivation and, you know, it's not really down to what we do. It is the generosity of the, of the public who support the fundraising activities we, we have. So as I said, we do that mainly in our area of East Anglia, but not, not exclusively.
And obviously the Professional Cricketers association and.
[00:38:15] Speaker B: Trust.
[00:38:18] Speaker A: You know, do similar things, you know, with, with educational courses and stuff like that for players, you know, to prepare for life after the professional game and stuff like that and also promoting the game in general, but both for the, for the, for the girls and for the, for the boys at a young age. So, yeah, I think it's just a nice way of putting something back into the game.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: I think there's also, and it's certainly the case in rugby is that when you, I mean, you're one injury away or, you know, from never playing the game again and for example, or you get deselected or whatever and people assume things just carry on, but they don't, do they? Particularly when, if you were a professional cricketer for many years, but the money was never like it is now, where the, these auctions, some of these young players picking up, I Don't know, seven figures, you know, IPL and all the rest of it. So when you stop playing, you. You had to reassess and go again in another way. And every person and even someone of your stature has to do that, Every cricketer has to do that because you can't carry on forever. You got the rest of your life.
So, I mean, is it. Do you think there's something that is appreciated enough within the sport? Obviously you're doing your bit and. But outside the sport as well.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't, I don't know of any other player that. I mean, obviously players that support charities, but I don't, I don't know of anyone else who runs their own charity for the, for the aims that I've just put out to you. I mean, in cricket was a very, and still is a poor relation when it comes to a lot of other sports.
So a domestic county cricketer will earn a decent wage now, but they're going to have to find something else to do afterwards, that's for sure. If you play international cricket now and you play franchise cricket around the world, that might not be the case, if you see what I mean.
So I think players have to prepare for the future. If they're smart, they prepare for the future, but a lot don't. And as you say, a lot go out the game, possibly through injury, possibly they get released, they don't get retained because they're not good enough or they just haven't made it or, or sometimes a club has a lot better players. You know, it's not that you've done anything wrong, but they have better players than. Than what they consider you are. So, yeah, it doesn't go on forever. So, as I said, I was very lucky. People supported me, gave me a lot of help along the way, and it was a good way of putting something back. Having said that, I can honestly say when we started in 2002, I didn't expect to be doing it still 23 years later, that's for sure.
You know, we never ever expected it to get quite as big as. As it has done. You know, we. We don't employ anyone. Myself and Julia have basically done it all ourselves, so.
And we'll continue to do it. It's a bit. It's a bit pared down now in what. In what we do in the fundraising sort of thing, but we still do a bit of fundraising and we still do our best to support people.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: Well, it's a huge credit that you continue to do that and I Just. I want to flip back a little bit.
We're almost out of time, but I, I couldn't resist asking you what it's like. I mean, obviously I know some of these individuals like Beefy Botham and Anna Lamb and David Gower. Just to say three, you toured around the world with these guys, you know, and they were all phenomenal cricketers in their own right. So you played in a very special era, but they were all significant characters. Let's just leave it understated.
What was it like being in a changing room on tour with these guys? I mean, because they played hard on and off the field, did they not give us a memory or two?
[00:42:22] Speaker A: Yeah, you could say that. I'm sure, I'm sure you had plenty of teammates who did the same as well.
Yeah, I mean, I, I think one thing about professional sport now, actually, which is quite strange, isn't it, academies have come into professional sport in a big way, both for the boys and girls. Rugby, cricket, football, they've all got academies. Okay. Which are a good thing for the development of these sports people. Okay. But name me some characters who play sport now. There's not many. Okay. Because I think the academy system actually spits out the sort of left field characters who play the game maybe in the era that we played, if you see what I mean.
You know, I gave a Test debut to Philip Tufnell, okay. 1990 at the MCG. Okay. And I soon learned that there was one massive advantage when Philip was bowling is that he couldn't be fielding, could he?
Because, you know, he's one of the laziest players I've ever played with. But, you know, he was good, good technical and he's done well for himself, but, you know, he was a fun guy, you know. And Ian, well, I mean, yeah, all the stories you've heard about Ian, a lot of them would be true, obviously, but you know, even though, even though Ian, you know, would burn the candle a bit at both ends, you know, have a good time, have a good party, have a few beers and whatever, he would always turn up when the game came and he put in 100%, no excuses about what happened off the field, but always be right on it at 11 o' clock in the morning, that's for sure. I don't think I can give away any state secret state secrets on, on, on a, a media show, so to speak, but let's say, not sure what they got up to would be acceptable now.
[00:44:19] Speaker B: But of course, the, in the world, I'm not going to remember I toured Australia two or three times, and the media end up being in the bar with you, you know, buying the beers and all the rest. And there was no social media to rumble you. So the genuine what goes on tour stays on tour.
Absolutely applied. But as you say, you had to turn up the next day. You need, whether it be a top training game or a. A big match or whatever. And, you know, that was like, get up to what you want to get up to, but when. If you don't, if you're not on top form, then we'll come down hard on you. And at the end of it, that group of players I mentioned, you know, stood up against some of the fastest bowlers consistently for years on end and scored the runs and in Beefy's cases, took the wickets. You bowled a bit of wobbly Midian pace in you by memory.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: Yeah, Military medium, they would call it. Yeah, Military medium. Dibbly dobbies. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I mean, I remember. I remember Ian's motto. One of them was, you don't come back the same day you go out. Right. Okay. Which takes a little bit of thinking about. Okay. And another captain I played with, and I'm not going to name him, when asked by the media that their new motto was, what was it? Wine, women and songs.
And his answer was, we don't sing much. Okay. So you can work that one out for yourself.
Okay, well, listen. Yeah, but I mean, look, we. We played in that sort of era. They played it tough on the field. Right. But, you know, it was, say, if you want to call it less professional off of the field, if you like, they had a good time.
Don't think that, you know, when I was coaching England 10 years ago, I don't think that's quite the same now.
So the guys don't participate in alcohol so much that the fitness and the way they look after themselves is completely different. Yes, they would have a bit of a binge if they won a match and what like that afterwards, but generally it's not the same sort of discipline, you know, as it. It used to be, if you see what I mean.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: No, that's. That's fair across all sports, really, and certainly applies to rugby. The. And you mentioned the wine. Wine side of things. You and Beefy have.
Have gone into wine and a little bit as a passion.
Lammy and David Garrett just consumed the product rather than anything else. But the end user. I mean, you didn't go into wine to supply them, obviously, but just you always, obviously had a passion for wine and I know that because we. We deal.
[00:47:07] Speaker A: I think at the beginning. I think at the beginning the answer was no to that. Because when you're a cricket, a professional cricket, and you're playing in South Africa, you're playing in Australia, you're playing in New Zealand, you're playing in all these countries where, you know, wine production is very high profile.
So I remember in Adelaide, in test matches, as I said in the early days, used to have a rest day in test matches. So I can't remember the days we played in Australia. Obviously, over in England, it was Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday.
And then you'd have. Sunday would be the rest day in Adelaide, we'd all go down to Yolumba Yalumba Winery. On the rest day of a test in Adelaide, both teams would go to Yolumba Winery, they'd have a big barbecue, participate in the wine, play a few games of tennis, where I think Blooming Tomo got injured once, that was the norm, if you see what I mean.
I can't imagine that happening nowadays.
[00:48:16] Speaker B: No. Well, I think the story goes that Beefy and dear Bob. Bob Willis, now sadly departed. But the story goes they got into wine because they wanted to teach the Australians how to make wine and.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: Make it.
[00:48:36] Speaker B: I'm not going to say that you. That you're going to teach the French how to make wine because obviously there's hundreds and hundreds of years. But your 333 wines, the Languedoc, are extremely tasty, so more power to your elbow. And I think, you know, we are actually.
[00:48:51] Speaker A: Simon, I've played cricket against France, actually, and Portugal.
Well, no, not French cricket. No proper cricket. In a place called Chateau de Toari just outside Paris. Yeah. Not sure how many Frenchmen were playing, to be honest. They were mainly expats, Asians or Australians or Kiwis. But I did play against France and I played against Portugal quite a bit at the A Porto Cricket and Croquet Club. That's it. Yeah, yeah.
[00:49:24] Speaker B: But they've been there much.
I'm sure many is consumed before, during and after the match. But we're out of time, Graham, and you have to go to the PCA Awards. And so it remains to me, firstly, to congratulate on your incredible career, secondly, the amazing work you've done post career, because, you know, that's super important and you're giving back so much. So I think that is a real credit to you. And long may the stories continue as they will. We look forward to the Ashes. I think it's going to be pretty tight, as you say. And we'll all be having a glass of wine alongside it at some point. So thank you for your time.
And that's it from Halla's playbook. See you again next time.
Thank you.
