Funeral of Dickie Bird, Cricket Umpire ‘The son of a coal miner from Barnsley’
Dickie Bird who died in September aged 92 was as his Times Obituary notes the first celebrity cricket Umpire.
Born in Barnsley he played cricket for Yorkshire and Leicestershire but his true vocation was in Umpiring which he began doing in 1970.
His Times Obituary records ‘a devout Methodist he turned down lucrative offers to join Kerry Packer’s break away series and to officiate in during the rebel tours of South Africa in the apartheid era. He was no political firebrand but he regarded both enterprises as undermining the integrity of the game’
The BBC report of Dickie Bird’s funeral notes that he mostly made plans for the funeral before his death
The points that he wanted to bring was that he was very proud that he was the son of a coal miner from Barnsley and that he’s been able to take Barnsley out across the world,” Mr Maries tells the BBC.
Figures from sport attend funeral for cricket legend Dickie Bird – BBC News
So “he mostly made plans for the funeral before his death”….