bloke he might turn out to be. Bearing in mind what he looked like in action, scary was the word that crossed my mind. But it didn’t take me long to realize that although he was ice-cold on the outside, the guy had the warmest heart in cricket. What is more, he was held in exactly the same high regard wherever he went. There wasn’t a dressing room in the world where Kenny wasn’t welcome.
One of the reasons was the humour that went with him; some of it was even intentional. The rest, down to the fact that for years he waged a losing battle with a tongue that simply refused to say what he wanted. ‘Carry on like that,’ he told me once, ‘and you’ll be caught in two-man’s land.’ ‘Bowl to him there,’ he urged, ‘and you’ll have him between the devil and the deep blue, err … sky.’
But he was far more than a figure of fun. In fact, I would go so far as to say that had untimely death not cut short his second career, I believe Kenny would have become a truly great coach. Confidant, technician, helper and motivator; these were his responsibilities as he saw them. And he was excellent at all of them.
The last thing a player wants to hear from a coach is the sentence that begins with the dreaded words: ‘In my day.’ I never once heard him utter them. He was happy enough to talk about the past and his career as a player – and I for one never tired of hearing him recount hitting the mighty Charlie Griffith back over his head for the six with which he reached a century against the West Indies in Trinidad on the 1967–68 tour, his last in Test cricket – but the crucial thing was that he only did so when asked.
The key to Kenny’s success as a coach was that he never spoke down to his players. In later years it became the norm for the coach to adopt a much more authoritarian approach and believe they should ‘run’ the team. Kenny never told anyone to ‘do this’ or ‘do that’; instead, he posed the question: ‘What if you did this?’ or ‘How would you feel about doing that?’, and we responded because we all felt our opinions were being considered.
As a technical coach he was brilliant at spotting little problems and addressing them before they took hold. On my second tour of Australia in 1979–80 he corrected something in my batting that altered the way I played for the rest of my career. I used to take guard on middle-and-leg stumps, then just before the bowler reached the moment of delivery I would move back and across to get right in line. Early in the tour I found I was getting out lbw on a regular basis and couldn’t understand why. The incident that brought things to a head happened in Adelaide, when a South Australian quickie by the name of Wayne Prior won an lbw decision against me with a ball I was convinced was drifting down the leg side.
Kenny saw I was cross when I got back to the dressing room, but when I watched the replay on the television link-up I was amazed to see that I was in fact plumb. Kenny waited until I’d calmed down then quietly took me to one side and suggested we have ten minutes with the bowling machine in the nets. That was all it took. He spotted that I was moving too far across my stumps before the bowler let go, so that balls I thought were going to miss the leg stump were actually hitting about middle and leg.
‘Try taking leg stump guard,’ he said, and for the rest of my career, apart from when specific situations demanded otherwise, I did.
He became a massive influence on me personally. Which is why his sudden death during the Barbados Test on the 1980–81 tour of the West Indies hit so hard. When I took the phone call from A. C. Smith, our manager, I just didn’t want to believe what he was telling me – that Kenny had suffered a heart attack in the night. My immediate reaction was that we shouldn’t play the next day’s cricket, but after a team meeting to discuss what we should do, it soon became clear that the only thing to do was to carry on, for Ken.
I have often wondered how my career and my life might have been different if Kenny had been around to guide me. Regrets, I’ve had a few, etc. But there were times, particularly following the amazing triumphs of 1981, that I allowed success to go to my head and in what came to be known as the ‘sex, drugs and rock’n’roll’ days of the mid-80s. Would Kenny have been a sobering influence when I needed one? Many friends of mine believe Kenny was taken at the very time I needed someone like him to make me see sense. All I know is that I missed him terribly.
I regard Bill Beaumont as the best ambassador for British sport there has ever been. After his distinguished rugby career as captain of England and the British Lions, Bill has continued to give of his time and considerable experience to rugby as it struggled with professionalism.
The name of Beaumont is linked with mine because we spent eight years in opposition as the team captains in A Question of Sport with David Coleman in the chair trying to keep order, but our first memorable evening was years earlier, on the night that Bill led England to their first Grand Slam for 23 years at Murrayfield.
I was in the company of my father-in-law, Gerry a big rugby nut, and Tony Bond, the England centre who had broken his leg at the start of the Five Nations against Ireland. He was still on crutches. In the lobby of the team hotel, the North British, Bill saw us and invited us into the official reception for a drink. Standing around with some of the England players, chatting and enjoying a glass, we were pounced upon by some Scottish MacJobsworth and told that I had to leave. I explained I was not a gatecrasher; Bondie had been a member of the England squad until his injury, and we had been asked in by the victorious England captain and coach, Mike Davis, so I thought that would be the end of the matter. Not with this Rob Roy.
‘We are paying for this function, and we’ll decide who comes in. You are not wanted, out you go.’
‘Well, if you paid for this gin and tonic, you’d better have it back,’ I replied and I promptly tipped it over his head.
The trio of us were frog-marched out, closely followed by most of the England squad, who decided to join us. That’s why the England captain spent most of the evening sitting on the stairs outside the Scottish Rugby Union reception. Every so often, one of the players would come out with a tray of drinks to keep us going. It was the start of a very memorable evening.
Bill was forced to retire from the game a couple of years later after being told that another kick on the head could have serious consequences. His England career finished at Murrayfield, but his last appearance at Twickenham saw that famous half-time streak from the well-endowed Erica Roe. Bill had his back to the action and couldn’t understand why his emotional team-talk was not being received with the same intense concentration as usual, until his scrum-half, Steve Smith, explained: ‘Sorry Bill, but some bird has just run on wearing your bum on her chest!’
Bill and I enjoyed a tremendous rivalry during our time on A Question of Sport. Bill is as competitive as me, and his sporting knowledge is extensive. His three specialist subjects were cricket, rugby and motor racing – he loved showing up my weakness on the cricket questions. But on golf, or soccer, he didn’t have a weakness. He was hard to beat. I’m glad that we both decided to call it a day together after eight years. I couldn’t have imagined doing the show without him.
Despite his good nature, Bill was not beyond some skullduggery. I remember the night when Gazza (Paul Gascoigne) was on the show. He wasn’t supposed to be drinking, but was getting fed up with the taste of bitter lemon and tonic water. As Gazza was going to be a member of Bill’s team, when he asked if there was anything else non-alcoholic he could try, I suggested advocaat. I knew the taste would disguise the alcohol and its effects were slow-acting. Gazza promptly drank a bottle and half in about an hour and half before the show. Imagine my horror when I discovered that Bill had worked out what was going on and I found myself with Gazza on my team. We lost, and the show took twice as long as normal to record.
