Ian Botham - Botham - My Autobiography

BOTHAM

MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY

with Peter Hayter

COPYRIGHT

HarperNonFiction

A division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published in hardback in 1994 by Collins Willow

First published in paperback in 1995

Revised edition 1998, 2000, 2001

Copyright © Newschoice Ltd and Ian Botham 1995

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

The publishers wish to thank the following for providing photographs: Allsport, BBC, Benson and Hedges, Kathy Botham, Lincolnshire Chronicle, Patrick Eagar, Hayters, Graham Morris, Pacemaker Press and Thames Television

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780002189590

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2017 ISBN: 9780007388844

Version: 2017-01-18

DEDICATION

To Kath, Liam, Sarah and Becky and to the rest of my family, my friends and the cricketing public all over the world who have supported me throughout the years

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword by Vivian Richards

1 The End of the Road

2 A Bouncing Baby Botham

3 A Smashing Time at Lord’s

4 Wedding Bells

5 The Rise of an England Star

6 Just Call Me Captain

7 The Miracle of 1981

8 The Lure of the Rand

9 Sex, Drugs and Rock ’n’ Roll

10 Hudson and Hollywood

11 1986 And All That

12 The Ban and the Comeback

13 The Somerset Mutiny

14 In the Outback

15 These Feet Were Made for Walking

16 The Last Dance

17 Ball Tampering

18 Off the Field

19 The Worst Team in the World

20 That’s All, Folks

Plates Section

Keep Reading

Appendix

Beefy’s Fantasy Cricket Selection

Cast of Characters

Career Statistics

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

FOREWORD

Say the name Ian Botham to me and the first thought I have is not of ‘Beefy’ the great cricketer but of a magnificent friend, full of love for people, full of support and ready to give you everything he’s got.

That’s the Ian Botham I have been lucky enough to know since we first met as youngsters at Somerset back in the early 1970s before travelling around the world and playing cricket for and against each other for more than 20 years.

And that’s the same Beefy I’m lucky enough to know today, now that our playing days are over.

As a cricketer, Beefy was a man in a million. In the Caribbean, people are always coming up to me and asking about the man, and it is the same the world over. As an opponent we took him 100 per cent seriously. As a team-mate he was amazing.

Once, playing for Somerset against Essex in a county championship match, he batted with such power that all nine fielders were on the boundary. The singles were there for the taking, but still Beefy kept going for the boundaries. It is a sight I will never forget and probably not see again.

Off the pitch he lives his life to the full, with boundless enthusiasm and magnificent generosity. I remember during one of his trips to the West Indies when I met him at the airport and we went for a few rum punches. Unfortunately for the jet-lagged Beefy, they were about 150 per cent proof, but all he could taste was the orange juice – so he kept knocking them back. Assuring me that he felt fine, he went back with me to his hotel for a wash and brush-up and we arranged to meet in half an hour. But later when I knocked on the door of his room, there was no answer.

Worried, I searched out the chambermaid and persuaded her to unlock the door; and there was Beefy lying fast asleep on the bed. With one of his team-mates I went and borrowed some women’s make-up and proceeded to turn him into Beefy the beautiful drag artist. He never stirred once during this time, nor did he realize we had taken a series of photographs of him in this state!

Those pictures are not in this book – even great friendships have a breaking point – but this is the story of a great cricketer and a great person; a man who lives life in all its forms to the full and, above all for me, a man who has been a great friend.

1 THE END OF THE ROAD

I knew it was all over the morning it took me five minutes to get out of bed.

It was two days after I had played for Durham against Glamorgan in the second round of the NatWest Trophy at Cardiff in the mid-summer of 1993. My left hip had been playing up all season, and my left knee and shoulder ached as well, but to be honest it was difficult to distinguish one pain from another. I was worn out from head to toe. Sitting on the edge of the bed that morning, I suddenly realized that my body was sending me a message that I just couldn’t ignore any longer. To borrow Tony Greig’s well-worn phrase, it was ‘Goodnight Beefy’.

For many sportsmen, coming face to face with irrefutable evidence of their mortality is the moment they dread above all others. How many times have you read of people in all walks of sport going on one season or one match too long? And how many times have you read of the bitter price they have paid for doing so? I had always said that one day I would wake up and just know that this was the end, and that when that day came I would accept it without making the decision any more difficult for myself and those around me than it inevitably is.

From the moment I was given an opportunity to extend my career by undergoing back surgery in 1988, I knew I was playing on borrowed time. In grabbing that time and making the most of it, I will always be grateful for the patience and skill of surgeon John Davies. However, I didn’t want to be one of those sad figures who doesn’t know when to call it a day and who is consequently ridiculed by his enemies and pitied by his friends. Moreover, it became obvious to me that although my body might be able to take a little more punishment in the short term, the long term effects could be extremely damaging; and the one thing I knew for certain was that I didn’t fancy spending my retirement years in a wheelchair.

The bottom line, however, was that after twenty years in the professional game my love affair with playing cricket was over. Not only was I physically wrecked, but the events of the 1993 season meant that I was totally disillusioned with the game. Without the drive, I simply didn’t want to go out on the pitch any more. Under those circumstances it would not have been fair on me, my team-mates or the public to carry on.