Young David’s debut left Boycott baffled!

WHEN the call came to play for Yorkshire, Dad was sitting in his school library, revising for his A-Levels.

My dad misunderstood the message. At first, he thought he’d been picked for the second team. After the penny dropped, he went out to celebrate, downing two pints before summoning the courage to go back and knock on the headmaster’s door. He sucked on a packet of mints, to mask the smell of beer, and told him that the match clashed with his English exam.

The next day he awoke at 6am, unable to eat breakfast. He sat the exam at 7am, tackling the poetry of Milton and the novels of Graham Greene. At 9.30am, he was driven to the match. At 9.45 he was standing beside the main gates, leaving tickets for his father, when Geoffrey Boycott arrived.

‘Hello, David. Will you carry this?’ said Boycs, handing him his bag. The two of them walked to the dressing room, where Boycs chose his spot and told my dad to put the bag down beside it. ‘Thank you,’ he said to him. ‘You can go now.’

My dad gave him a baffled glance, unsure about whether this was a leg-pull. ‘But I’m playing,’ he replied. Boycs then gave him a baffled glance, equally unsure about whether he was now the butt of a practical joke.