‘We have tough times still and we always will – as a family we’ll never get over it, but we’ve adapted’
Cricket legend Matthew Maynard, who has returned to Glamorgan and Wales, talks candidly about the death of his son Tom, plus his hopes to bring through a new generation of Welsh cricketers. Dominic Booth reports...
“WHAT choice have you got?” Matthew Maynard asks sincerely. It is a statement that displays his famed resilience and intensity, traits he championed as a cricketer and now exhibits as a coach and a man.
But perhaps the more appropriate words to describe Maynard nowadays are stoic and unselfish.
Ever since the death of his son Tom nearly six years ago, Maynard has been a shield, a figurehead and a mentor. His daily interactions with family, friends and the young cricketers he coaches all take place with the saddest of clouds in a corner of his mind.
Because when, at 5.10am on June 18, his son’s body was found near the London Underground District Line, Matthew Maynard knew nothing would ever be the same again. Since then, his outlook on life and cricket has been a little more altruistic.
He’s now back in his spiritual home after more than seven years of exile, this interview taking place in view of the hallowed turf on which he played for 20 years. Where a young Tom would run around with a bat and ball and watch daddy score centuries.
Maynard’s reasons for returning to Glamorgan? Naturally, they are mostly unselfish, pertinently a desire to help through the next generation of young Welsh cricketers and to forge a better future that can live on in his name, in his son Tom’s name.
Tom’s tragic death, at the age of 23, came a year after he’d left Glamorgan for Surrey, and two years after his father had been forced out of the county he’d called home for decades.
The two incidents are unrelated of course, but Maynard Senior, now employed once again by the Welsh county (as a batting consultant coach), cannot help but relate the two. It was a deeply regretful time, saddened further still by Tom’s death.
“I’ve got a lot of happy memories of this place and, over the years, there’s probably only one sad memory and that’s when I left the club because it wasn’t a very nice situation at that time,” he says.
“I thought we were doing a very good job at the time, we were building progress, so that was the sad time.
“Things were going pretty well, for Tom and as a club back then. Unfortunately, in circumstances beyond our control, we both left the club and then he went on and he obviously pushed on for an England place while he was at Surrey.”
The cruel truth is that, circumstances being different, Matt and Tom might have taken Glamorgan – and Welsh cricket – to new highs, had they both remained at the club. Their time together at the county’s forefront was all too short.
Still, both were proud representatives of Welsh cricket even after their departures, with Tom pushing for an England call-up and Matt remaining a well respected coach in the sport.
“I was very proud of what he achieved at Surrey, he was starting to understand his game, with the range of shots and skill that he had at the time.
“He could well have played for England. He was getting better and better and was still a very young man when he passed.
“He’d been on the (England) Lion’s tours and most definitely he was heading in the right direction, he’d got runs in big semi-finals for Surrey.”
Then comes the question Maynard has been asked a hundred times. How on earth do you cope with the death of your own son at such a young age?
It’s a question no parent ought to answer, but Maynard’s inner strength shines through in his response.
“What choice have you got?” He repeats it.
“There’s no choice, you just have to take it initially day by day and then it becomes week by week.
“We have tough times still and we always will. His mother misses him incredibly, I miss him and his sister misses him dreadfully.
“But it’s something we have to try and manage. The alternative is unthinkable.
“As a family, we’ve slowly recovered. We’ll never get over it but we’ve adapted.”
For Maynard, his role as a coach and mentor to young cricketers is what helps him cope. “Keeping busy” doing the job he loves most, in the game that has become his life. It seems obvious, but there really is no other way.
So despite a coaching career that has seen him delve into international assistant coaching with England, steer Somerset to one of their most successful periods in their history and enjoy stints in South African and West Indian domestic Twenty20 cricket, Maynard maintains his focus