Will Boycott never be Sir Geoffrey because this woman claimed he beat her up?
... even though there are grave doubts over her story
Throughout his long career, geoff Boycott has displayed a remarkable ability to stir up controversy. his has been a life filled not only with epic sporting achievement but also with rows, feuds and discord.
Now, at the age of 74, he finds himself at the centre of a combustible new dispute, sparked by the decision of the Cabinet office to stop him receiving a knighthood.
In cricket circles, Boycott has long been known informally as ‘Sir geoffrey’, a tribute to his unique record as a batsman and his charismatic personality. It was a jocular title first bestowed on him in 1973 by ron griffiths, a cricket- mad, Barbados- born electrician who barracked players from the test match stands, and it gained widespread currency over the subsequent four decades. But now Whitehall has rejected the chance to turn this affectionate nickname into an official reality.
this week the former batsman said he was saddened at the decision, while one MP who supports the Yorkshireman condemned the official responsible as a ‘jobsworth numpty’.
that opposition from the powers-that-be reflects how badly Boycott is haunted by his
She turned viciously against Boycott after he rejected her
past, especially the French court case of 1998 when he was convicted of beating up his then girlfriend, Margaret Moore.
But as his biographer I feel that this decision by the government is deeply unfair, for it ignores both the breadth of Boycott’s accomplishments and the gross injustice he endured at the hands of the French legal system. As I argued in my book, the evidence against him could hardly have been weaker or the verdict more flawed.
Boycott certainly deserves a knighthood far more than many other, lesser figures from the worlds of entertainment and sport who have been so honoured. In his time, he was the greatest run-scorer in the history of test cricket, and to this day he holds the record for the highest first-class run aggregate since World War II.
Furthermore, he served as a captain of Yorkshire and England, as well as being a top coach. Since his retirement as a player in the midEighties he has been a much-loved pundit, transforming coverage of the game with his gift for technical analysis and his unique voice.
that is not to say I am blind to his faults. As his biographer, having conducted more than 100 interviews with his colleagues, friends and acquaintances, I recognise that he could be very inward-looking and lacking in empathy, especially in his early years as a professional.
‘he thought of nothing else other than geoff Boycott, and the rest of the world could go lose itself,’ said David Brown, the former England fast bowler who was the first player to share a room with him on an international tour.
Similarly, the suave Mark Nicholas, who worked as a commentator with him, told me that ‘sometimes geoff can be so rude you just want to punch his lights out’.
Yet during my research I found there was another side to Boycott’s character which contradicted that selfish image. this is a man
who, without any attentionseeking, has done a huge amount of charity work, from raising money for development organisations in East Africa to helping inner- city initiatives such as cricket’s Chance To Shine programme, which encourages youngsters to take up the game.
He has also backed a number of cancer charities, inspired by his own battle against throat cancer, which was diagnosed in 2002.
When my mother was in a Belfast hospice dying of cancer, he phoned her out of the blue to give his best wishes. It was an act of spontaneous kindness that meant a lot, as Geoff owed me nothing — my biography of him was unauthorised and highlighted many negative stories about him.
That is why, along with admiration for his record as a cricketer and broadcaster, I was so keen to support the campaign for him to be knighted. In fact, I contributed to the submission made on his behalf to the Honours Committee last year. But the bid has been thwarted.
There is a suspicion among Boycott supporters that this rejection is due to political shenanigans in the Government, based on the fact that Theresa May, David Cameron’s bitter rival for the Tory crown, is one of Boycott’s biggest fans.
According to Westminster rumours, the same spirit of pettiness, rivalry and jealousy that has recently seen two of May’s aides blocked from becoming Parliamentary candidates, was also applied to the bid for Boycott’s knighthood.
To be honest, I find all this a bit fanciful. There is no evidence that Mr Cameron’s office had anything to do with the rejection, and in fact the Prime Minister, like his Home Secretary, is an unapologetic admirer of Boycott. I think it was the French court case that doomed the campaign.
In today’s hyper-sensitive environment, where even the most baseless allegations are enough to taint a
‘He might have been rude but never violent’
celebrity, and the baying internet mob is always eager to express its synthetic outrage, the accusations from Margaret Moore meant Boycott never stood a chance. If that is true, it is a disgrace. After studying the case, I have no doubt Boycott is an innocent man.
When she became romantically involved with Boycott, Moore liked to pose as an internationally successfully businesswoman who had made a fortune in the computer industry. She was no such thing.
In fact, she was facing bankruptcy because of her trading debts and the outcome of a bitter divorce from her husband and former business partner Ritchie McGladdery.
These legal battles exposed her true nature. After one hearing over the disposal of assets from the company she had once owned with McGladdery, she was described by three Appeal Court judges as ‘fraudulent and dishonest’.
Six months before the French trial against Boycott she was declared bankrupt, with liabilities of more than £710,000. In another court hearing arising from this bankruptcy, the judge said her testimony ‘was characterised by inconsistency which was of such a degree to suggest a deliberate lack of truthfulness’.
Exactly the same words could be used about her testimony against Boycott. She maintained in court that, during a hotel stay on the French Riviera, Boycott punched her in the face more than 20 times in a frenzied assault. If that were true, Moore would have been hospitalised, given that Boycott was a former professional sportsman with strong forearms and fists. Photographs of Moore’s injuries showed bruising about the face consistent with Boycott’s account that she fell drunkenly against a tiled floor.
Moreover, Moore’s behaviour after the incident hardly indicated that she was living in fear of her supposed assailant. She bought him an expensive tie and bombarded him with romantic messages. ‘You are the only man in my life and the only one I want,’ said one.
It was only after Boycott made it clear that he wanted nothing more to do with her that she turned so viciously against him, using the threat of charges as a means of extorting money. Boycott’s friend, the lawyer Matthew Caswell, said he was contacted by someone claiming to represent Moore who wanted to ‘make a deal whereby, on payment of £1 million, civil proceedings would not be commenced’.
More damningly, Moore’s own former solicitor Sue Sims-Steward claimed Moore ‘saw Boycott as a way to settle her financial problems’. In fact, Sims- Steward was so appalled by the behaviour of her former client that she joined the Boycott camp. ‘I am not prepared to see a famous man destroyed on the whim of a woman who has no regard for others and, in my experience, no perception of the truth,’ she stated.
Boycott has no history of violence. As Mike Atherton, the former England captain and fellow commentator, put it to me: ‘He might have been rude, but I have never seen a violent streak in him.’
Other women in Boycott’s life, such as the singer Shirley Western, and Rachael Swinglehurst, who became his wife in 2003 after she had helped him through his battle with cancer, testified that there was never a hint of violence about him.
Boycott lost his French court case not because he was guilty but because the proceedings were so farcical, not least thanks to language problems. In this judicial pantomime, evidence was not properly examined, witnesses never called.
At one stage, when there was a reference to Boycott’s work in TV commercials, the judge asked: ‘Who is zis Shredded Wheat?’
That is a measure of how absurd the whole saga was, yet Boycott has been forced to live with the shambles ever since.
At the end of his appeal in the French town of Grasse, Boycott used a quotation from Shakespeare which I had given him, and which summed up his anger at the unfairness he had suffered: ‘Mine honour is my life, both grow in one. Take honour away and my life is done.’
Now Boycott has been dishonoured again. After all he has done for our nation’s sport, the great man deserves better than this.