Twenty years after THAT scandal, arise Sir Geoffrey, Greatest Living Yorkshireman
declared in defiant tones: ‘You’ll get nowt from me.’ After the interview, Dr Clare said he would have to revise the famous line of Jacobean poet John Donne that ‘no man is in island’.
Yet during my research, I found another side to Boycott. I heard tales of his unheralded work for charities and his warm encouragement of other players.
Former England captain Graham Gooch credited Boycott with helping to transform his career through his technical advice on batting.
And despite his reputation for being taciturn and opinionated, he could also be charming. Boycott once said that given the choice ‘ between Raquel Welch and a hundred at Lord’s, he would take a hundred every time’ — but he was certainly not averse to female company and he could quickly turn on that charm.
He met his first serious girlfriend, Anne Wyatt, while they were working together at the Ministry of Pensions in Barnsley in the late Fifties. A string of other relationships followed, usually with strong, independent women like the successful singer Shirley Western.
‘I’m not the marrying kind,’ he said, explaining his reluctance to settle down. But he did eventually tie the knot to long-term partner Rachel Swinglehurst, with whom he has a daughter, Emma, 20.
Before this marriage, he had to endure an incident that cast a shadow over his career and
probably stymied the award of a knighthood until now. In the late Nineties, he was accused of assault in a Riviera hotel room by his former girlfriend Margaret Moore.
The case went to trial in the Provencal town of Grasse, where he was convicted after a chaotic trial, though the court awarded Moore minimal damages.
In my biography, I argued that the case was a travesty of justice and her story did not add up. She claimed that Boycott, a strong professional sportsman, attacked her on the floor of their hotel room and rained down blows on her.
Yet her mild injuries did not reflect anything like such savagery. They were consistent with a drunken fall, which is what Boycott said happened. She also had a motive in trying to win money from him, for she had huge business debts and overdue tax payments.
The assault would have been completely out of character. He had no history of violence against women, as a host of his female friends testified in court.
During his appeal against his conviction, I gave Boycott a quotation from Shakespeare’s Richard II: ‘Take honour from me, and my life is done.’ He used those words at the court, though the appeal was unsuccessful, with the result that he lost several lucrative broadcasting and newspaper contracts. But he was gradually rehabilitated, not least because of concerns about the soundness of the verdict. Now he’s back at the top, his slate wiped clean by the knighthood. That’s as it should be. Given his epic record, he always belonged centrestage, not in the wilderness. His is a truly inspiring story of how a miner’s son from a small village turned himself into a legend by a superhuman effort of will. Umpire Dickie Bird, who played in the Barnsley team in the late Fifties alongside Michael Parkinson and Boycott, told me he had ‘application, concentration and an absolute belief in himself’ — and it took him to the summit. Perhaps his greatest battle was not on the cricket field at all but against throat cancer, diagnosed in 2002. Despite daunting odds of survival, he came through, thanks to the loving support of his wife Rachel, his own indefatigable spirit and his fitness due to his abstemious attention to his health as a dedicated professional. There is no doubt the experience has mellowed him, he’s more tolerant and more forgiving. However, that should not be exaggerated. He was nicknamed ‘Fiery’ — and is still infused by his incendiary nature. That is precisely why so many of us love him — and why it is so good to know that the walls of Buckingham Palace will soon echo to the words: ‘Arise, Sir Geoffrey.’