Geoffrey Boycott Quotes
-
If my mum was alive she could captain England to play West Indies... hopeless, aren't they?
-
During the time I didn't play for England, they were losing Test matches, and the Yorkshire committee were telling me that I should be batting for my country. Then, when I decided to make myself available to play for England again in 1977, and Yorkshire lost a couple of matches in my absence, they criticised me for not being there.
-
I don't think anybody can totally change what they are. I'd always been a strident individual, but cancer does smooth off a lot of the edges. I have been lucky to have survived an extra 12 years of my life with my wife and daughter.
-
I agree that my single-minded approach was a failing in life, but if I upset people, it was never intentional - it was just the unfortunate result of a burning desire to get the best out of myself and achieve as much as possible.
-
He's a lovely guy, that Ricky Ponting. He likes the English so much he changed the series for them with the most stupid decision he'll ever make in his life.
-
The contribution of Anthony William Greig to English cricket has been underestimated because of his allegiance to Kerry Packer and his choice to recruit players for World Series Cricket while still the England captain. His critics hold that as a black mark against him, which rules out anything else he may have done.
-
When I was playing the game we never had the benefit of TV or video to analyse our techniques or look at faults, we depended on other cricketers to watch us and then tell us what they thought we were doing wrong.
-
Since I had cancer I've realised that every day is a bonus.
-
I think England will win a Test. My concern is Australia will probably win two.
-
Unlike cricket, where I reached the top solely down to my own efforts, cancer was not a one-man battle. This time, I couldn't have done it on my own. Without the support and bullying encouragement of my wife Rachael, I would not be here now.
-
I played football for Leeds United under-18s, but at 17 my eyes started to go and I had to wear glasses. The football had to go - there were no contact lenses in 1957.
-
He can be so rude to people that sometimes you just want to punch his lights out.
-
'Boycott caused all the trouble,' they say, as if I could have canvassed all those people personally to take a stand in 1983. Nonsense! The committee were the ones with the power to make the decisions, not me. They started the unrest, they did the sackings, and they reaped what they sowed.
-
I always loved the Yorkshire members and was passionate about playing for the county, but the people who were running the club made it at times unbearable for me. The rulers had a history of doing what they wanted and sacking players seemingly on a whim.
-
We've got to get the public back into watching Test matches - speeding up the game with innovation is one way forward.
-
My mind became so frazzled by the end of the 1974 season that I decided the thing to do was give up playing for England and concentrate on Yorkshire. I felt the only way to succeed was to captain and play every match for Yorkshire.
-
Once I got cancer of the tongue and throat, I realised that stress is a killer and I had to try and get stress out of my life.
-
They should cut Joel Garner off at the knees to make him bowl at a normal height.
-
A lot of wasted energy in my life has been spent on sorting out problems and issues at Yorkshire cricket. Of course, I know I made mistakes along the way, but I care passionately about the club - I always have done and always will.
-
I usually tried to stay in the net for 45 minutes, half an hour longer than most batsmen would stick at the county nets. There was a reason for this so-called gluttony of practice: it was a conscious effort to make myself concentrate for long periods of time in circumstances as close to the real thing as I could make them.
-
I was not a political animal; I could not toady up to the committee men, pour drinks down their necks at the bar, and make them feel important. I was too focused on the cricket.
-
Good scores are valuable, but centuries stick in the mind. There are influential people who might not notice a good innings of 60 or 70, but they will react if you get a hundred.
-
To have some idea what it's like, stand in the outside lane of a motorway, get your mate to drive his car at you at 95 mph and wait until he's 12 yards away, before you decide which way to jump.
-
I'd love to see pitches start very dry all over the world, which is good for batting but means there will be turn - a cricket match without spinners is like a chess match without two important pieces - a less interesting game.