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of his throws as the ball smacked into my gloves.’

      Though he became a reliable fielder with concise movements, an accurate throw and a safe pair of hands, he was still sometimes let down by his lack of pace and power. Bob Barber remembers one incident during the 1966 Oval Test against the West Indies when Brian Close was captaining England for the first time. ‘McMorris, opening with Hunte, hit the ball to mid-wicket and Geoff had to go and fetch it. As he picked the ball up, the batsmen got into a terrible dither and both ended up at one end. Then all we got from Geoff was this lolloping, bouncing throw to the same end as the West Indian batsmen, so one of them easily made it back. Closey was absolutely livid and started to advance towards Geoff, uttering a fierce diatribe against him. And there was Geoff, retreating quickly into the outfield.’

      Without any real competition, Boycott and Barber were certain to be England’s opening pair for the winter tour of South Africa, unless either was totally out of touch. In fact, there were some worrying moments for Boycott in the opening provincial matches, when difficulties over judging the line and length on the quicker overseas wickets led to him hurrying his strokes. From his first seven innings he scored just 151 runs. But then, as he adjusted, he ran into better form, hitting centuries in successive games. His good run continued in the Tests. His opening stand of 120 with Barber – he hit 73 to Barber’s 74 – helped to set up an innings England victory, the only result in the five-Test series. In the remaining quartet of draws, he also hit a match-saving 76 not out in the fourth Test at Johannesburg as England struggled on the final day to 153 for 6 and a century in the final Test at Port Elizabeth. His final average was 49.66, while his total tour aggregate was 1135.

      This Test series also saw the first international wickets taken by Boycott. With an inexperienced attack stricken by injuries, England captain M.J.K. Smith was forced to turn to Boycott’s medium-paced inswingers in the third Test. The results were surprisingly successful. In the second innings Boycott sent down 20 overs and took 3 for 47, including the high-class wickets of Graeme Pollock and Colin Bland, both clean bowled. Altogether he sent down 61 overs in the series.

      His bowling might have been a bonus, but it was his batting that really impressed captain M.J.K. Smith. ‘It was quite obvious he was a magnificent player,’ Smith told me. ‘People were already talking, when we went out, about Boycott being a little bit special and they were right. His technique was excellent, with no real weaknesses. He had this marvellous attitude for an opener, get out there, bat all day, and the next. He worked so hard at his game, very hard indeed.’ Smith found no difficulties in captaining Boycott. ‘Yes, he could be a bit defensive and he was hardly the life and soul of the party. Inevitably, the lads would take the mickey out of him, but that was just part and parcel of team spirit.’

      Bob Barber believed that life on tour was more difficult for Boycott, who had never been abroad before this winter. The problem was made worse by the fact that the gauche, introspective young man was surrounded by hardened professionals. ‘If you get a group of fellows together – and you will have this as much on tour as anywhere else – you will often see that they find a scapegoat. That’s the impression I got with Geoffrey. He did not really fit in. With that lot, it wasn’t easy and Geoff did not involve himself in any way socially. I was perhaps the only person who tried to involve him by taking him out. Once, for instance, when we were in Durban, I was conscious of Geoff being on his own so I invited him to come with me up to a game park. He grumbled about not wanting to so I said, “Don’t be so bloody daft, get your camera and come on.” I think in the end he was quite vulnerable and shy, feeling that the world was against him.’

      The camera Boycott took was a 16mm cine machine, which had been lent to him by Harry Secombe. As a first-time traveller, Boycott was keen to have a documentary record of his trip to South Africa. But his use of this equipment at the Test matches also provides an insight into his egocentric nature and his continuing hatred of failure, according to Rodney Cass, his old Yorkshire friend from the Johnny Lawrence school, who was coaching in South Africa that winter. Boycott showed Cass how to use the camera to take some film during the second Test at Johannesburg.

      ‘How much footage do you want of the game?’ asked Cass.

      ‘Oh, I only want me, you know, that’s all. As soon as I’m out, no more filming,’ replied Boycott. So Cass did as instructed and set up the camera in one of the stands to film Boycott. Unfortunately he was out almost immediately, caught behind off Peter Pollock. Cass stopped filming, and after an hour and a half he went to the players’ area to return the equipment. Through the dressing-room window he could see Boycott sitting on a bench with a towel on his head. M.J.K. Smith, the captain, told Cass it would be better to come back later. ‘So I waited another hour before returning. And when I did, there was Boycs, still in the dressing room covered in his towel.’

      Boycott’s behaviour was regarded by some of his England colleagues as self-indulgent and self-centred. What Bob Barber felt was shyness and vulnerability, others saw as rudeness and irascibility. David Brown, also on his first tour, says: ‘He thought of nothing else other than Geoffrey Boycott and the rest of the world could go lose itself. He could be the rudest, the most ignorant man on God’s earth to people like waitresses, attendants or the public. If he’d had a bad day, then the world better look out. I remember at one game coming out of the ground and there were a lot of African kids collecting autographs with bits of tatty paper. He told them to clear off and then got in the car while I signed the lot. He was utterly self-centred and that was just part of his make-up.’ David Brown also roomed with Boycott on this tour: ‘I was fairly rough and ready in my methods whereas he was always immaculate. So one half of the room looked fine while the other was a mess. He didn’t want to socialize, preferring to be his own companion.’ Brown had a particular reason to feel aggrieved with Boycott on that tour: ‘We had a team Christmas party and both he and I were looking to go our separate ways after that. He came up to me and assured me that the manager, Donald Carr, had said that I could use his motor, as long as I dropped him, Geoffrey, where he wanted to go. So I did this, took the manager’s car, gave Geoffrey a lift, and then returned the car later. I never thought another thing about it until the following morning when the manager woke me up on the phone going completely berserk because he’d wanted his car all the previous day. Geoffrey had just stitched me up. He had told me a point-blank lie so that he would be driven somewhere. At first Boycs didn’t want to admit it, but once he did, he was quite open about it. You’d need to have a certain mentality just to do it. I had a laugh about it afterwards but Donald Carr took much longer to cool down. He was a very angry manager.’

      Like so many others, though Brown was often annoyed with Boycott the man, he admired Boycott the cricketer. ‘From the word go, he was the sort of player you wanted in your side. You knew he would never throw his wicket away. As a bowler he gave you wonderful confidence because you knew you could usually stick your kit in the corner of the room and relax all day. He kept himself fit, never carried any weight. He was very careful with his diet, taking honey in his tea. If we were all having steak and chips for dinner, he’d have fish and salad.’

      Vice-captain Ted Dexter, who flew out to join the MCC after standing unsuccessfully as the Tory candidate in Cardiff against Jim Callaghan in the 1964 general election, was shocked on his arrival to see how unpopular Boycott was with much of the touring party. He explained to me: ‘I arrived three weeks late to find that G. Boycott was totally – and I mean totally – ostracized by the other players. They would not bowl at him in the nets and there was no social contact whatsoever. Not knowing the form I felt it was a bit rough on a young player so I befriended the young Boycott and tried to help him through. In retrospect, I think that it would have been better had I not taken his point of view because he might have learnt a lesson there and then – the lesson that you are playing for a team and not just for yourself.’

      Dexter says that he saw the worst of this attitude in the last Test at Port Elizabeth when he became Boycott’s first – but certainly not last – run-out victim in a Test match. In Dexter’s account, Boycott kept trying to retain the strike by taking a single at the end of each over. ‘Of course, the fielders started to get wise and were creeping in. Then Boycott called me for a run and I was flat out, head down, straight through. Yet Boycs hardly moved down the pitch at all. All he did was put his bat down to make sure he wasn’t out.’

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