Dickie Bird Dickie Bird Harold Dennis "Dickie" Bird, (born 19 April 1933, Staincross, West Riding of Yorkshire, England) is a retired English international cricket umpire. In February 2014, Yorkshire announced that Bird is to be voted in as the club's president at their Annual General Meeting on 29 March. The son of a miner, he gained the nickname 'Dickie' at school. He lives in the South Yorkshire village of Staincross. Bird failed his 11-plus and went to Raley Secondary Modern School, leaving in 1948 at the age of 15. For a while, he worked at a coal mine on the surface, but
Dickie Bird tears. His eyes had to clear quickly, though, because two minutes later he had to give England captain Mike Atherton out LBW in the first over. Two years later, in 1998, he stood in his last county match. Bird umpired in 66 Test matches (at the time a world record) and 69 One Day Internationals including 3 World Cup Finals. He came out of retirement in January 2007 to umpire in the XXXX Gold Beach Cricket Tri-Nations series involving cricketing legends from England, the West Indies and Australia, which partly took place at Scarborough Beach in Perth, Western Australia, Australia.