Being Outside Cricket

There have been many, many tributes to Graham Thorpe. Mine is going to feel inadequate compared to others. But I wanted to put pen to paper about someone I loved watching.

The news, when it came last week, was not a massive surprise. I had been told about events two years ago, and there is always that feeling that “recovery”, whatever that is, can be fleeting, it can be jeopardised. I do not put myself in his category of mental health issues that Thorpey suffered with, of course I do not, but as someone suffering from anxiety, and feeling the world cave in on you at times, that helplessness, that void is real. Very real and massively illogical. I sort of understand, I sort of rationalise what happened – I seek logic, and can’t find it, and circle the drain. I have my own issues.

But I don’t know. I just really don’t what Thorpey was going through. We all worshipped him. His team-mates clearly loved him to pieces, they are breaking down when talking about him. It really hit me when Athers cracked. Athers doesn’t crack. He just doesn’t. Arguably the toughest cricketer mentally I have ever seen, and his voice audibly breaks talking about him. We, excuse my language, fucking loved him. He was so many people’s favourite England player of the 90s and early noughties. Mental health is a vicious beast. It truly is,

I met Thorpey once. It was at a book signing in The Glades in Bromley. I had got two copies of his fairly dark autobiography, one for me and one for Sir Peter, my travelling colleague to Ashes tours and South Afirca (his last tour for England). As I queued up I thought it would be mildly amusing to ask him to sign them to Lord Lynch and Sir Peter. I was incredibly shy at the time, and felt somewhat in awe of the great England player I and my colleagues in our club side adored and revered. Our late great club bowler, Neil Grindrod (who passed away in 2001) was a huge fan. I got to the front and there I was, in front of my favourite England player. “Hello Graham” I said as I handed two books to him. “Hello Mate” he replied. “Can I ask a favour, can you sign the first one to “Sir Peter”, and the second to “Lord Lynch”?” I thought I was asking him to face guard against Glen McGrath…. Thorpey smiled. “Sure, what’s that all about” he asked. “Oh just some nonsense a friend of ours used to get into a place in Australia” I said (it’s true, a friend of Peter’s did it to get a car park space in a hotel. “Yeah mate, I get that. You need to have a good blag to get in to places (I think he thought we were trying to get into a club or something).” He signed, gave me a “thanks mate”, I mumbled something, and felt like a giddy teenager. I was in my mid-30s.

I have had a lot of memories at cricket, but that day in August 2003, when Thorpey returned to the test team against South Africa, was one of the best. It was the first Saturday test at the Oval that I had ever been to, marking the end of the Millwall on a Saturday era, and the need to not miss test cricket at my home ground. As he came out that Friday night, the crowd sensed the moment. Tense and wanting him to get through the end of the day. He did. The next he completed that magnificent, redemptive century. I cannot tell you the joy we felt as our Old Jos contingent participated in and were one of the last to stop the standing ovation as Thorpey celebrated his hundred. A wonderful moment. Just wonderful.

I wasn’t always so lucky in my times watching him, but that one made up for pretty much everything else. The last time I saw him bat in person I think was in April 2005, when Surrey played Sussex, I think, but just can’t be sure without checking. He always had that aura, the walk, the confident air. The memories are more from TV viewing. I followed his double century in Christchurch all night when he and Freddie put the Kiwis to the sword, and in his book he says he barely remembers any of it, in such mental strife he was at the time. There is that epic, magnificent, wonderful hundred in the West Indies in 2004 at Barbados, with an ovation I have rarely seen matched when he got there. A test winning knock. Often he seemed the foil to someone else – even his South Africa tour de force supported Tres getting 219. His hundred at Edgbaston in 1997, in support of Nasser’s double. His hundred on debut was also a lovely moment to cherish. There were the moments against spin, where his performance in the decider in Colombo in 2001.

That was an angry series, and England went into the decider 1-1. Under pressure to match Sri Lanka’s first innings, Thorpey did his thing. Russel Arnold describes his mental capacity in this excerpt from Cricinfo..

We always had a lot of respect for Graham Thorpe, a high-class batsman. He was extremely calm after the failures in Galle, and Kandy and Colombo were not easy pitches. But he was a batsman who was trusting his defence and just willing to let the bowlers keep coming, absorbing pressure, and accumulating runs, which is very, very unusual for overseas batsmen. A lot come out there looking for demons that don’t exist. But Thorpe just played his own game without worrying what was happening around him. He was happy to play the line that the ball spun past [him] rather than panicking and trying to smother the ball.

It was brilliant because of the whole series situation:

It was probably one of the top three knocks I played for England in a Test, because of conditions, because of the position of the series, because it was Murali’s backyard, because the match went the way it did. 

No hyperbole, no giving it all that. Just understated and calm analysis. A team man, individually driven, and brilliant technically. Nasser Hussain summed his performance up:

Thorpe played like an absolute genius on that trip. He was your go-to man. In those situations, in that cauldron, playing Murali on a spinning pitch, without over-attacking him, he was absolutely monumental. And it was old-school: the knocking and nurdling and nudging at which Thorpe was so gifted. He gave everyone a masterclass.

I pick on that winter because it was the one that I felt started to turn the tide. Thorpey was there at the end in Karachi, there at the end in Colombo. He was the man we turned to when the chips were down. As with the England team of that era, he didn’t often succeed, but he succeeded more than most. While people ridicule that era of test cricket in England, I don’t. Look at the bowling attacks. Look at the talent around in the Aussies, Sachin, Lara, Inzy etc. And we had Graham Thorpe. Not maybe the true great of those giants, but our man for a fight, and my favourite England player of the time.

I wish he’d got to play in the 2005 Ashes, but it wasn’t to be. I didn’t like some of the arguments that he wasn’t picked due to the scars of failure, but it came down to him or Bell, and that’s history. He may have left the scene with 100 caps, and lots of memories, but it wasn’t a fairytale. Sport rarely is.

So when it was confirmed how his life ended yesterday, I think only then did it truly dawn on me how much this one matters. How much a man’s suffering would lead him to do this. A man clearly loved by so many. By so many peers. By so many in the game, team-mate or rival. They clearly respected the hell out of him. “What did Thorpe bring to the party except runs” was one comment made by an ex-skipper. The answer was hope. That’s what he did.

You are a legend, a hero, a star in my eyes, Graham. One of my favourite players, one of my favourite characters. It hurts to know you suffered, you were in that place, but his family’s courage to come out and say it is nothing short of incredible. Again, I don’t compare to what he went through, but I have had mental health struggles, probably for about 10 years. I was too stubborn to talk about it, every slip came with a bounce back, until they didn’t, and the slips became more frequent and the bounce backs less high. I had a breakdown, a blackout, in June 2020, another serious one in 2021, and did nothing. Then in 2023, knowing thoughts were getting darker, I got help. I got counselling. I saw a doctor. I feel better now. But I know so many don’t and can’t. I still have massive anxiety – it is why I can’t face large sporting crowds at the moment, and every trip away from home brings stress related issues – so can empathise a bit. Please, please, please people, seek help if you feel like this. Please. DMs on @dmitriusold always open. I know my colleagues on here would say the same.

Thorpey. You were loved. Thank you. Just thank you.