On the 20th April, legendary umpire Ian Gould will be releasing his autobiography: Gunner: My Life in Cricket. To quote Amazon, it will be a “revealing and absorbing autobiography of one of the best umpires in the world.”
Late last year we interviewed Gouldy, as I refer to him, where he very kindly shared some great stories from his playing, coaching and umpiring days – something we were grateful for, knowing his book was going to follow a few months later. A promise he wanted to keep to us.
A good friend of mine, I caught with him on the phone last week, ahead of the release of his new book to find out more and why he decided to put pen to paper.
“As everyone knows I’m not one who is a great talker about cricket, it’s my occupation,” said Gouldy. “But I talked to quite a few people, including yourself, and everyone kept telling me that people would be interested in my career. If I’m honest I brushed it away a little bit, but then I started reflecting on various stories, jotting things down and suddenly I thought, jeez there’s actually some funny stuff here, plus stuff that people wouldn’t necessarily know, but should know, that isn’t out in the open. I then bumped into an old friend of mine called Bruce Talbot, who just said to me, “you should write a book” and that was it, another person and that was how it came about.”
Amazon goes on to say that Gouldy is “refreshingly honest about the characters and controversies”, controversies which of course include the infamous ‘sandpaper’ Test in 2018.
“There’s nothing I’ve written in the book to upset people – everything I’ve written is just fact. For me, there’s no point writing about something if you don’t write about what was there and what happened.”
While that’s going to be a fascinating read, I was fascinated about his battle with depression. As a friend, and someone who has known Gouldy for many years, and enjoyed many (too many) drinks down the pub with him, this was an eye-opener.
“The depression was something I needed to talk about. I think the world needs to talk about opening up. The one thing I learnt is when you ask the question ‘how are you?’ and the guy or girl say’s ‘I’m fine’, your response has to be ‘I’ve got an hour…’. It’s very easy to walk away and just think everything is fine with them. It was important for me to open up about it in the book and I hope by people reading about my story they will feel if they need to seek a bit of assistance, they will.”
Powerful words, that are very, very true.
And what else can readers expect? “I talk about where I’m from, where I started. There’s literally a mixture of everything, playing, coaching, getting into umpiring, getting on to the elite panel and my outlook and what did and didn’t occur.”
And was it an enjoyable experience writing it? “It is now it’s done! I really enjoyed the process, it was hard work, but fun. The struggle for me was waking up in the middle of the night, thinking of something, and then forgetting what I’d remembered in the morning! In the end I had to put a notepad by my bed, which drove the Mrs mad at night! But she got used to it, and she’d enjoyed what I have finished up with.”
The book is available for pre-order now on Amazon and goes on sales on the 20th April. Click here to find out more
Look out for a competition that we’ll be running throughout the week of the 20th April, where we’ll be giving away a signed copy.