Woolmer, a pioneering coach with a gentle touch
Jamie Alter
25-Feb-2013
Gareth Copley/PA Photos/Getty Images
Tributes from the cricketing world have poured in for Bob Woolmer, the deceased Pakistan coach and ex-England Test player.
Neil Manthrop, a close friend of Woolmer, has a lot of memories of the man outside cricket - whether it was planning a surprise for his wife on their silver anniversary or playing a round of golf. He writes on Supercricket website:
There they stood, wine glasses in hand, having enjoyed a meal of which few could remember better. Seconds passed before, slowly but surely, a silver sports car was driven amongst us. It had an enormous, silk bow tied around it and a card which read: "Happy Anniversary - love you always, Bob."
The whisper had alerted everyone to the surprise, everyone that is, but the recipient. The whisper had told us that the lady had dreamed, all her life, of driving an open-topped sports car with the wind blowing in her hair and the scent of the Cape filling her senses.
From England batsman to international innovator, he was always admired, writes David Hopps in the Guardian.
He was among the pioneers of video analysis as a coaching aid, now an accepted part of the game. He recognised the extent with which information technology would revolutionise the game. He always preferred to guide rather than dictate and a gentle, caring and always humane approach to life was regularly evident.
Writing in The Times, Ivo Tennant recalls the times spent with a close friend; a student in love with the game, too generous with his time, and whose door was open to everyone.
I shall miss his flow of e-mails, his kindness, his coaching tips to my son and, above all, his zest for life. There was no such thing as a difficult moment with him: the relationship between the star coach and the “ghost” of his columns and his autobiography was an even one — even though he had given so freely of his time that sometimes he could not recall that he had made a particular observation. It did not matter because these were usually spot-on. No one cared more about the game, or understood it and those who peopled it, better than Bob.
Jamie Alter is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo