Geoffrey Boycott

“Throughout Yorkshire's history, the committee had not been known for its visionary approach. They just assumed that because Yorkshire had been fantastic in the past, and the county was full of kids wanting to play cricket, everything would be okay.”

“I don't think anybody can totally change what they are. I'd always been a strident individual, but cancer does smooth off a lot of the edges. I have been lucky to have survived an extra 12 years of my life with my wife and daughter.”

“The difference between a score in the 90s and a century is often reflected as the difference between failure and success. It may be illogical, but in cricket, a century has its own magic.”

“A lot of wasted energy in my life has been spent on sorting out problems and issues at Yorkshire cricket. Of course, I know I made mistakes along the way, but I care passionately about the club - I always have done and always will.”

“Emma wasn't bothered about the fact that I was a 'celebrity', held in high esteem by millions of cricket fans around the world. As far as she was concerned, I was just her dad, and she believed that role should take priority over anything else.”

“I've known people with exceptional talent - and some have wasted it. Ambition spurs a man on.”

“Good scores are valuable, but centuries stick in the mind. There are influential people who might not notice a good innings of 60 or 70, but they will react if you get a hundred.”

“Once I got cancer of the tongue and throat, I realised that stress is a killer and I had to try and get stress out of my life.”

“Since I had cancer I've realised that every day is a bonus.”

“Until you've had depression I don't think you're qualified to talk about it.”

“During the time I didn't play for England, they were losing Test matches, and the Yorkshire committee were telling me that I should be batting for my country. Then, when I decided to make myself available to play for England again in 1977, and Yorkshire lost a couple of matches in my absence, they criticised me for not being there.”

“I always loved the Yorkshire members and was passionate about playing for the county, but the people who were running the club made it at times unbearable for me. The rulers had a history of doing what they wanted and sacking players seemingly on a whim.”

“When I was playing the game we never had the benefit of TV or video to analyse our techniques or look at faults, we depended on other cricketers to watch us and then tell us what they thought we were doing wrong.”

“I usually tried to stay in the net for 45 minutes, half an hour longer than most batsmen would stick at the county nets. There was a reason for this so-called gluttony of practice: it was a conscious effort to make myself concentrate for long periods of time in circumstances as close to the real thing as I could make them.”

“'Boycott caused all the trouble,' they say, as if I could have canvassed all those people personally to take a stand in 1983. Nonsense! The committee were the ones with the power to make the decisions, not me. They started the unrest, they did the sackings, and they reaped what they sowed.”

“I'd love to see pitches start very dry all over the world, which is good for batting but means there will be turn - a cricket match without spinners is like a chess match without two important pieces - a less interesting game.”

“The contribution of Anthony William Greig to English cricket has been underestimated because of his allegiance to Kerry Packer and his choice to recruit players for World Series Cricket while still the England captain. His critics hold that as a black mark against him, which rules out anything else he may have done.”

“I think England will win a Test. My concern is Australia will probably win two.”

“My mind became so frazzled by the end of the 1974 season that I decided the thing to do was give up playing for England and concentrate on Yorkshire. I felt the only way to succeed was to captain and play every match for Yorkshire.”

“I played football for Leeds United under-18s, but at 17 my eyes started to go and I had to wear glasses. The football had to go - there were no contact lenses in 1957.”