By Barmy Kev
April 17 2021

Kev gives his take and Middlesex legend David (Knocker) Nash book Bails and Boardrooms

BAILS TO BOARDROOMS

The book gets off to a good start with a handwritten thank you to Olivia for buying the book. This was a birthday present received 6 weeks after my birthday, It was  well worth the wait  

It started with a foreword by Andrew Strauss. I was struck by his comment when they joined Middlesex together David Nash (Knocker) was the “go to” player for all involved with the club. Andrew commented at that time on how he was in awe of Knocker on a cricket as well as social level.  I was touched to hear how when Ruth sadly died of cancer he has supported the Ruth Strauss Foundation and despite their different backgrounds became good friends. 

Despite being highly rated as a 15 year old and had success playing for England under 16’s on a tour of South Africa, Knocker considered himself an average player. He went into great detail on more than one occasion due to his mental health demons on how he feigned injury to avoid playing and being relieved when there was no play due to rain. It was apparent the club were unaware and unsympathetic,    

There was a lot of name-dropping and interesting opinions on certain cricketers. It was clear my less than favourable opinion of Kevin Pieterson was confirmed. While, Shane Warne has certainly gone up in my estimation

Knocker did not go into great detail about his cricket career. I was interested that despite 7 centuries his carer best was 114 indicating he lacked mental toughness to go on for something bigger and better. He preferred to talk about his success in business.  The turning point was his successful 2007 benefit where record funds were raised for the Shooting Stars Children`s Hospice.   It was clear he had great business acumen.   I learned about the Kaizen approach to business where continuous improvement is looked at in all aspects of the business from top to bottom. He gave examples of how this used for sporting achievements like the GB Women`s Hockey team Rio Olympics gold medal team adopting these principles

The afterword focussed on the future taking into account how is business survived the pandemic. He was optimistic and when the time is right is looking to expand internationally   

I found the book uplifting and humorous in parts. Having had many social interactions with Knocker there were times I could hear his voice. On saying that there was some language that I was not convinced was from his normal vocabulary and suspect it was successfully ghost written. 

 I thoroughly recommend this book not just for cricket fans.