Just watched an incredibly moving video about Alan Igglesden and the work of the Professional Cricketers Trust help in assisting him in living with a brain tumour. This is the link to the film and below that is an article by Michael Atherton about Iggy:
The last time I saw Alan Igglesden in the flesh, he gently guided my thumb into a hole in his head. The hole was hidden by a full thatch of hair — not quite the mullet he sported in his heyday as a beanpole fast bowler for Kent and England, and grey now, but a full head of hair nonetheless. The hole? Well, that was a reminder of the trauma that struck this most amiable of giants once his professional playing career was over.
We were chatting at the England players’ dinner four years ago, organised by Andrew Strauss, the England director of cricket at the time. During his speech that night Strauss told the story of Fred Tate, who played one Test for England, disastrously so, in 1902. The moral of the tale was that it didn’t really matter how many games you’d played for England, or how well you’d played — you belonged to a rather special club.
The Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) is like that as well. No matter how many first-class games you have played, how many runs you’ve scored or wickets taken, once you have been a professional cricketer, once you have signed on the dotted line for a county, it is there for you, in good times and bad. Mostly bad, because that’s when it comes into its own.
Iggy is a member of both clubs. He played for Kent between 1986 and 1998, taking 503 first-class wickets and 190 in List A cricket. He was tall, nippy, moved the ball away; quite a handful on his day. England came calling in 1989, memorably so during a summer of four Ashes defeats and numerous injuries, when 29 players were used. Micky Stewart, the England coach at the time, described him as the 17th-best seamer in the country before a debut at the Oval for the sixth and final Test; it was meant as a reflection on the injury list, but wasn’t taken that way by those hungry to apportion blame.
He played two more Tests after that, under my captaincy in the Caribbean in 1993-94, and four one-day internationals. He continued to perform ably for Kent, until the end of his first-class career four years later, and, pretty much, that’s when the troubles began. Specifically, one day in 1999, when representing Berkshire, he had an epileptic fit and the subsequent brain scan to discover the cause showed a tumour the size of a junior cricket ball.
Because of its location, the tumour was inoperable. He was put on an experimental drug regime, which first reduced the tumour to the size of a golf ball and then stabilised its growth and, for a long time, things were manageable. He taught and coached at Sutton Valence School, near Maidstone in Kent, and then in Yorkshire, where he moved to be with his wife, Liz, a teacher. They settled in Keighley and in 2013, against the odds given the drug regime he had been on, had a daughter, Beth.
What Liz calls “the quiet time”, when life was manageable despite the tumour, was coming to an end. In 2009 the tumour erupted. Iggy had life-saving surgery in Sheffield, followed by chemotherapy. In 2015-16 there were signs that the tumour was growing again. Despite this, he was a full-time father to Beth at this point, while Liz was working, and so he enjoyed those marvellous early years of parenthood — a precious memory.
Then, three years ago, came a stroke. The timing, Liz says, was “hideous”, since she had just given up full-time work and they had hoped to start a business together. He endured a hospital stay of two months and was paralysed down his right side, but eventually got some movement back in his right arm and right leg, so that he could walk with sticks. He recovered to the point where Liz felt comfortable enough leaving him on his own for stretches at a time. A recovery of sorts.
Then, in September last year, the hammer blow of another, more serious, stroke, which, Liz says, “completely wiped him out”. The three-month stay in hospital was difficult, given Covid restrictions, which initially meant that he could not see family for weeks on end.
The paralysis of his right side returned; his movement has barely come back, and talking is difficult. The cruel irony is that he can now barely lift the arm that once propelled a cricket ball at nearly 90mph. Iggy’s left side, though, is fine, as he demonstrated to me on FaceTime at the weekend — he always had a strong leading arm and pull through. With Liz’s help, we chatted about old times: about part of a winter we spent together in Cape Town, between the time of Nelson Mandela’s release from Robben Island and the ascent to the presidency of South Africa. Iggy was playing for Greenpoint Cricket Club and Boland and I was recovering from back surgery there.
We talked about the Oval Test of 1989 — his first, my second — and his first two Test wickets, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh, two good scalps to pocket. We talked about the England A tour to Kenya and Zimbabwe in 1990 and about the tour to the Caribbean in 1993-94: 46 all out in Trinidad, a remarkable win in Barbados and Brian Lara’s world-record 375, which, because Iggy was injured, he — thankfully for him — missed.
Before we talked, I had an image in my mind of Jim Carrey in The Truman Show when he finally realises his world is fake and tries to escape, and Ed Harris, as the godlike Christof, sends winds, rain, lightning and then, finally, the mother of all storms to stop the journey.
As his boat rights itself in the storm, Carrey looks up to the sky, rain lashing down, and wonders what else the fates have in store for him. You wouldn’t blame Iggy for looking up and wondering: is a brain tumour not enough? Now a stroke, and then another?
But Iggy, at 56, is not one to wallow in self-pity; before his tumour and afterwards, he has always had an amazingly positive view of life. Liz says that he got Covid-19 in February, but only mildly, and within days had the nurses at the hospital eating out of his hand, bringing extra biscuits and goodies — and this despite not really being able to communicate. Zoom talks with friends — Liz singles out Phil Tufnell as one who has been incredibly supportive — are upbeat, as was our conversation over the weekend.
Through it all, he has concentrated on living his best life and on raising awareness and money for brain cancer, more than £300,000 now for The Brain Tumour Charity, for whom he is a patron. But things have become incredibly difficult and stressful in the past year, on the back of the second stroke. It means that he can no longer be given treatment for the tumour, nor can scans be taken, and so they are in the dark as to what is happening inside his head — literally.
The Professional Cricketers’ Trust, which is the charitable arm of the PCA, is releasing a film today to highlight Iggy’s plight. It is a difficult watch. The family are incredibly thankful for the support that the Trust has provided. Funds, first of all, to allow Liz to give up her job and become a full-time carer, as well as a stairlift that allows Iggy the independence to get up and down the stairs and spend time in the garden on warm days, rather than being stuck in his room, and a mobile scooter that enables trips out.
Journeys to Bingley Congs, for example, the local cricket club that has become something of a lifeline, as all good community clubs are, of friendship and fun no matter what. On Friday a few of his former Kent team-mates — Steve Marsh, Matthew Fleming, Martin McCague and Dean Headley — will make the trip up to Yorkshire to say hello and remember the good times. There have been plenty of them.
Terribly sad to read. I got so caught up in it, for a moment I was questioning Addick Addict captained England
Cummins has been a bit of a let down. As things stand his return this season is 5-408. One would hope that this would improve as the wickets get faster but he is only actually contracted to play for us for the first 8 games and this is match number 5.
Honours relatively even but one can't help thinking that they will have at least one meaningful partnership to come. Very poor weather forecast tomorrow so there might be no play on the third day in any event.
Comments
285-8
O'Riordan 24*
Cummins 25*
3 batting bonus points for us!
O'Riordan chops on for an excellent 40 (79)
Cummins 28* (45)
Quinn C & B Bess for 1
He'll be asking to open in the next match!
Surely there must be more to his ongoing "failures" on the pitch .
Hope he soon manages to sort out any problems he may have.
39-1
48-2
Ballance 44*
Root 39*
131-3
We've now used 7 bowlers
236-4
Ballance 91*
Yorkshire trail Kent by 69 runs with 6 wickets remaining
236-5
Honours relatively even but one can't help thinking that they will have at least one meaningful partnership to come. Very poor weather forecast tomorrow so there might be no play on the third day in any event.
We are then bowled out for 4 and lose by an innings
246-6