At his service on 23rd October 2011, I put together an appreciation of my fathers life. Below I have reprinted that appreciation in full.
Ron Birch
18th February 1933 - 9th October 2011
Dad was football and cricket mad – in fact I am sure that on 18th February 1933 he was wasn’t born – he was formed or founded!
In his early years he was a ball boy at the Lane and as a young teenager he was playing with Fulwood in the Hatchard League, a proper man’s league! He signed up for National Service in March 1951 and on that same afternoon Barnsley came along to sign him! Unfortunately he had signed up for the full four year term and Barnsley wouldn’t wait but he described those next four years as the best of his life – four years of playing football and cricket for the RAF! Whilst posted in Germany, many a training flight would appear so that he could get on a plane to play in some important football or cricket match! He also played for Swindon Town whilst posted near there and they wanted to sign him until the manager changed whilst he was away on duty and the new guy wanted his own players. Some things don’t change!
It was whilst he was on leave from Germany in June 1954 that he met Mum on a tram car! They got off together, he walked her home and asked if she would go out with him the next day. He had to move quick as he was due back to Germany a couple of days later! They wrote to each other and he came back that Christmas to woo her. He was demobbed in March 1955 and they were married on 17th March 1956. That same afternoon, Dad and his mates walked up to Shirecliffe to watch an important game on Firth Browns before they all went back for the reception afterwards!
Dad was an only child and his dad – Grandad Joe – was also an only child. This soon changed when he married mum and he was quickly adopted by cousins galore. Nan nan Flo and Grandad Horace had something like 20 siblings between them!
Mum committed to this sporting life – I’m sure she would never have seen him if she didn’t – and as kids we were packed off every weekend to various football and cricket grounds around the country.
Over the years he played for a few football teams including YMCA, British Ropes, Sheffield FC amongst others – basically he played wherever he could get a game! His last club was Hyde Park Rangers in the Sports & Athletic League. Always a Committee man, he was chairman of the Hyde Park Residents Association Social Committee and they formed a football club. Memories of snow drifts in Castle Dyke come flooding back, with us kids all dressed up in Orange and white woolly bobble hats and gloves to match the kit!
Dad always finished the football season off before playing cricket and always finished the cricket season off before playing football! At cricket he came out of the RAF and played for Meersbrook, Heeley Friends, Crookes, Central Amateurs, Norton Woodseats and in later years for Bankers and in friendlies for Firvale. Cricket involved Saturdays, Sundays, Monday and Wednesdays with nets on a Friday. We all went along – from the moment we could write we were given a scorebook! Our family holidays involved going to Portsmouth and Southsea every year – as the little one I was always packed into the front sat on Mums knee – I was a lot smaller and cuter back then! The first week was apparently for us but I have no recollections of those first weeks – just the second week touring around with Bradonions CC – a mix of Crookes and Treeton Welfare players – at various cricket gounds! And our other holidays usually revolved around football or cricket. I remember us once going to South Wales for a few days – and then home via Blackpool because United were playing there!
That elusive ton evaded him. Although whilst playing for Norton Woodseats in a game at Eckington he was on 99. Everyone knew but him. The Eckington players knew he had never scored a ton so instead of coming in they all went out on to the boundary to allow him to score the single. Cricket how it should be. The bowler lofted one to him – he proceeded to send it back to the bowler who did his best to drop it – but the ball stuck and he was out for 99!
It was whilst playing at Meersbrook that he was mentored by Ernest Lunn who was secretary of the Midweek Alliance League. Ernest later took Dad onto the Committee of the League, and when Ernest retired in 1980, it was Dad who he had lined up to take over.
Dad did the job for 27 years before stepping down, mainly due to getting fed up with having to deal with clubs who did not want to play cricket to the rules and with the same sporting ethic that he had spent all his life doing. Having done the job for the last four years after him I can understand why he had had enough. He was made President of the League when he stepped down and still went to every Committee meeting where conversation would descend with Tony, Malcolm, Brian and the two Georges into many a story of years gone by. There’s going to be a huge hole at Frecheville on the first Monday of every month.
When he broke his leg at football he took up reffing and went into a different world! He quickly became a Class One and one of his biggest regrets was that he never took it up earlier. And he really was that good – the huge box of trophies in their attic shows that. The Committee man was in him and he was on the Management Committee of the Sheffield Referees Association where he was Social Secretary and also Secretary of the County Referees Committee as he wanted to give something back to the game that had given him so much. Such was his commitment over many, many years that both organizations made him a Life Member. As he was Secretary of a cricket league and the County Refs Committee, I spent many an hour typing up his minutes for him!
He used to take his referees kit with him everywhere – Martin mentioned him running a line in Canada but he also refereed one of his games when visiting him in Majorca and whenever Mum and Dad visited Maxine and Nick in London, Nick always got him a game with his club! Not that the players could ever understand what he was saying – but they did used to say whatever it was it worked and that there were never any problems!
Dad was always full of life and up for a giggle. When Richard asked Dad if he could marry Sue, Dad promptly took him in the kitchen and gave him a tenner as gratitude. Half hour later he asked him for it back!
It was an eye opener for Richard – who does not even slightly do sport – coming into the Birch household. He did once say to Dad that football was only a sport – dad replied oh no its not, it’s life! So Richard was soon involved – usually mending the tractor at Norton Woodseats at the beginning of each season!
Dad was always the first to the bar – and always the last out of the party. That dressing room spirit never left him. When Richard and Sue did get married, they took 15 with them on honeymoon where Dad was in charge of fines and forfeits! And he did it was style! The others did get revenge on him though as on the last night he was made to spend the evening wearing one of Sue’s dresses! He said he had never had his bum felt so many times either before or after!
When Sue passed her driving test he promptly handed her the keys to his Rover 3.5 litre. Sue thought she had made it – she quickly realized it was only so she could pick mum and dad up from the pub!
Dad always worked hard and taught us all that ethic. We all at some stage were boring or polishing scissors. He used to have two little workshops in Sylvester Street – one for boring and one for hardening but he later downscaled to an all in one unit in the Butchers Works on Arundel Street. Nowadays his old shop is an Organic Café – gone is his old furnace and the sign of “Home Sweat Home” as you walked in through the door with the bits out of the scissors where the hole was bored all over the floor. And don’t mention the toilets!
He finished reffing Saturdays in 1996 – although he carried on Sundays for a few years more. He never did illness – he was 60 before he even registered with a doctor - but he developed a prostrate problem – he went out to the Southey club – as always - on Saturday night and couldn’t go to toilet. That didn’t stop him reffing his game on the Sunday morning before I took him to hospital in the afternoon to have it all sorted. He decided at that stage to retire – but not before completing that months fixtures – he never wanted to let anyone down.
When he finished reffing Saturdays he and mum got season tickets for Bramall Lane and he rarely missed a game since. Holidays were booked around the fixture list and trips to the global family were often cut short because there was a game! His last match at the Lane was a defeat – we are used to it – but he did tell me afterwards how he had once done fourth official for the same referee a few years ago and how he was crap then as well!
But through all this sport, he loved his family – he welcomed Joanne, Nick, Richard and Jill into the family as though they were one of his own - and in particular he loved his grand kids. He loved visiting them and them visiting him. Claire he was a virtual dad to, but also Natalie, Stephanie, Jonathan, Wills, Issy, Charlie and Sam. I know how much he loved having Charlie and Sam stop with them each Friday and how Sam is now a wiz at Maths at school thanks to their Friday evening card schools with Frank Sinatra playing in the background! Mind you he was still competitive and the Christmas board games were well known as Trivial Dispute.
Dad was always the gentleman and always the sportsman. I am sure you will all remember him as fondly and with the love I will. I will never, ever forget how peaceful he looked in those first few minutes after he passed away. I thought he was just sleeping and would wake up ready for the Wednesday game. Sleep well dad.
