A thoroughly enjoyable evening with our Guest speaker Ian “Gunner” Gould. He had the CCS audience in raptures of laughter with stories told in a wonderfully engaging and humorous style. Ian shared tales of his upbringing, journey into sport as a goal keeper for Slough and Arsenal and then as a batter/wicket keeper for Middlesex, Sussex, England and then his transition into World class umpiring. It was a pleasure to have a guest that has had such a varied experience at the highest levels with many of the cricketing greats but also as an umpire officiating at some of the most significant and memorable International matches.
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All images courtesy of Pete Wilson.
Pen Portrait
Ian James “Gunner” Gould was born on 19 August 1957 at Taplow, Buckinghamshire. He was a left-handed batter and wicket-keeper who played for Middlesex (1975-80 and 1996), Sussex (1981-90, captain in 1987) and at ODI level for England in 1983.
He played football, as a goalkeeper, for both Slough Town and Arsenal thus acquiring his nickname of “Gunner”. He became Chairman of Southern Football League club, Burnham, in 2009.
Gould played 298 first-class matches in which he scored 8,756 runs at 26.05 with 4 centuries and 47 fifties with a top score of 128. He took 536 catches and made 67 stumpings. When at Middlesex, he won the County Championship in 1976 and 1980 and whilst at Sussex he won the NatWest Trophy in 1986 and the Sunday League in 1982.
He toured the West Indies with the England Young Cricketers in 1976. He played 18 ODIs in 1983 including that year’s Cricket World Cup in preference to Bob Taylor, England’s red ball wicket-keeper at the time. In those 18 games, Gould took 15 catches and made 3 stumpings.
He is best known as a high quality umpire. He stood in 74 Tests (2008-19), 140 ODIs (2006-19) and 37 T20Is (2006-16). He stood in 3 matches at the 2007 Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean. He umpired his first Test match in 2008 – South Africa v Bangladesh. He was promoted to the ICC Elite Panel of Umpires in 2009. He stood in the high profile India v Pakistan semi-final at the 2011 Cricket World Cup. He was one of twenty umpires to officiate in the 2015 Cricket World Cup. He was one of sixteen umpires to stand in the 2019 Cricket World Cup. In July 2019, he retired as an umpire having stood in his 140th ODI game.
In 2020, Pitch Publishing released Gould’s autobiography, “Gunner : My Life in Cricket”.
We look forward to hearing from a man who has both played and umpired at a high level and who is widely known in cricket circles as a chirpy character.
Ken Burney