Remembering Ron Graham

It is with great sadness that Madrid Cricket Club marks the passing of our friend Ron Graham.

Ron was there at the beginning. When we took our T20 tournament to La Manga for the first time in 2009, having started out with the embassy sides, Ron was our first tournament referee. He set the tone for everything that followed: calm, fair, and trusted by every side that played.

What most people won't know is that the tournament might have been a one-off without him. At the end of that first year, Ron told me it was one of the best run events he had been involved in, and that we would be mad not to do it again. I had not until then thought of it as an annual fixture. Every tournament since has, in some real sense, come from a conversation with Ron.

He went on to referee the tournament for twelve years, stepping back only when his knee finally forced him to. Alongside that he umpired in the Spanish league for many years, and he was simply one of the best umpires to stand in it. He was not only a fixture at La Manga and Alfaz del Pi, but also at grounds all over the country, wherever the cricket needed him. Anyone who played in that time will have stood at the crease with Ron at the other end. His knowledge of the game was extraordinary, held lightly and shared freely, usually with a dry line attached. He gave decisions the way he did everything else, without fuss, and you accepted them because you knew he had seen it properly.

Umpires occupy a strange position in cricket. They are essential and they are meant to go unnoticed, and the best of them are remembered less for any single decision than for what it felt like to have them out there. Ron was one of the best of them. Year after year of weekends in the Spanish sun, and the miles of driving to get to them, largely unthanked, purely for the love of the game.

Beyond the white coat, he was simply a good man and a great friend, to this club and to many of us personally. We will miss him in the middle, and we will miss him in the bar afterwards.

Our thoughts are with his family. Rest well, Ron. Thanks for everything.

Funeral details