sport news England legend Alec Stewart explains emotional call to step down as Surrey ... trends now
Alec Stewart allows a glimpse inside his hard-earned reputation as the ultimate unflinching professional when reflecting on his decision to walk out of the gates that bear his name at the Oval for the last time as Surrey’s director of cricket.
‘I can be seen as unemotional and maybe even a little bit cold but telling the players I was stepping down was tough,’ says a man synonymous with Surrey.
‘I care for those players and standing up in front of them wasn’t easy. But once I’ve made a decision I’m pretty good at moving on and I know I will always be walking through those gates whether it’s as a supporter or whatever comes next.’
It is difficult to envisage Surrey or the Oval without the man known throughout the cricketing fraternity as ‘the Gaffer’ - an appropriate nickname for one of England’s and Surrey’s greatest players and a highly successful boss of the biggest county in the country.
But after more than a decade of achievement since returning to the club both he and his father Micky served with distinction as players Stewart junior is leaving the Oval for the only reason that would ever take him away. The good of his family.
Alec Stewart will step down from his role as Surrey's director of cricket later this year
Surrey's home ground the Oval boasts a gate bearing their club legend's name - though he was once refused entry after forgetting his pass!
Stewart’s wife Lynn has had a long and ongoing battle with cancer, a fight the couple have always handled privately and with great dignity, and the time has finally come for Alec to fulfil a promise he made when he retired in 2003 after 23 years as a Surrey stalwart.
‘I said to Lynn when I stopped playing ‘I owe you time. You brought up the kids on your own.’ And it’s about time I gave her that,’ Stewart tells Mail Sport.
‘If I don’t do it now it will be another year, then another because I do love this job and really enjoy it. But I can’t be selfish. If I’m going to do something it has to be at full capacity and it goes back to something dad said to me when I was a kid.
‘Whatever you do make sure you do it to the best of your ability. Don’t play at it, work at it and give it a red hot go. I’ve carried that through but I can’t keep on giving a hundred per cent commitment to this job. I need to give that to Lynn.
‘I’ve had lots of lovely messages with people saying ‘I hope Lynn’s okay.’ Fact is, she’s been battling this, on and off, since 2013 but if she was really bad now I’d be stepping down straight away.
‘But, and touch wood everything is going to be fine, I’m going at the end of the year because it’s a planned thing. It’s the right way to do it and it also gives the club time to decide what they want to do next.’
How Surrey will need that time because Stewart is close to irreplaceable. He was asked to return to the Oval by Richard Thompson and Richard Gould, now the duo at the top of English cricket, with the famous old club at a particularly low ebb in 2013.
Surrey had been rocked by the tragic death of one of their most promising young players in Tom Maynard the year before and cultural issues had played a part in taking them to what is unthinkable now, relegation later that summer from the top flight of the Championship.
During his 22-year stint on the books as a player at Surrey he played some 266 matches, scoring 15,016 runs
On Friday, Surrey will begin their final season with the Gaffer at the helm against Lancashire
Fast forward 11 years and Surrey are a domestic behemoth thanks to the off-field work of Thompson and Gould and the on-field expertise of Stewart. On Friday they will begin Stewart’s last season at the helm against Lancashire at Old Trafford as hot favourites to become the first county since Yorkshire in the 60s to win three consecutive Championship titles.
‘I did come in at a difficult time,’ said Stewart. ‘The loss of Tom affected everyone associated with the club but if there was any good to come out of that tragedy, if that’s the right way to put it, it was that things needed to change.
Stewart made 263 catches and 14 stumpings keeping for England in Test matches
‘It wasn’t going to happen overnight and that’s why it took me two years to get the squad where I wanted it to be. I’m massive on character and personality and we needed to get the right people in and around the playing
