Sir Geoffrey Boycott leads tributes to former Yorkshire Post cricket correspondent Terry Brindle

Mr Brindle served as cricket correspondent from 1974 to 1984 before emigrating Down Under and becoming chief cricket writer of The Australian in Sydney.

He later moved to Adelaide and worked on publications such as The Advertiser in both sport and features, also writing on Australian rules football.

Mr Brindle, who covered several international cricket tours during his career, co-wrote a number of books with Sir Geoffrey Boycott, including his best-selling autobiography.

Their respect was mutual and, as the sad news of Mr Brindle’s death was announced by the family on Tuesday, Sir Geoffrey paid him a touching tribute.

“Terry was a great bloke and a great writer,” he told The Yorkshire Post. “He loved Yorkshire cricket, absolutely loved it. Although he wrote for our main paper, The Yorkshire Post, he was a fully paid-up member of the club.

“He had a great choice of words, a wonderful choice of words. He was a quality writer, he really was.

“Terry wasn’t a writer who went in for the headlines. He was a quality writer, a magnificent wordsmith. He did a few of my books, just a wonderful man.”

Sir Geoffrey said that Mr Brindle – who also wrote books with Australian greats Dean Jones and Bob Simpson – was trusted implicitly by the players. A sociable man, he travelled with the Yorkshire team and expertly walked the fine line between developing good relationships and maintaining appropriate professional detachment.

“Terry liked a drink with the players but the good thing was that, whatever he learned from the players, privately and so on, he always kept their confidence; he would never use it,” added Sir Geoffrey. “They trusted him implicitly because he wouldn’t let them down.

“He wasn’t like some journos – stories first. He had a love of the club, and he wanted it to do well. He liked the players, and even when some of them said daft things after they’d had four or five pints, he wouldn't use it. He was just a great bloke.”

Mr Brindle, who came from Wetherby, was on hand to record Boycott’s finest hour – his 100th hundred during the 1977 Headingley Ashes Test.

As a flavour of his writing talent, this is how he began his match report for this newspaper as he captured the emotion of that evening in richly evocative, pin-sharp prose.

“History was a mass of dancing spectators, a roar which refused to subside until almost ten minutes had been wrenched out of the fourth Test, and a man in a paper cap, as Geoff Boycott came home to 22,000 hearts at Headingley last night.

“The clock which has ticked regimentally through many of his finest hours showed 5.47 when Boycott leaned into a delivery from Chappell and the ball scurried away on its mission to the long-on boundary. Hundreds of youngsters, and many of their fathers, too, enveloped a hero they had waited all day to acclaim.

“The first man to reach a century of centuries in a Test was swallowed from view, trying desperately to shake a hundred hands at once, trying equally desperately not to be hoisted onto a dozen pairs of shoulders. And when the more delirious of his admirers left, Boycott faced a swell of congratulation which echoed and re-echoed round the ground until it seemed it would never end.

“Boycott, the man who had never lost his composure during the most exacting 320 minutes of his chequered cricket life, had somehow lost his cap, emerging beneath a white paper replica of the real thing until the young culprit raced up blushing, to hand him back his lions… Few of us are fortunate enough to recognise the happiest moment in our lives in the instant that it occurs. Boycott will never have a moment’s doubt.”

Bill Bridge, who was Mr Brindle’s sports editor at The Yorkshire Post during that time, also paid tribute.

“We had a lot of fun, Terry and I. He was a very clever lad, and an outstanding writer.

"He was just so talented. There were a couple of English lads (journalists) who went to Australia who aimed too high. Well, Terry didn’t aim too high, he aimed just right. He also wrote a number of excellent books.”

Mr Brindle began his career on the Wetherby Express before joining The Yorkshire Post on the sports subs desk in the late 1960s.

He initially worked alongside and eventually succeeded the great JM Kilburn as cricket correspondent, who had held the position since 1934.

Mr Brindle is one of six people who have held the Post role since it effectively started in 1893.

The others, in addition to Mr Brindle and JM Kilburn, and present company excepted, were AW Pullin, David Hopps and Robert Mills.