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A passion for the game

Cup Match umpire Stephen West is all smiles as he contemplates umpiring his first-ever Cup Match tomorrow and Friday. It will be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, and being the 100th anniversary makes it doubly special.

Stephen West may be umpiring his first Cup Match, but cricket is in his genes. In the early 1900s, his grandfather, Arthur (AW) West, played for Bermuda in matches in the West Indies and Canada, and is believed to have held the record for the most catches by a Bermudian player against a foreign team (the Australians) in 1912. His father, Billy West, was a good batsman and fast bowler, and he and his siblings were steeped in the game from childhood. In fact, he has only missed seven Cup Match games since the age of 13.

Mr. West's brother Blake is a well-known cricketer, as is his nephew Jim, and his son Britt, another keen player, is returning home especially to see his father's debut. Mr. West runs the Evening League, and captains his own eponymous team, which is currently enjoying a good season.

Despite being raised on cricket, Mr. West says that at the age of 17 he was introduced to sailing, and since he could not pursue both sports, he chose sailing. Many years later, however, thanks to his good friend Layton Outerbridge, he came back to the game he now describes as his “passion”.

“Layton asked me to join the Evening Cricket League, and I was thrilled to be asked because cricket was my real passion - apart from my wife Jane, that is (That should score me some runs!),” he says. “I hadn't played since I was 18 so it took a while to get back into it, but in that League we umpire ourselves, so I started to slowly learn the various technical details and laws of cricket. Then, two years after I joined they asked me to take over the Evening League, and I have been running it for more than 18 years now.”

How the architect became a qualified umpire is thanks to another good friend, umpire Jeffrey Pitcher, who urged him to study for the all-important Bermuda Cricket Umpires Association (BCUA) examination. When finally he agreed, BCUA umpires Randy Butler, Wilbur Pitcher, George Francis, and Lester Harnett, current president of the BCUA, took Mr. West under their collective wing, and in time he successfully passed the Association's examination to qualify as an umpire. Currently, he is in the process of getting his West Indies Cricket Umpires Association qualification.

Like his colleagues, Mr. West works assiduously to keep current on the laws of the game.

“The BCUA umpires meet every Tuesday from April to October, and there are lectures and studies. It is complex and very intense, but a lot of fun,” he says. “There are 42 laws and each one has an average of eight sections. Law 42, for example, has 18, so starting in April I read my law book daily. I have read it cover to cover, and each day I read some part of it. In fact, each time I pick up the book I learn something new. It is amazing.”

Of course, there is nothing like experience to reinforce the bookwork, and Mr. West says no matter how much that teaches you, there is always the possibility of having to make a decision on a never-before encountered situation. It is then that professionalism - and the courage of one's convictions - comes into play.

“You have to make a decision, and my motto is the words you learn as an umpire: ‘You call what you see',” he says. “One time a player said to me, ‘But umpire, even Ray Charles could have seen that was out'. There are a lot of funny things that happen.”

As one example, he cites the first game he umpired as a professional, when Bailey's Bay were playing Police.

“Bailey's Bay said, ‘Here comes Stephen West, we'll show him who's who today, and they appealed for absolutely everything they could. At one time there was a left-handed batsman and the fielders put an ‘umbrella' all around him. The ball must have missed by about 18 inches and Bay all jumped up in unison and appealed. I looked at them and said, ‘Not out' and gave the bowler his cap, but the captain still had his hands up in the air appealing, so I reached in my pocket, pulled out my little black book and signalled for him to come over to me. He said, ‘You're not writing me up, are you?' and I said, ‘I certainly am. I'll see you at the BCBC' and I walked off to square leg. He came after me and said, ‘What are you writing me up for?' I said ‘Begging' and he laughed like hell. That was Charlie Marshall - this year's captain of St. George's!”

In fact, Mr. West, who is also vice-president of the BCUA, likes to inject a little human touch into his role.

“People think that umpires don't talk to the players, but I like to tell them, ‘Very good over' or ‘Batsman, that was a beautiful shot'. They look at you like you're totally insane because they don't expect that from you, but that's part of umpiring public relations,” he says. “It lets the players know that you are just as human as they are, and while you can make mistakes, you are also involved in the game, and enjoying it.” Equally, Mr. West makes it clear that he does not stand for unsportsmanlike behaviour.

“A few weeks ago I was umpiring and there was sledging, so I stopped the game and said, ‘I will not have any sledging, so cut it out right now',” he recalls. “Sledging does not mean swearing, incidentally, it means you are distracting the batsman while he is in bat. I don't take any nonsense from anybody, and I also don't care who is batting or bowling. I call exactly what I see and that sets a precedence. It lets the players know that I try to be absolutely 100 percent fair to both teams. I treat everybody on an equal plane, and that is the way you are supposed to do it.”

Like Mr. Douglas, Mr. West says that being totally focussed and alert are key elements of the umpire's job.

“You pick up the rhythm of the game in the first or second over fairly quickly, and then you go with that rhythm. In a normal Sunday game, there are 50 overs per side.That's 600 balls you have to pay attention to, and that's not counting any extras, which probably total another 50 balls between the two sides. It is massive concentration. The moment you drop that is when something happens and then you would look like a real fool.”

Being physically fit is also important, so he walks two miles a day on his treadmill, and also does back exercises.

Just how much Mr. West loves cricket can probably be gauged by the fact that his part of his Flatts office, Westport Architecture, is a shrine to cricket memorabilia, and whenever he goes on holiday, his wife has to write ahead to the Umpires Association to enquire about umpiring opportunities. As a result, he has umpired, among other assignments, an exclusive private game in Britain, another in Scotland, and two games in New Zealand, all of which earned him high marks in follow-up reports.

Mr. West admits that umpiring has become an all-consuming hobby, and he pays tribute to his wife, Jane, an American with little affinity for the game, for her sacrifices and patience throughout the season.

When it comes to his first Cup Match crowds, Mr. West says he won't be affected by either their size or their “expert” views, vociferously expressed from the sidelines.

“While I have umpired Western Counties matches, those crowds are different. This will be my first experience of a huge crowd, and it will be a test, but you find that you are concentrating so hard that you get into a zone, and you tune the crowd out. You hear things, but you don't hear them. Certainly you don't pay attention to what they are saying.”

For now, he is “excited” and “honoured” at having been chosen to umpire this historic Cup Match, but tomorrow he also expects to be nervous.

“If you are not nervous on the day then I don't think you are up for the game. It's like going on stage. If you are not nervous you don't perform. Being nervous sharpens you up,” he says.

When finally he does step onto the field, it will be in the same umpire's attire as his colleague, Steven Douglas - but with shoes bought in New Zealand, and cufflinks from Lord's with a Father Time motif.

“Father Time waits for nobody, and I point to him when necessary,” the first-time Cup Match umpire smiles.