It’s not just Joe Root and the players who are fighting fit for the new domestic cricket season which begins on Friday.
Umpires, once perceived as either eccentric like household name Dickie Bird or affable roly-poly represented by the unmistakable David Shepherd, are now fully signed up to the new era of highly professionalised sport.
All 41 full-time and contracted ECB umpires have taken rigorous medical tests and held consultations with global cardio expert Dr Dorian Dugmore – who once famously raised awareness about the health of Premier League managers by wiring up Sam Allardyce and Dave Bassett to monitor their heart rate during a match.
This is the second year the ECB have hired Dr Dugmore, allowing him to check their officials going into the 2025 season compared to 12 months ago.
One umpire has lost four stone and another, Anthony Harris, told Mail Sport the initiative has not only saved his career, but possibly his life too.
As ECB Head of Officiating Richard Glynne-Jones points out: ‘People may not think there’s much to umpiring but they’re on their legs for seven hours a day with only a couple of breaks.
The ECB have renewed a drive to improve the health of their 41 umpires with rigorous testing
Umpires spend a lot of time on the road and are exposed to lots of culinary temptations
‘They are also on the road in hotels with all those food temptations and, on the field, every match is live-streamed which brings greater scrutiny than ever.
‘It’s certainly not an easy job and we have to make sure they are healthy enough to do it.’
For a fortnight, Dr Dugmore and his team have travelled to Lord’s, Old Trafford and Warwick to test the umpires, including internationals like Richard Illingworth, recently in charge of the Champions Trophy final in Dubai.
They have been wired up to electric cardiograms, given blood pressure cuffs and put on treadmills.
Results are discovered for their heart rate, cholesterol, blood glucose, hydration, lung function, muscle mass and body composition for adipose tissue.
After the hour-long sessions, Dr Dugmore sits down with every official individually to dissect the information and discuss their next best course of action.
Looking the picture of health in his seventies, Dr Dugmore lives by the motto: ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of treatment.’
Football benefited from his work in the Wellness sector when he made a famous London Tonight TV documentary featuring Allardyce and Bassett – whose pulse rates reached 160 beats per minute during the game between Bolton and Leicester.
At Lord’s, Old Trafford (pictured), and Warwick, umpires have been tested with electric cardiograms, pressure cuffs, and on treadmills
They were once perceived eccentric like household name Dickie Bird, but now the job has become highly professionalised
He was hired by the League Managers’ Association (LMA) to test their members every six months with Gareth Southgate among hundreds of bosses who took advantage.
His friendship with ECB executive Neil Snowball was the catalyst for him recently becoming involved in cricket and working with Glynne-Jones.
Harris, 51, is one of the umpires who feels his life has been drastically improved by the initiative.
‘I got the point where I saw a video of myself umpiring and didn’t recognise the person standing on the field,’ he says candidly. ‘My stomach was hanging over my belt and it really shocked me.
‘I’d get scared every time I started doing something. My heart would start beating out of my chest and my lungs were burning and I was thinking I’m going to die.
‘I want to be around for my family and the risks they were showing me for that not actually happening seriously worried me.
‘As an umpire, you wake up in the morning at the hotel and there is breakfast. You go to the ground and there is quite often players’ breakfast so you dip into that a bit.
‘Then after two hours of play you sit down to a nice lunch. Depending on where you are, it can be three courses. Two hours later, there are plates of sandwiches and cakes because that is a quick tea to have.
Umpires are expected to get a high percentage of calls correct – and fitness helps with that
‘And when you pack up and go back to the hotel, you sit down and have your evening meal. Who needs four meals a day? It is just ridiculous.
‘We are in a high-performance environment, expected to know the answers and get a high percentage of our decisions right. And a lot of that is to do with fitness.’
A year on, Harris was beaming at his latest set of results. A lot of weight has dropped off and his lung function has risen from 60 per cent to 102 – the equivalent of an average 80-year-old morphing into a 47-year-old.
He only has one full meal a day. If he feels likes eating in between, he finds drinking a glass of water can satisfy the appetite, indicating he was actually thirsty rather than hungry.
‘I am a lot further on than I thought I was,’ he adds. ‘You get to the point in life where you realise you have to make a change and I am very fortunate Richard and Dorian have put this in place for the umpires.
‘I’m looking forward to this season even more than usual. When I look at old pictures, I’m a little hunched and hiding what was there. Now I can be a bit more proud of myself.’
Harris’ first County match is at Derby on April 18. For him, testing has also brought peace of mind. His latest exercise stress test showed his heart was strong enough to push himself in work-outs.
Dr Dugmore appreciates the human benefit of what he is doing.
Umpire Anthony Harris (pictured left) says eating four meals a day on the road was “ridiculous” and he reached a point of being seriously worried about his health
He now has only one main meal a day and his lung function has drastically improved
‘The nicest thing was the smile on Anthony’s face when he walked through the door compared to 12 months ago when he was full of trepidation,’ he said.
‘Umpires have a challenging lifestyle. They travel for six months and then many have six months off during winter to stay in good shape.
‘Their decisions on the field have an impact. People examine them throughout the day so they need an elongated attention span.
‘Anthony is a great example of being able to head off potential issues. He was definitely not in the greatest shape and has started to turn his life around.
‘He got to know his key cardiovascular and lifestyle risk and doing something about it before there is a major event.’
‘He’s not the only one. I won’t give names but when one of the other umpires came in, I couldn’t believe it because he’d lost four stone in weight.
‘He said, he’d listened to everything I’d said, changed what he eats and got himself in really good shape.’
Dr Dugmore is still close friends with Bassett who needed a stent in his coronary artery which he put down to the stress and worry of being a football manager.
Dr Dugmore looks at incidents in football such as Fabrice Muamba’s cardiac arrest to show how important his work is
Thankfully, cricket is taking major strides to look after their own.
‘Dorian has done some great work here and the umpires have been very open to it. They appreciate demands of the game have increased,’ adds Glynne-Jones.
‘Being physically and mentally fit and healthy is critical because they have to make big decisions.
‘The umpires themselves take pride in their jobs. They constantly strive to raise the bar with their own performances which they do tremendously well.
‘Many of them are fiercely ambitious and want to progress.’
Dr Dugmore shares the sentiment. After a long career in sport, he’s glad to bring his expertise to the County game.
‘Football suffered for too long with heart incidents,’ he said. ‘You can look back to Jock Stein and Joe Kinnear, even players like Fabrice Muamba and Christian Eriksen. Doing this work in cricket is very important.’
