David Lawrence carefully manoeuvres his electric wheelchair to dodge drinkers at the back of the Hollies Stand at Edgbaston. Two Gloucestershire fans dressed as Harry Potter wave and give him a thumbs-up. Another supporter holding a pint and wearing a sombrero nods and stands back to give him room to pass.

The sight of Lawrence, known to everyone as Syd, stricken by motor neurone disease, brought a poignancy to Gloucestershire’s victory over West Country rivals Somerset in Saturday’s T20 Blast final.

It was an emotional day for ­Lawrence and there were tears in his eyes on several occasions, not least when James Bracey, the Gloucestershire keeper, brought him the trophy to hold at the end of a long and exhausting day. Lawrence had travelled from Bristol with his son, Buster, to watch the county of which he is president lift the silverware.

Lawrence should have been striding around Edgbaston, a fit, muscular 60-year-old. In June he was diagnosed with the same disease that took the lives of Doddie Weir and Rob Burrow. This man mountain, who became a champion bodybuilder after his career was cruelly ended by one of the most shattering injuries suffered by a cricketer playing for England, was known for his physical prowess.

He proudly says he could bowl “90-91 miles per hour” and not just for the odd ball but “all day, every day”. He could bench-press 150kg and three years in a row was crowned the National Amateur Body Building Association’s West of England champion for the over-forties.

Former bodybuilder now struggles to drink a cup of tea

In a few short months, MND has had a devastating effect on his physique. Now he struggles to bring a cup to his mouth, his son wipes his nose and he had difficulty clapping to mark Gloucestershire’s victory. He is wheelchair-bound and his voice is thin. Talking is hard work; he takes deep breaths between sentences. Those are the facts of MND that he does not want sugar-coating and, in an interview with Telegraph Sport, he is frank about his future.

“We all know how this is going to end,” he says. “It’s like I’m watching the Titanic. All I want to have is smooth travel before I hit the iceberg, because I know I’m going to hit the iceberg. There is nothing I can do about it.

“The other day someone asked me, ‘Does death scare you?’ Death doesn’t scare me, no, not at all. I know I’m going to die. I think for a lot of people what scares them is they don’t know how they are going to die. I know this will kill me. My body will shut down, every bit of it. My muscles, my breathing will shut down. And I am prepared for that.”

At this point Buster hands his dad his hankie, to dab the corners of his eyes. Buster is built like his dad and is a former rugby player who played for Moseley and Wasps. He spends Saturday looking after his dad, Gloucestershire’s win setting the tone for a joyful week for the family.

Buster gets married on Friday. He brought his wedding forward so his dad would be well enough to attend. Last month Syd had his voice recorded in case it became too weak to give his speech as father of the groom. He is determined to see it through. The fierce will that helped him bowl nearly 4,500 first-class overs at high pace when there was little knowledge about sports science or medicine is still there, burning strongly.

“Buster has found somebody very special. I’ve been there looking after him his whole life… and when I’m gone, I know she will look after him,” he says.

At this point it is hard to continue. There are some big men sitting around us, struggling to hide the fact they are wiping away tears. But Syd wants to carry on talking, not just about the disease, but also about cricket. He tells a remarkable, uplifting anecdote about Sir Viv Richards. It is one we need to hear and he needs to tell; a break from explaining the cruel effects of MND.

Lawrence’s parents arrived in Britain with the Windrush generation in the 1950s. He was the first British-born black cricketer to play for England. He did so in five Tests and would have played more but for his injury. The highlight was his five-wicket second-innings haul against West Indies at the Oval in 1991. One of those wickets was Richards in his final Test innings. What he reveals now for the first time is a story about role models, and how they can change everything with one conversation.

‘Sir Viv’s pep-talk changed my life’

“Viv was my hero,” Lawrence recalls. “Getting him out was a poignant moment because there was a time when it could have all gone wrong. I got in a bit of strife when I was about 17. I had just signed a contract with Gloucestershire and one Saturday night I was out on the booze, got into a fight, got arrested. I was ­supposed to play cricket on the Sunday but I was in the cells.

“I phoned the club secretary to say, ‘Can you bail me out?’ I turned up at the ground on Monday and a guy called Tony Brown, who was Gloucestershire’s chief executive, drove me down the M5. We went to another cricket ground, I didn’t know where I was. Tony sat me on a chair and said ‘wait there’. I could see this guy walking towards me. All I remember was he had a red tracksuit on and was walking with a strut. As he got closer and closer, it was Viv Richards.

“He sat next to me and gave me a talk to say, ‘Sometimes in life you only get one opportunity’. He spoke to me like I was his mate, not like he was my teacher or anything. And he just said, ‘Keep your head down because the club believes in you, Tony Brown believes in you and you can’t let them down’. I said to Viv, ‘I won’t let you down’, and that changed my life. I buckled down.

“Sometimes in life you need someone to come along and make a change and that is why 1991, bowling against West Indies, and being the last man to get Viv out is so ­special. Years earlier he was giving me this talk and if you had said to me then I would be the last man to get him out I would not have believed it. That is what I really remember about 1991. It started with Viv and it ended with Viv.” Lawrence’s voice falters, cracked with emotion, towards the end of this story. We take another pause. “I will always remember that game for that moment,” he says quietly.

We are sitting in the office of the Professional Cricketers’ Association, which is a box overlooking Edgbaston from the City End. The union’s charity, the Cricketers’ Trust, paid for Lawrence’s wheelchair, provided counselling for his wife Gaynor and son, adapted his home, fitted a wet room, installed a hoist and a new bed. He is here to say thank you. “It is a dark road I have ahead of me, but I know they will be there with me,” he says.

Any one of the players at Edgbaston on Saturday could end up like Lawrence. Fit young men think it will never happen to them. They feel invincible but he knows how that can change.

Early signs of MND ignored

When his left kneecap snapped in Wellington in 1992 the crack could be heard around the ground. He tried a comeback five years later but it did not work out. It was while having the kneecap replaced in March that his MND symptoms first showed up. The problem this time was in his right leg. It started with tingling in his toes. “I was not recovering as I should have done and then my right leg gave way. By March I couldn’t walk,” he says.

He spent 14 weeks in hospital. It is a difficult disease to diagnose and it was only when the Cricketers’ Trust had him moved to a hospital in London that MND was confirmed. “It’s your worst nightmare... the worst day of my life,” he says. “As you can imagine the ­diagnosis was devastating. We just weren’t expecting it.”

Everyone has a different journey with MND. Burrow lived nearly five years, Stephen Hawking for five decades. Doddie Weir fought it for six years. Lawrence does not know how long he has left. He has spoken to Kevin Sinfield, who raised millions of pounds for MND research in support of his friend Burrow, and he will send a video message at a fundraising dinner for Lawrence at Ashton Gate on November 28.

There was a reminder of Lawrence’s changed circumstances on the way to this interview when his wheelchair would not fit in the lift to the second floor. He had to reverse out and go in backwards. It is talking about losing the power to do simple tasks that upsets him most.

‘The help is out there’

“This is the new normal for me, we have to accept it and get on with it,” he says. “As soon as you hear about it you think of Rob Burrow and know that is how you can end up. But we’re not all the same. I’ve made contact with Kevin Sinfield. We have spoken about the disease and the help that is out there, he has helped me with contacts.”

Lawrence is a loved character because he ran in hard, encapsulated the joy of bowling fast but ­represented the risk it involves. “I worked on building sites. I have laboured all day doing brickie work but never felt as exhausted as I did at the end of a day’s play when you have bowled all day. If you don’t love it, you won’t last,” he says.

He reckons his fastest spell was to Jimmy Cook in 1990, the year the prolific South African scored 2,500 runs. “He didn’t get any against me. I got him out three times.” There were no speed guns then but Lawrence reckons he clocked over 90mph and formed with Gloucestershire team-mate Courtney Walsh one of the most fearsome partnerships in county cricket, propelling their side to second in the championship in 1986.

“Malcolm Marshall said to me he reckoned I was one of the quickest, who could bowl every ball at 90 miles per hour. He said very few guys could do that and I was one of them. At five o’clock I could still bowl 90mph.

“We terrorised every county. Me, Courtney and Kevin Curran [father of Sam and Tom] – it was a proper attack. Back then most counties had quality fast bowlers. County cricket then was proper county cricket. Me and Courtney… the Eighties were brilliant. We had such a good time.”

It is a different world now for cricketers. None of the players at Edgbaston on Saturday will be ­hod-carrying in the winter. Many will be off to franchise leagues earning decent money.

Would Syd have enjoyed T20? “Oh… lovely. Four overs? Wonderful… jeez. It would have been a dream.”
Another pause. This time to laugh, not cry.

The Cricketers’ Trust provides vital support to past and present cricketers in England and Wales and their immediate families when in desperate need.

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