Bumble Gives Me A Genuine Buzz

Bron Eames, managing director at Haslimann Taylor, writes:

The sporting world is overly rife with scandals and PR issues at the moment – diving, stamping, deliberate F1 crashes, bloodgate, ridiculous protests from people who should know better (Mark Hughes says there was ‘no malice intended’ by Adebayor when he stamped on Van Persie’s face!) etc, but as a counter to all this, isn’t David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd a legend?

David Lloyd was not only a top class professional with all the technical credentials to talk about cricket, but he is an absolutely first class communicator. All the more so because he is so genuine and so honest.

Many a CEO and company spokesperson could learn from Bumble. If the England cricketers play rubbish cricket, he says so. He is not rude. Just truthful! He is self effacing, he is interesting, he knows his stuff. Unlike many ex-footballers turned pundits, Bumble has informed opinions and is not afraid to criticise the play of professional colleagues, but he does it in an inoffensive manner. (As a coach, he maybe caused slight offence with a few inappropriate comments, but he did apologise!).

Few corporate spokespeople probably have David Lloyd’s reserve of quirky phrases - ‘Start the car!’ and ‘Swinging like a rusty gate!’ being two of my favourites – but how refreshing to have someone on our screens who we believe, respect and enjoy to such an extent, and he clearly has such fun! He is happy to dress up and play the clown, but he even pulls that off with dignity. He may not have Jose Mourinho’s sex appeal, but he is no less of a special one.

As this Summer’s cricket comes to an end, we will be seeing and hearing less of David Lloyd for a while but I for one am already looking forward to the South Africa tour when he will be back, showing us all that genuine, good communicators can achieve so much more than contrived, ill informed, boring wafflers.