THE SOUTHCHURCH Park Café, a stone's throw from Southend's cricket ground, is not the most glamorous of meeting places, particularly when, outside, treacherously deep puddles are forming in the pouring rain. Nor is it the most likely of venues for one of the most recognisable figures in English sport to lower the curtain on a glittering career which spans three decades.

However, above the tinkle of the tea-cups and the idle chatter of Essex's frustrated supporters, Graham Gooch, with more centuries to his name than WG Grace, admitted that it was nearly over.

`Aggy'– Gooch has never called me Aggers –`I think the time has come,' he announced as phlegmatically as he would ask an umpire for middle-and-leg. I looked round at the Essex faithful, some of whom must have been listening surreptitiously, expecting an immediate outburst of `No, Goochie! Don't do it!' But there was nothing. Just more idle chatter.

It should not come as a great shock to learn that a professional cricketer nudging 44 is calling it quits. But Gooch, now moustache-less and sporting a youthful and surprisingly realistic mop of black hair, had seemed as ageless as Old Man River: he just kept plodding along.

This year, however, the runs have abruptly dried up. The problem does not seem to be failing eyesight or, even, a fading appetite for the game. Rather, the marathons he ran earlier this year in Orlando and then in London have taken their toll, especially London in which he managed to knock seven minutes off his personal best.

`They look a lot out of me,' Gooch said. `I don't seem to have my usual energy or get-up-and-go. I get a real kick out of physical training, although I must admit it was hard on those cold February mornings when I was training for the London Marathon. I had to force out of bed sometimes because I knew I had to do it. You can't expect to do the race without putting in the hard work first.'

And that has always been Gooch's philosophy. Even when he lined up with cricketers half his age, no-one could claim to work harder or practise more religiously than the old-timer. On England tours, it became almost routine for reporters, reclining in a taxi, to overtake the shuffling, sweating figure of the captain running back to the team hotel after nets.

Once, I remember, we passed him as he jogged along the very top of the impressive – and extremely high – Tasman Bridge which spans the picturesque harbour in Hobart.

`Taking guard at the start of an innings is the end product,' he explained. `All the hard work, physically, mentally and technically, has been done beforehand. They are the three disciplines which play a great percentage in your success.'

`Cricketers are too slow to change. It's no good saying but this worked for me five years ago and expect it still to do so now. You have to be upgrading your game all the time.'

`Having said that, this season I have been getting out in just about every way possible. I am not playing any one-day games, which helps, and I am still working hard because I want to score the six more centuries I need to take me to 100 hundreds for Essex. But I am resigned to it: there's not much petrol left in the tank!'

I reminded Gooch that he had said exactly that during my first tour as a reporter, in Australia, seven years ago.

`Oh! OK,' he chuckled. `The fuel-gauge warning light has come on, there are 30 miles still to go to the next services and I don't know if I am going to get there!'

All of this is quite a turnaround for the man who enjoyed one of the most productive of his 27 seasons only last summer. Gooch rattled up eight first-class centuries and fell only 56 runs short of scoring 2000 in the season. Even so, he felt it was time to leave the stage. He is playing this summer because it was the wish of his father, Alf, who died during the winter.

`I had been approached by Lancashire to be their coach,' Gooch reflected. `And I was very flattered to be asked because I want to remain involved with the game. It was an ideal job except that it would have taken me away from my kids [Hannah, 13, and the twins, Megan and Sally, aged 11]. Although they don't live with me, I still see them every day I am in Essex, sometimes twice a day, and I simply could not bring myself to be that far away from them. Dad wanted me to play another season so I decided to have just one more. Mind you, I didn't think I would find it such a struggle.'

The marathons he ran in Orlando and London this winter took their toll. `They took a lot out of me. I don't seem to have my usual energy or get-up-and-go'

Running on empty? Gooch departs after making another low score this summer. Right: the way he was in 1975, at the start of a Test career that spanned 20 years

So is that the path he wants to follow? A county coach or manager?

`For a start, I don't agree with managers or supremos. The term implies that they are in charge, but it is the captain who was to run the team. One of the great perks of being a county captain – which can be a pretty thankless task at times – is that you get to play the game the way you want to, in your own style.'

`The coach organises practice and offers technical advice to the players and I think I could certainly offer something in that department. I hope I receive some more offers from the counties when I pack up at the end of the season.'

`I am fortunate, I suppose, in that I won't have to rush into anything.' Gooch's benefit in 1985 raised £153,000; his testimonial in 1995 no less than £269,000; and, as the most capped player in England's history, he also collected 117 Test fees. `So, hopefully, I can find something that won't take me too far away from the girls. Although I don't want to make a career out of it, I speak at dinners – and of course the hairdo brings in a few quid!'

 GOOCH STRIKES me as having been rather misunderstood. Perhaps, 10 or 15 years ago, when he was a good deal less approachable than he is now, it was through his own making. Ted Dexter, just before becoming chairman of selectors, came out with the famous observation that `being captained by Graham Gooch would be like being hit in the face with a wet fish'. It was an odd thing to say, but people knew what he meant. The Gooch of the Eighties was often perceived to be a morose sort of a chap who quietly went about his business behind a drooping moustache. He would have been the last name on your list of prospective after-dinner entertainers.

But, ten years on, he is still playing first-class cricket, he speaks regularly – and wittily – to packed function rooms and, to cap it all, has had a hair transplant. Has he noticed the change in himself?

`In 1987 I changed bat-makers. The only reason was I thought I might have a career selling cricket bats. That was the level of my ambition then'

`In 1987 I signed to use Stuart Surridge equipment. I hadn't had any sort of a fall-out with Duncan Fearnley, whose bats I had used up to then, but Surridge was based at Witham, just down the road here in Essex. The only reason I changed was because I thought that I might have a future career in selling cricket bats: that was the level of my ambition then.'

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the new Gooch is the fact that he was sought out for individual coaching last winter by John Morris, the Durham and former Derbyshire batsman. Morris flew down from the north-east to Stansted every week, Gooch picked him up at the airport and drove him to the nets.

On the face of it, nothing particularly remarkable about that, except that it was Morris, as a junior member of Gooch's ill-fated tour of Australia in 1990–91, who joined David Gower's unscheduled flight in a Tiger Moth over the ground at Carrara where England were playing Queensland.

What seemed like high-jinks at the time cost Morris, who had scored a century in the match, £1000. He was cast off by the captain and management, never to return. If anyone was going to hold a grudge against Gooch, it would be John Morris– a man who would admit that he hasn't always shared his mentor's penchant for hard work.

`Perhaps the penny finally dropped,' Gooch observed, without the slightest trace of a smirk.

His finest hour: Gooch's 154 not out on a treacherous pitch at Headingley in 1991 defeated Viv Richards's West Indians, and secured the highest mark ever in the history of the Coopers & Lybrand Ratings

 ALWAYS A reluctant traveller, Gooch missed many a tour, either through his own reluctance ( Mike Gatting's triumphant Ashes tour of 1986–87; Mike Atherton's first trip as captain, to West Indies in 1993–94) or when banned for going to South Africa (three winters from 1982–83). Even as captain of England, he arranged to come home early from the disastrous trip to India and Sri Lanka in 1992–93. He hardly looked like a potential manager of an England tour. Yet, as further evidence of his metamorphosis, he will be in charge on the forthcoming `A' tour of Kenya and Sri Lanka. He will not be the coach – that is Mike Gatting's role – but the diplomat who delivers speeches at official receptions and the man largely responsible for the welfare and attitude of the young, impressionable tourists.

`The hairdo brings in a few quid': Gooch and Greg Matthews ham it up for their sponsors

`I have never been an enthusiastic tourist,' Gooch admitted. `I have never liked being away for four months at a time because I miss the kids so much. But this is a new challenge and, thankfully, it is not a long trip.'

`I was going to be the coach on the A tour to Australia last year, but my Dad was ill and Mike took over. He did a great job so it's only right that he should carry on. I just want to be involved in any capacity because I desperately want England to do well.'

`I am fiercely patriotic. I remember how it felt when the national anthems were played before each World Cup match in 1992. We stood there and felt so proud; I'm sure it helped us as a team. When we got back I wrote to Alan Smith [then chief executive of the TCCB] and asked if it could be repeated before Test matches here. He wrote back saying it would be too difficult to organise, and that really disappointed me because, surely, if there's a will there's a way.'

That type of request, one feels, would be dealt with more sympathetically by the new, thrusting regime. No-one who follows England closely could fail to notice, or be impressed by, the refreshing manner in which the players now go about their business. A decade ago, the selectors all seemed to have either grey hair or none at all, and monitored net practice from a respectable distance while wearing their best suits and shiny black shoes.

The 1997 model is altogether different. Gooch and Gatting are former England captains whom today's cricketers both know and respect. David Graveney, the chairman, even telephones those who have narrowly missed selection to tell them before they hear it on the radio.

`There's no doubt that having younger selectors make them more accessible to the players,' agreed Gooch. `The England boys feel more comfortable and we are tuned in to their needs. But, by the same token, they know that the England team is not a club; they have to perform because there's healthy competition for places.'

`As a selector, I am determined to get young players in the England team. We had a situation earlier in the season when Nick Knight got injured and we needed to find another opener. There was one experienced player in his thirties who was scoring a lot of runs in county cricket at the time'– Hugh Morris, perhaps? –`and his name came up at the selection meeting. I made the point that it would not have taken us forward by picking him, so we went for Mark Butcher instead. We have to look to the future.'

`On the England front, the organisation is now in place to take us forward for the next ten years. We are now starting to get a steady stream of A-team players in the senior side – Hussain, Thorpe, Crawley, Adam Hollioake and Co. But we have got to get our domestic cricket sorted out.'

`It has to be hard and competitive, just like Test cricket, because it is not always the better team that wins Tests so much as the one which has the character and wants it more. I have been saying for years that we need tough players and that has to be the case all the way through our county system.'

`I think we need smaller staffs, no more than 20 players, to get rid of the dead wood. There should be an Academy system at each county supporting the first class set-up and there should be a limit on the number of players over a certain age in the county 2nd XIs – say four players over 25, which would then force the counties to get the 18-and 19-year-olds in the team.'

It is difficult to argue with any of that and Gooch, in a new coaching capacity, might be in a position to oversee the change at whichever county moves in first for his signature at the end of the season. The one proviso, of course, being that they are within easy striking distance of Essex.

Before he goes, one final challenge remains. `Aggy,' he says, `I've been out every way there is'– including, unforgettably, handled the ball in a Test, last time the Aussies were here –`except one. Obstructing the field. Maybe I should get a full set.' One more reason for Gooch's many admirers to keep a close eye on Essex's scorecards for the rest of the season.

Still playing his part: the moustache may have gone but the reflexes remain

Jonathan Agnew is cricket correspondent of the BBC and a member of WCM's Editorial Board.

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