Warwickshire will hold an informal tribute for Dougie Brown after play at Edgbaston tomorrow. George Dobell, Chief Cricket Writer, hears the views of some of those who have played with him and watched him.

Dermot Reeve (former team-mate and captain): He was the greatest team man I had the pleasure to captain. Five minutes after making him 12th man he had swallowed his disappointment and was doing everything in his power to help the 11 who were playing that day. There is no higher quality in a man. My life has been so much richer by playing in the same side and enjoying his wonderful energy.

Adam Hollioake (England one-day captain): I played with and against more talented men but I never played with a guy who tried as hard or remained as positive.

My abiding memory is Dougie singing The Proclaimers’ song 500 miles in the team bus in Sharjah at the top of his voice. It was typical, really, as it became our team song on that tour and he was at the centre of all the good things we did. He was brilliant on that trip. He was asked to fulfil an unfamiliar role – opening the bowling – on the flattest pitches you’ll ever see and against batsmen who were determined to get after him from the start. It was an impossible task, really, but he did a great job [and England won the tournament].

He was always one of the good guys on the county circuit and though he played hard on the pitch – he’d just never accept that his team could lose – he was the complete opposite off the field.

Ashley Giles (former team-mate and housemate): We shared a house when I came to the club and then roomed together until I played for England. We’ve known each other a long time and have been very close. I can’t say he’s any prettier and I can’t say his hairstyle has improved but he’s the same character. He’s always been a ‘glass is half full’ person; he’s always been a fighter and he’s always been the sort to look to the future and make the best of things.

The best times? Well, the C&G Trophy quarter-final win over Essex in 2003 is right up there as is the time we put on about 280 together in the championship at Sussex, both of us making our career-best scores.

But we’ve both had some tough times An ankle injury almost caused him to retire before he had even started and I know the last couple of years have really taken it out him.

But, whatever has happened, you know he’ll always come out fighting for more. He’s almost at his best when things are at their worst. His boyish appetite for cricket seems undimmed and it’s fantastic he’s still involved with the club in such an important role, bringing through young players. I’ve spoken a lot about character since I took this role at Warwickshire. Well, in Dougie you have the ideal character.

Allan Donald (former team-mate): He’s the sort of guy you want beside you when you go to war. He’s not afraid of anything and he gives everything he does everything he has. He always had an amazing passion for the Bears and I consider myself very lucky to have played with such a special person.

Ian Bell (former team-mate): He is Mr Warwickshire. He’s been at the centre of everything good at the club for as long as I can remember and he’s a guy I’d always want in the dressing-room. He’s was probably really annoying to play against but if you’re on his side he is priceless. He’d always pop up with a hundred or a few wickets when it’s most needed.

He was also one of the first ‘new professionals.’ He took fitness training seriously long before other people and he’s just kept improving and making the best of himself.

He’s had a huge influence on me. He coached me when I was 14 and was at the other end when I made my maiden first-class century. He got me through in that innings and there were so many times on the field where his confidence lifted the rest of us. That’s a valuable skill when you’ve young players on the pitch and it’s something that Warwickshire are going to miss.

Dennis Amiss (former chief executive and chairman of cricket): Dougie is everyone’s friend. Well, nearly everyone. He is a wonderful competitor who never knows when he’s beaten and is extremely confident in his own ability. I have long had an admiration for Dougie; he’s a chap you want on your side, in every way. He applied for one of the England selectors positions and, as you can imagine, did really well in the interview. It was difficult to have two Warwickshire players [to chose from], but it was very close.

His enthusiasm comes through all the time and he’s in the right position at present for us at Warwickshire with the academy players .He has the knowledge, he’s a good communicator and he has energy and drive. With a little luck we should see many good players coming through our system.

Neil Carter (former team-mate and housemate): They don’t make them like Dougie any more. Being a seam bowling all-rounder is probably the toughest job in cricket but at the end of every season Dougie had always played the most games. There was no such thing as a niggle for Dougie, he just bowled through them. He has a massive heart and has a phenomenal record.

Michael Powell (team-mate and former captain): If you take a look at the stats, you’ll see that Dougie was a great player for Warwickshire. But what the stats don’t tell you is that for 95 per cent of his career he bowled at the wrong end. Dougie was always the one bowling up the hill, into the wind. He was always the one doing the donkey work. And he never moaned.

He was a Godsend to me when I was captain. There were times when things weren’t going well in the field, I would look around and all the bowlers have their head down, trying to avoid my eye. Not Dougie. He always wanted to bowl. Actually, the hardest thing was getting the ball off him!

He hardly had any injuries, either. That’s amazing considering his workload but it wasn’t just good luck. He was an incredibly fit guy and worked harder than anyone on his fitness and stamina.

I suppose the game that sums it all up was the fourth-round C&G Trophy game v Essex in 2003. We were 83 for six, chasing 257 to win, and the game looked dead and buried. But Dougie and Ashley Giles put on 170 and we won in the last over. He thrives on achieving the impossible.

Dougie epitomises everything you could want in a cricketer and everything good about Warwickshire. He’s the last of the [treble-winning] 1994 team to finish but the fact that he, Ash and AD are all in key positions on the coaching staff bodes really well for the future of the club.

Tim Munton (former team-mate and captain): The biggest thing about him is his amazing enthusiasm. His commitment and work ethic have been second to none throughout his career and, in terms of county cricketers, I can’t think of any better all-rounders.

I remember his championship debut. It was at Guildford in 1994 and he made a half-century and showed straight away that he was going to make an impact at that level. He was very much a pupil of the Reeve and Woolmer school. He would always try something new or challenge something old. He’s always positive; he’s always upbeat. He always has something to offer, whatever the situation, and played without fear of failure.

He is a great team man. It’s easy to be upbeat when things are going well but Dougie is just as positive and just as supportive during the hard times. He’s almost been a father figure to the younger guys in the dressing-room over the last few years and now, he’s helping people in his role with the PCA.

Phil Neale (former Warwickshire director of cricket): Dougie epitomised everything good about that Warwickshire side of the mid-90s. He was a great believer in the ethos of Reeve and Woolmer and was always trying to break new ground. He could open the bowling or fulfil the role of stock bowler; come in down the order or act as pinch-hitter: whatever you asked him to do, he was enthusiastic about it. He was just a great guy to have around.

Andrew, Jane, Kim, Alan and Paul (www.bearsfans.co.uk): Any tributes to Dougie Brown will naturally focus on what a good man he is – because he is a very good man – but it shouldn’t be forgotten that he was a very, very good cricketer indeed. Leading wicket-taker in the entire country in 1997, good enough to score more than 1,000 runs in 2003 and average more than 50 in 2004, with more than 500 first-class career wickets and an overall batting average over 30, for a decade he was one of the leading all-rounders in the game. And he really should have played a lot more one-day international cricket for England– although maybe becoming a triple international, with Namibia and Scotland, compensated a bit!

To many of us, Dougie is simply irreplaceable and the poor treatment he received in his last two years will never change this. It would be lovely if we could see the great man in action a final time – and we’re sure it would mean a great deal to him – but, if the chance never arises, we hope Dougie realises it doesn’t really matter. His place in the hearts of all Bears fans has already been long secured. Thanks for everything, Douglas Robert Brown.

Robert Brooke (WCCC statistician): In a game such as cricket with figures as its lifeblood, it is fairly easy to rank batsmen and bowlers. Batsmen with lots of runs at a decent average, bowlers with many wickets at a reasonable cost, can be said to be successful, albeit that statistics ignore the aesthetic value of the performer.

Ranking all-rounders is somewhat less facile; in fact, it is not possible to say that, on figures, one all-rounder or another is top man.

Dougie Brown is one of only five players to have scored more than 8,000 runs and taken more than 500 wickets for Warwickshire. Billy Quaife, Bob Wyatt, Tom Cartwright and Freddie Calthorpe are the others, Test players all. Brown passed the milestone in only 194 games, Calthorpe (224) is second, just ahead of Cartwright (228). Wyatt took 252 and Quaife 462.

How is this? Brown, in match after match, was the genuine article – a batsman capable of building scores or staving off collapses, a bowler who used new or old ball with equal effect. All the qualities could be, and often were, seen in the same match.

May be the proper all-rounder is the one whose batting average exceeds that of his bowling. One feels than a cricketer who cannot show this in his career figures should not join the select list but one also suggests that in some cases - for instance Quaife (36.17 batting, 27.53 bowling) and Wyatt (40.07 and 32.92) - this was achieved by batsmen who could bowl while Cartwright (22.22, 18.71) was undoubtedly a bowler who could bat.

This leaves only four Warwickshire players with career figures suggesting they were genuine all-rounders. Frank Foster, Dermot Reeve, Ashley Giles and Dougie Brown all had batting averages in excess of bowling averages but, whereas Giles played only 100 games, Foster 127 and Reeve 141, Brown had 197 first-class appearances. It was surely harder to maintain top all-round form so much longer. Again, Dougie Brown stands comparison with ostensibly more illustrious ‘Bears’.

A third barometer of all-round quality takes into account the percentage of times each player reached a certain level of all-round performance in a match and the figure reached by dividing career batting average by bowling average to devise an ‘all-round value.’ The method devised by George Wood (a professional statistician, for The Cricketer magazine in the 1930s) suggests that, for Warwickshire, Frank Foster is far and away the country’s top all-rounder. Surprisingly, perhaps, Ashley Giles is second, Cartwright third and Brown fourth - again up there with proven international stars, and clear of Quaife, Wyatt, Reeve et al. Top in one and top four in the others suggests that, whatever methods can be concocted, Dougie Brown was a darned good all-rounder... so let’s leave it at that.