DICKIE Bird has been described as Yorkshire's best-ever president by chairman Steve Denison ahead of the county's annual general meeting.

The change in president to John Hampshire will be rubber-stamped at Headingley tomorrow (10am start), although it has been overshadowed by Geoffrey Boycott's bid to return to the board.

Denison has praised Bird's efforts during his two-year term and he believes Hampshire, another former international umpire, will be a great successor despite struggling with ill-health.

"I think Dickie's been the best ever really," said Denison ahead of his first AGM as chairman.

"Not just because he's been to every game, but because he's such a friendly guy. Members love him, players love him and, of course, he wrote a big cheque for the players' balcony. He's been terrific.

"And we don't want to lose Dickie. He's always welcome at Yorkshire. He did a great job going out to the local clubs, which we'd like him to keep doing. I'm sure he will still be at a lot of games."

During his playing days, Hampshire captained Yorkshire, was a multiple Championship-winner and became the first batsman to score a debut Test hundred at Lord's in 1969.

As an umpire, he stood in Sachin Tendulkar's debut Test at Karachi in 1989.

"John's absolutely ideal to pick up where Dickie left off in terms of personality, although I'm sure he would argue that he had a better playing career than Dickie!" said Denison.

"The members love him as well. John's desire is to get to as many games as he can, attend as many functions and be the ambassador that Dickie was for the club.

"If you said 'name a famous umpire', Dickie would be number one on that list – but you look at some of the games that John's umpired in, and played in, he's got as many stories to tell."

Denison described his first year as chairman as "fantastic".

He said: "I couldn't have asked for a better year. On the field, we retained the Championship – which was harder than the year before. I suspect it will be harder to do again during the new season.

"To get the refinancing done was a big thing, with Colin Graves having to become completely independent.

"The refinancing doesn't get us out of the woods financially, because we still have a few difficult years ahead of us to make sure we can service the debt, but we've made massive steps.

"If you could draw a graph to measure every key area within the club, they're all going in the right direction.

"We've got nearly 500 new members for the new season – which is pretty unprecedented, I suspect, within county cricket.

"We are way ahead of last year in terms of Test match tickets, and last year was an improvement on the previous year.

"First season under lights in T20 was just a brilliant foundation. All of that translates into the positive cashflow we need to fund the club."