Decision day for Lord's and ladies (14 Feb 1998)

14 February 1998

Decision day for Lord's and ladies

Electronic Telegraph

"Ten out of 11 women care very little for cricket, and though from the goodness of their hearts they insist on coming to the grounds ... it would be kinder to all concerned, and less like cruelty to animals, to leave them quietly at home" - D L A Jephson

A lone bugler is playing the Last Post in 18,000 (male) heads today as the Test match continues in Trinidad and the deadline approaches for the vote that will decide whether those creatures known as women should be admitted as members to that most masculine of bastions, Marylebone Cricket Club. A special general meeting has been called at the Lord's indoor cricket centre on Feb 24, when the votes will be counted and the club's fate known.

My God, there will be pink curtains up at the Long Room windows before you can say C B Fry.

This might be a slight exaggeration. All that has happened is that the MCC committee, suddenly coursing with the young blood of the under-80s, are recommending to their membership that women be granted equal status, having discovered that the fair sex are not, after all, a sub-species forever entrapped by trivia and knitting patterns. This is civilised and sensible. A bit late, but welcome none the less.

But to some of the old dears who knew Mrs Pankhurst well this seems to be a ghastly fruition of her disgraceful meddling in the grave affairs of men and when the resolution comes - to wit: "Insert the following sentence at the beginning of Rule 2.2 (A):- 'Men and women shall be eligible for membership', " - it is by no means certain that the committee, who are overwhelmingly in favour of such a move, will have their way.

"Well, honestly, it's a gents' club," said John Bromley, unashamed MCC member, who was once refused permission to take off his jacket in the Long Room despite the temperature reaching 82F. Someone brought in a thermometer and said he'd just have to swelter until it reached 85. "I've sent off my postal vote. Voted against it. I like the atmosphere. Lord's as it is. Women - I adore them. Magnificent creatures. But Lord's is my little world and I just don't want them in the Long Room.

"I know the chaps on the committee voted something like 20-2 in favour - worried about Brussels or something - but I have a feeling, my darling, that the membership are going to throw it out. The gents in the shires are going to stick two fingers up. 'No, no, bollocks,' they'll say. 'We don't want women in'. "

It may not be the most cogent of arguments but the committee are fighting 200 years' worth of hopelessly ingrained chauvinism that began in 1787 when George III was going periodically mad and women had corsets but no vote or Wonderbras. Well, hello boys. The pressures of 20th-century life are about to change all that, not a moment too soon given that the 21st century is almost upon us.

However, to succeed in their rule change the committee require a two-thirds majority which would represent a massive swing in their favour following a vote in 1991 when the committee were uncommitted and only 33 per cent of members could bear the thought of women about the place. Then, 2,371 voted for and 4,727 voted against. "About 10,000 didn't vote at all," said Rachel Heyhoe-Flint, the former England women's captain, whose application for membership had prompted the poll. "Actually, I think they were all dead."

This is a popular misconception. And not always a misconception either. Sir Tim Rice, esteemed MCC member, tells the story of a fellow who passed away peacefully in his seat in the pavilion during a match at Lord's. Fortunately, his remains were discovered early in the morning and so, to spare the surrounding chaps any discomposure (as it were), two members of staff were deputed to sit on either side of him in a propping capacity until the end of the day's play, when he might be unobtrusively and reverently removed.

History does not record whether he was escorted through the Long Room one last time. Possibly so, the ban applying only to the female of the species, and not to the unfortunately deceased.

But such events are blissfully rare. The average age of MCC members is, in fact, 57. Mere striplings. Many are still in full charge of both their hampers and faculties. A number, especially on the committees, are captains of industry, or Law Lords or writers on The Daily Telegraph. They are fully functional in the wider world and have no fear of womankind at all.

"I am neither a sex maniac nor a misogynist," said Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, the president of the MCC committee and former captain of Hampshire, under whose enlightened auspices the resolution has been proposed. Speaking from Tobago, where he has been assailed from all sides by members seeking reassurance one way or the other, he confirmed: "Any change that is wrought will be gradual, acceptable and civilised. We are simply trying to nudge the membership in the right direction."

Foremost among the nudgers is Michael Sissons, chairman of literary agents Peters Fraser & Dunlop and chairman of the MCC marketing sub-committee. "We have done a very detailed MORI poll of our membership and it's not a lot of old vicars in khaki shorts. It is very professional and forward-looking. Our fingers are crossed that our sensible and intelligent membership will give us their support. Because as long as this issue still haunts us, we're going to be seen in that cliched way as being fuddy-duddy, anti-women and stuck in the past. We do such an enormous amount of work on behalf of the game of cricket, if we're still tagged with the taint of being anti-women it's just bloody unhelpful.

"It's the most unedifying event, the on-going argument against women. I've experienced it at the Garrick Club, from which I have resigned. It makes you ashamed to be part of a forum like that. I just want to be rid of it and I very much hope it's going to go."

SO, WILL it? The members' lawn at Lord's on match days, a patch of green swathed in picnics, is an instructive place. I remember meeting there an MCC member and proprietor of the Nippon Tuck Japanese restaurant, Canary Wharf. He was in recovery at the time. He had been in the company of a woman in the pavilion during the England v New Zealand women's Test match on Thursday, June 13, 1996. "It was your worst nightmare," he was saying. "I was with a friend who brought his wife. Suddenly I noticed she was saying to my friend: 'Darling, you've got your MCC tie and your MCC hatband on. Don't you think that's a bit too much? And, by the way, I think those colours are awful. Why don't you change them?' This fridge-like cold was going round the place. All the guys were thinking: 'This is what it could be like every day.' It was a horror."

Even Eleanor Oldroyd's clergyman father (who has voted yes, by the way) is not entirely in the grip of quiet certainty. "I've been in the Long Room at the Oval, where women have been admitted for years and there's teacups all over the place. But don't tell Eleanor I said that."

His daughter, the doyenne of Radio 5 Live sports broadcasting, would not be surprised anyway. She knows Lord's perfectly well, having been refused entry to a male university hockey match when she was a student at Cambridge. "But you're a woman," said the gateman incredulously, only allowing her in upon production of her pass, with huge and wretched reluctance.

"They're like Israeli immigration officers. They give you the absolute third degree," she said. "Sometimes I feel tempted to rip open my blouse and run down the stairs screaming: 'Yes I'm a woman'. But I suppose to do something like that might embarrass my father."

Wendy Wimbush, another vicar's daughter and former BBC cricket scorer, was once innocently pursuing her way to the radio booth when she was spotted by an MCC member coming the other way. "Woman in the pavilion!" he yelled, as though confronted by a terrorist or a boa constrictor.

Oh, for heaven's sake, you want to say, no earthly harm will befall the Long Room if women are admitted on to its hallowed linoleum during the hours of play. We're not Molotov cocktails in disguise. I have been there: a delightful, airy room with a magnificent view of the pitch, and from which the portrait of Graham Gooch (looking like Desperate Dan) had been mercifully removed. In some it might inspire reverence and calm. In others the urge for a gin. But whether these be men or women is surely supremely irrelevant.

"The point is," said Roger Knight, the MCC secretary, "this is the very best cricket club in the world, the most famous cricket club in the world and the most prestigious. Why should women not be allowed to join if they are as equally committed to the game of cricket?"

Because the Boys'R'Us mentality still pertains in some quarters. The old lads huddle like penguins on a shrinking iceberg, lapped by the warm tide of modernity, liberty and the Equal Opportunities Commission. "What the hell do women want to go into the Long Room for when the majority of people there are hairy men talking about cricket? Or silent even," said a gentleman who wished to remain anonymous. (And married, presumably.)

"A lot of the men fear a constant barrage of twittering if women are admitted. There's a feeling that the gravity of the situation will be overshadowed and disrupted by women who don't treat the silly game with quite the same reverence as we do."

"Absolute rubbish," said Netta Rheinberg MBE, who could be a formidable candidate for membership, should the barriers be dismantled, as the woman who captained Middlesex and managed two England tours to the Antipodes after the Second World War. "It's we women who will be talking about cricket in the pavilion and men who will be discussing when to go for the next drink. I think they're so old-fashioned it's ridiculous. I wrote several militant letters about it at one time but now I'm too old - I'm 86 - to apply to be a member. It's just a knot of old blimps holding us up. I suppose we should be honoured that they're a bit afraid of us but we're not suffragettes, we just want to be thought of as normal sportswomen."

The crux of the issue is that MCC are not just a private club for men willing to pay £173 a year for the dubious privilege of wearing a red and yellow tie in full public view. (That woman was right, the colours are awful). They have a wider function. The club undertake overseas tours, will play 385 matches against clubs and schools in Britain this year, maintain a cricket staff of 20, send coaches and umpires all over the world and are developing their own country ground at Shenley Park.

"As a private club, of course we can do exactly as we like," said Knight. "But we do have a public face." To which, he intimated, it is high time to apply a discreet smudge of lipstick.

Those of a cynical bent might just see the connection between MCC's lurch towards new liberalism and the Sports Council turning them down for a £5 million grant from the National Lottery to rebuild a stand at Lord's. They had to pay for it themselves in the end, a painful process made slightly easier because they could write to the 9,000 poor hopefuls on the membership waiting list and say: "Give us a cheque for £10,000 and you're in," or words to that effect. Two hundred and thirty did; £2.3 million raised.

Handy. "But I don't anticipate being able to do that again in my lifetime," said David Hudd, the MCC chairman of finance.

So never mind social justice, this is practical economics. Given that industry, government and vicarages are now awash with girl power this was probably the only way to go. But that does, of course, ignore the fact that cricket is far more important than business, politics and the life everlasting to a sizeable chunk of the members.

"I don't think this is about sex at all," said Rory Bremner, who has been allowed on the players' balcony but never in a seat in the pavilion despite his closeness to John Major. "It's to do with men and sport. They like to be completely insulated with their anorak and headphones and scorebook. They want to be hermetically sealed, undistracted. Perhaps if you could issue little MCC-coloured blinkers. . ."

Meanwhile, those postal votes are still flooding in. "Yes, I've sent mine in," said Daily Telegraph cricket correspondent Christopher Martin-Jenkins. "My wife did it for me." A close-run thing is anticipated. Emotions are high on both sides.

If - the big, feminist, financially-kosher if - the members do vote with the committee on this one, some solace may immediately be applied to the wounds of the losers. The waiting list is 18 years long. Far from being immediately overrun by marauding hordes of beribboned floozies clamouring for sun-loungers on the pitch and cocktails with little umbrellas, there might be no noticeable difference.

In theory women will be equals. In theory a woman could be president. A fast track to immediate membership might be created for the distinguished likes of Heyhoe-Flint and other serious female contributors to the sport, but the rest would have to wait their turn. They would also need to be proposed, seconded, sponsored and endorsed by four different MCC members, and probably prove that they fought in the Crimean War alongside the Earl of Cardigan.

I'm being facetious now but the fundamental truth remains that when and if I am able to apply for admission through this most holy of portals, bracing myself for the purchase of a red and yellow headscarf, I shall be told in no uncertain terms that I shall be very welcome in 2016. Just in time to see son of Mike Atherton losing to the Bangladesh B team.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)