EW Swanton: MCC must rise above abuse of pressure groups (29 April 1998)

29 April 1998

MCC must rise above abuse of pressure groups

By E.W. Swanton

THE result of the MCC members' vote on whether women should be admitted to the club has engendered, as such emotive issues are apt to do, more heat than light. The club's solicitors advised, when the resolution was being prepared, that it could be dealt with as a regulation, requiring only a majority, rather than a rule change, which needs two-thirds of the votes. Happily, the committee commanded the services of legal authorities of the stature of Lord Griffiths, a Lord of Appeal, Sir Oliver Popplewell, the High Court judge, and the eminent QC, Lord Alexander.

The ironical fact is that although all three happened personally to be very much in favour of the admission of women, they nevertheless all advised the committee to require again a two-thirds majority as had been called for in the referendum of 1991. Although the majority of the current committee also favour the admission, they agreed that after 211 years of history, a decision so fundamental demanded something approaching unequivocal approval.

With 55 per cent voting yes, what now? I assume that the committee may want to make a gesture reflecting the newly acquired majority at next week's annual meeting. I voted in favour of the admission of women as an encouragement towards the spread of the game, assuming that some senior members of the Women's Cricket Association with long service would be admitted to honorary membership. There could be a separate list to which were elected young cricketers qualified to play in the colours of MCC against schools and clubs affiliated to the WCA, which, by the way, is in the course of being incorporated into the England and Wales Cricket Board. Seeing that the Lord's pavilion can hold at the big matches only one in 10 of the 18,000 members, women's accommodation could only be strictly limited.

What I hope is that MCC will rise above the abuse of strident pressure groups. There are more momentous matters concerning the welfare of the game which the ECB and the club need to tackle together.

ANNIVERSARIES of one sort or another can usually be found to stand exposure to the spotlight; but it is no ordinary year that takes in the 150th anniversary of the birth of W G Grace (July 18) and Sir Donald Bradman's 90th birthday (Aug 26).

Within a few weeks, we shall, in fact, be commemorating the two most famous names in the game's history. The Don, fit and well by latest report, must be prepared for a volley of salutes in books and all forms of the media. At Lord's, by a happy coincidence, the one-day match between MCC and the rest of the world serves a double purpose as MCC's contribution to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and a tribute to W G on his birthday: two icons in their respective times unique.

Hubert Doggart's impact on the cricket scene exactly 50 years ago is a more immediate milestone. In his first first-class match, he made 215 not out at Fenner's for Cambridge University against Lancashire - and it was the full county attack. No other Englishman had opened with a double hundred, nor has any repeated it until the 18-year-old David Sales made an astonishing 210 not out for Northamptonshire against Worcestershire in 1996, whereupon last summer for Glamorgan in the Oxford Parks, young Michael Powell made 200 not out.

After 15 years as an active president of the Cricket Society, Doggart has just handed over to an equally hard worker in the service of the game, The Daily Telegraph's own Christopher Martin-Jenkins. In his 33rd year as president of the English Schools' Cricket Association, Doggart has also done many years as chairman of the Arundel Castle Cricket Club. Altogether he has had a very busy time since, on his retirement as a Winchester master, he became in turn president and treasurer of MCC. It would be good to think that among more recent generations at all levels there is a ready supply of cricketers prepared to pay in service for the pleasure they have had from the game.

By chance, I have a personal anniversary coming up in that I attended my first annual dinner to the touring side as a member of MCC 60 years ago: eight courses to welcome the 1938 Australians, seven speeches, including an agreeable one without a note from young Bradman.

Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, the president, was in the chair. He was not the first or the last Prime Minister to play or be fond of cricket. Clement Attlee, I recall, frequented Lord's and was said to hover round the House of Commons tape machines only to keep abreast of the cricket scores. Harold Macmillan also patronised Lord's and was proud of the batting for Sussex of his late grandson, Mark Faber. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minister in 1963-64 and President of MCC in 1966-67, was, of course, a first-class cricketer, tried as a fastish bowler by Oxford and Middlesex and a tourist with MCC to South America. John Major, announced as president-designate of his native Surrey, played until injured and is a formidable cricket historian.

And what of Tony Blair? Well, my information from a Fettes master of his day is that he was a promising cricketer in the junior colts before he opted for basketball as being more quickly finished. So what price a conversion? My informant remembers the boy as "bumptious but amusing".

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