Kingston Club looking towards mixed membership (17 November 1998)

17 November 1998

Kingston Club looking towards mixed membership

Tony Becca

The Kingston Cricket Club may soon open its doors to women. For 135 years, ever since founding day in 1863, membership to the club, whose home is the world famous Sabina Park, has been limited to men only. According to president Errol Ziadie, it may not be long before those days are over.

"We have to move with the times," said Ziadie yesterday. "We have seen what has happened to Jamaica Club, and we cannot sit back and allow that to happen to us. It is not up to me, it is up to the membership, but we have to move in that direction, and I hope quickly.

Jamaica Club, which like Kingston Club was a men's only institution, ran into hard times financially and closed its doors recently.

"Fortunately for us, we have a Test match at Sabina Park once a year, most years. Without that, it would be difficult to finance the club, and I believe that the time has come for us to think about its future and to open it up so that we can have female members."

Ziadie, who is in his first year as president of the club, said that he intends to table the suggestion to the managing committee as early as possible and see where it goes from there. "We simply cannot wait until what has happened to Jamaica Club happens to us."

It is not the first time that there has been a suggestion to open the doors of Kingston Club to women members, but it was placed on the table again last Thursday night at the club's annual dinner and awards ceremony by guest speaker, well known attorney Derek Jones. A long-standing member of the club, and one of those members who unsuccessfully attempted to get Jamaica Club to open its doors to women members, Jones suggested that Kingston Club opens its doors in the context of change.

"Club life as we know it, has changed. At 11 o'clock next week Saturday, November 21, there is going to be an auction at the Jamaica Club at which their furniture, their fittings and their equipment is going to be sold. I am not sure if they are older than this club but I think it is something of which this club should take note. I think there are opportunities that this club can take advantage of. This club could die, unless we find ways to ensure its survival."

Jones was cheered heartily when he said that he appreciated that certain signs in the club may have to change, "but let us not have an auction of our facilities born either of stubbornness or the unwillingness to change."

In July, the Barbados Cricket Association got its first female Board member when Patricia Greenidge, wife of former Test batsman Alvin Greenidge, was elected treasurer; and on September 28, the MCC voted to accept women members for the first time its 211-year history

Source :: The Jamaica Gleaner (https://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/)