MCC raise women's issue again (25 Aug 1998)

25 August 1998

MCC raise women's issue again

Christopher Martin-Jenkins

ENCOURAGED by the results of a questionnaire, the MCC committee posted a proposal yesterday to their membership of just under 18,000, calling a Special General Meeting for Sept 28 on the issue of women members, writes Christopher Martin-Jenkins.

Only six months ago, on Feb 24, a proposal to allow female membership was defeated because it failed to get the two thirds majority required by the club's constitution.

A majority, 56 per cent of the voters, were, however, in favour of the change from an all-male membership and Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, the former Hampshire captain whose two-year tenure as MCC president ends on Oct 1, seems determined to push the matter through before handing over to the sometime Glamorgan and England captain, Tony Lewis.

It is a risky strategy, in view of the public embarrassment which might follow another rebuff, but Ingleby-Mackenzie, as his cricket career demonstrated, is a gambler by nature. After the setback in February he commented: "The committee won the battle but lost the war. Even the Minister of Sport, Tony Banks, made it quite clear in the press he was against the continuing exclusion of ladies from membership of MCC. I can only assure him that the committee did their best, but we were outmanoeuvred by those members yet to be convinced of the great benefits which would result from the election of ladies. Still, MCC will continue to promote the cause of womens' cricket."

The committee appointed a working party under Tony Wreford, well-known in club circles as an off-spinner for the Surrey Championship club Esher, to find ways of opening the club to women. There are plenty of members who feel that the committee are acting only out of political correctness but the greater number, recognising the role of women in men's cricket quite apart from the value of women's cricket per se, clearly feel that an all-male club is an anachronism.

There are commercial reasons, too, for the committee's haste. The Sports Council refused Lottery money to the two most recent major building projects at Lord's, the new Grand Stand and the more controversial all-aluminium Media Centre, which is due to be ready for next year's World Cup despite being behind schedule and overspent on the original budget.

Today's proposal, which will be presented at a press conference at Lord's this morning, is likely to include a suggestion for a limited number of honorary women members to start the ball rolling. Equally likely to find majority favour is a proposal, originally suggested to the committee by one of the club's oldest members, E. W. Swanton, to elect young women playing members.

They would qualify in the same way as their male counterparts to play MCC matches against schools and universities. Many will see this as being very much in tune with MCC's traditional missionary role, to encourage young cricketers in the United Kingdom and further afield and to set them an example. It escaped public notice that girls were included for the first time this year in the traditional Easter coaching classes at Lord's: female playing members of MCC seems a logical way forward.

There is, on the other hand, a limit to the expansion of the women's game for obvious physiological reasons. Whilst some brave-hearted women have played with success in mixed club sides, and one or two, like Clare Connor, formerly of Brighton College, in strong school teams, there is no prospect of even the finest and strongest women players competing with men at a professional level. At the risk of inviting a challenge, strong club sides such as Doncaster and Bath, who play at Lord's in the Abbot Ale Cup Final on Friday, or even Apperley and Methley, finalists in the National Village Championship on Sunday, would be more than a match for the current England side.

Stoutly though Karen Smithies' team has performed against a more powerful Australian team in the series which ended yesterday, recent sides from Australia and New Zealand in particular have embraced sports science to get ahead of their England counterparts. Players like Rachel Heyhoe-Flint, who would surely be one of the first honorary members invited, and the prolific Jan Brittin, who announced her retirement at the weekend, have been beautiful players technically but sheer power is lacked by most women players.

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