MCC vote on allowing women to become members (24 Feb 1998)

The MCC Vote - Women are still denied membership after 211 years

On Tuesday 24 February a special general meeting of the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club) decided that women would NOT be allowed to apply for membership of the club - despite 56% of those voting being in favour of the change, the required two-thirds majority was not achieved.

Even though there have been many controversial changes in cricket , including the introduction of coloured clothing and third umpires, the MCC has remained a male dominated organisation. Its reputation from some quarters as being 'out of touch' is likely to be reinforced as a result of tonight's vote.

Despite this, the result does represent a considerable change of opinion since the issue was last discussed at the MCC AGM in 1991; at that time only 33% of members were in favour of admitting women, 77% rejected the proposal.

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One of the arguments the MCC committee put forward was that the aim of the club is to promote and develop cricket as much as possible in conjunction with the ICC and the ECB - therefore the image of the club is vital and not admitting women is likely to be seen as outdated.

In addition, the lack of female members was one of five major reasons the MCC was recently denied a lottery grant to assist in the construction of new buildings at Lord's.

Since then the issue has been discussed at various sub-committee meetings and the final judgment was made at the special general meeting in the Indoor School on Tuesday. It is therefore, rather ironic that the MCC Rules have never actually specifically excluded lady members, although it has always undoubtedly been a 'male' club.

Currently there are nearly 18,000 members and an extremely long waiting list to join the club - around 18 years in fact. However the Committee has the right to appoint honourary and honourary life members. Also, if you play 10 games of cricket for MCC then the waiting time is reduced to two years.