MOTT_ON_MCC_03SEP1998

3 September 1998

Fireworks day 24 hours early

Sue Mott

MCC man, I bring you bad tidings. You have two months to get out. You have no time to lose. You must pack up your egg and bacon ties (although claret and port stains have long since added to the culinary mix), pull your straw trilby over your eyes, kiss goodbye to the dogs and head . . . where? Iran perhaps? Or, on mature reflection, Australia, writes Sue Mott.

Here, in Britain, it's over. The game is up. And your nemesis - how this will stab you through the lambswool waistcoat - is an ex-England rugby player who by some unaccountable process, perhaps too many blows to the head, became the Labour MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey at the last general election.

The truth of the matter is that Derek Wyatt MP will present his Ten Minute Rule Bill on Nov 4, thereby starting fireworks day 24 hours earlier than usual. The gist of it is, in short, doom.

When Wyatt stands on his hind legs to speak ("Oh yes, I do the full dib dib dob"), he will argue that the time is upon us to embrace women, not merely the wife on anniversaries or Mabel the barmaid on other festive occasions, but in sport.

He will say that any club or building that is open to men and women must present them with equal access and opportunities. "It is," he said, "disgraceful, appalling and outrageous that women are treated in this way. It's exactly the same sort of thing as apartheid. It's barking. I'm sick of it."

You will, of course, immediately identify the ramifications. If a golf club allows women members at all, they must be granted equal status with men. They may tee off at 7am on a Saturday, if they so desire, even at the risk of desecrating the family breakfast washing up. They may loll in a louche manner in the 19th hole, telling loud and unsuitable jokes. There is only one place they may not go: the gents.

"Yes, we'll have to include some clever wording about that. I don't want women in the gents or vice versa or mixed hospital wards," said Wyatt firmly.

Of course, this will instantly give rise to large numbers of male golfers congregating in the gents, dragging in bar stools and beer glasses and so forth, but no doubt an amendment can be tacked on to future legislation barring male quorums in lavatories except in pursuit of the - ahem - immediate business in hand.

But these small t-crossings and i-dottings notwithstanding, the old joke is beginning to look rather out of date. The one where some would-be male club member is asking a fully paid-up buffer: "Do you allow women in here?" Buffer replies: "I don't know. But we don't let dogs in."

Cricket clubs, golf clubs, snooker clubs, football boardrooms: they would all fall under the equal opportunity axe. Wyatt, the executioner, is adamant.

"We're redefining what modern Britain is. Our embassies abroad no longer have guards with busbies prancing about outside. We've redefined the constitution. Now we've got to redefine ourselves. We've got to ask ourselves: are we still living in the feudal age or a modern 21st Century society?"

No doubt given a vote on the subject (as opposed to other far more painful subjects like wimmin) our MCC members would opt for feudal every time. Then serfs and women could clamour without and continue to make the sandwiches, while the lords of Lord's delved into their wicker baskets and Muralitharan's bowling action. All highly regular and satisfactory.

And then Wyatt comes along with his revolution.

He is expecting opposition. Not least from the Opposition. He is certain a few Tories will leap to their feet at the end of his oration and defend to the death the honour of wilful exclusion. But - and this is the really grim news to speed MCC man on his way to the ferry - were his rule bill to become the law of the land, the MCC might have to admit women straight away.

What? Not even allow them that projected 20-year honeymoon period before petticoats start flouncing round the pavilion?

What about the waiting list, packed full of correctly chromosomed scions? Surely they cannot be expected to pay for the sexist sins of their forebears as a bargeload of women elbow past them?

"Who knows," said Wyatt darkly.

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