Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone
Cricket Club (MCC) is a cricket club founded in 1787 and based since 1814 at
Lord's Cricket Ground, which it owns, in St John's Wood, London. The club was
formerly the governing body of cricket retaining considerable global influence.
In 1788,
the MCC took responsibility for the laws of cricket, issuing a revised version
that year. Changes to these Laws are now determined by the International
Cricket Council (ICC), but the copyright is still owned by MCC. When the ICC
was established in 1909, it was administered by the secretary of the MCC, and
the president of MCC automatically assumed the chairmanship of ICC until 1989.
For much of
the 20th century, commencing with the 1903–04 tour of Australia and ending with
the 1976–77 tour of India, MCC organised international tours on behalf of the
England cricket team for playing Test matches. On these tours, the England team
played under the auspices of MCC in non-international matches. In 1993, its
administrative and governance functions were transferred to the ICC and the
Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB).
MCC teams
are essentially ad hoc because they have never taken part in any formal
competition, but have always held first-class status when playing against
first-class opposition.
The present
president of the club is Stephen Fry, who assumed the twelve-month office on 1
October 2022, replacing Clare Connor, the first woman to hold the post.[5] In
May 2023, he named his successor as Mark Nicholas, the former Hampshire
captain.
History and
role
The origin
of MCC was as a gentlemen's club that had flourished through most of the 18th
century, including, at least in part, an existence as the original London
Cricket Club, which had played at the Artillery Ground through the middle years
of the century. Many of its members became involved with the Hambledon Club
through the 1770s and then, in the early 1780s, had returned to the London area
where the White Conduit Club had begun in Islington. It is not known for
certain when the White Conduit was founded but it seems to have been after 1780
and certainly by 1785. According to Sir Pelham Warner, it was formed in 1782 as
an offshoot from a West End convivial club called the Je-ne-sais-quoi, some of
whose members frequented the White Conduit House in Islington and played
matches on the neighbouring White Conduit Fields, which had been a prominent
venue for cricket in the 1720s. Arthur Haygarth said in Scores and Biographies
that "the Marylebone Club was founded in 1787 from the White Conduit's
members" but the date of the formation of the White Conduit "could
not be found".
This
gentlemen's club, which was multi-purpose, had a social meeting place at the
Star and Garter on Pall Mall. It was the same club that was responsible for
drafting the Laws of Cricket at various times, most notably in 1744 and 1774,
and this lawgiving responsibility was soon to be vested in the MCC as the final
repose of these cricketing gentlemen. When the White Conduit began, its leading
lights were George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea (1752–1826) and the Hon.
Colonel Charles Lennox (1764–1819), later succeeding as the 4th Duke of
Richmond. White Conduit was nominally an exclusive club that only "gentlemen"
might play for, but the club did engage professionals and one of these was
Thomas Lord, a man who was recognised for his business acumen (becoming a
successful wine merchant) "as well as his bowling ability".
The new
club might have continued except that White Conduit Fields was an open area
allowing members of the public, including the rowdier elements, to watch the
matches and to voice their opinions on the play and the players. The White
Conduit gentlemen were not amused by such interruptions and decided to look for
a more private venue of their own.Winchilsea and Lennox asked Lord to find a
new ground and offered him a guarantee against any losses he may suffer in the
venture. Lord took a lease from the Portman Estate on some land at Dorset
Fields where Dorset Square is now sited; and the ground was prepared and opened
in 1787. It was initially called the New Cricket Ground, perhaps because it was
off what was then called "the New Road" in Marylebone, when the first
known match was played there on 21 May but, by the end of July, it was known as
Lord's. As it was in Marylebone, the White Conduit members who relocated to it
soon decided to call themselves the "Mary-le-bone Club". The exact date
of MCC's foundation is lost but seems to have been sometime in the late spring
or the summer of 1787.[14] On 10 & 11 July 1837, a South v North match was
staged at Lord's to commemorate the MCC's Golden Jubilee. Warner described it
as "a Grand Match to celebrate the Jubilee of the Club" and
reproduced the full scorecard.
On 25 April
1787, the London Morning Herald newspaper carried a notice: "The Members
of the Cricket Club are desired to meet at the Star and Garter, Pall Mall, on
Mon., April 30. Dinner on table exactly at half past five o'clock. N.B. The
favour of an answer is desired".The agenda is unknown but, only three
weeks later on Saturday, 19 May, the Morning Herald advertised: "A grand
match will be played on Monday, 21 May in the New Cricket Ground, the New Road,
Mary-le-bone, between eleven Noblemen of the White Conduit Club and eleven
Gentlemen of the County of Middlesex with two men given, for 500 guineas a
side. The wickets to be pitched at ten o'clock, and the match to be played
out". No post-match report has been found but, as G. B. Buckley said, it
was "apparently the first match to be played on Lord's new ground".
A total of
eight matches are known to have been played at Lord's in 1787, one of them a
single wicket event. The only one which featured the Mary-le-bone Club took
place on Monday, 30 July. It was advertised in The World on Friday, 27 July
1787: "On Monday, 30 July will be played (at Lord's) a match between 11
gentlemen of the Mary-le-bone Club and 11 gentlemen of the Islington
Club".[Buckley stated that "this is the earliest notice of the
Marylebone Club". As with the inaugural match at Lord's, no post-match
report of the inaugural MCC match has been found.
Grounds
There have
been three Lord's grounds: the original on the Portman Estate and two on the
Eyre Estate. All three sites lie to the west of Regent's Park. Thomas Lord
leased the original ground, now referred to as Lord's Old Ground, from the
Portman Estate in 1787 and MCC played there until 1810 when Lord, after
objecting to a rent increase, decided on termination of the lease to lift his
turf and move out. Over 200 matches are known to have been played there, mostly
involving MCC and/or Middlesex. The Old Ground was on the site now occupied by
Dorset Square which is east of Marylebone Station and west of Baker Street. To
commemorate the association, a plaque was unveiled in Dorset Square on 9 May
2006 by Sir Andrew Strauss.
Lord had
been aware some years before 1810 that the Portman Estate intended to let the
site on building leases which would command the much higher rent of over £600
per annum. On 15 October 1808, he rented two fields in the North Bank area of
the St John's Wood Estate, which belonged to Richard Eyre, a local landowner
after whom Eyre's Tunnel on the Regent's Canal was named. Rental on the Eyre
site was only £54 per annum for a term of eighty years and free of both land
tax and tithe.
The new
ground was ready for use in 1809 and so Lord had two grounds at his disposal
for the 1809 and 1810 seasons. The North Bank ground was sub-let to St John's
Wood Cricket Club which eventually merged with MCC.[17] Lord officially took
over his second ground on 8 May 1811 by re-laying there his turf from the Old
Ground. He did this so that "the noblemen and gentlemen of the MCC should
be able to play on the same footing as before". According to Warner,
however, the relocation was unpopular with many MCC members and, as a result,
the club played no matches there in either 1811 or 1812.[17] This may have been
so, but cricket generally was in decline at the time because of the Napoleonic
Wars. The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (the ACS) holds
that "(from) 1810 to 1814 the game was all but dead", largely because
of the war and "the very real threat of civil unrest in England".[18]
The second venue is now generally known as Lord's Middle Ground. In the three
years that Lord controlled it, only six matches are known to have taken place
there and just three of these (all in 1813) involved MCC. The Middle Ground's
exact location is uncertain but it is understood to have been in North Bank at
the north end of Lisson Grove and that the Regent's Canal has been cut through
it. This means that it was partially on the canal route and somewhere in the
area now bounded by Lisson Grove (the B507) to south-west, Lodge Road to
north-west, Park Road (the A41) to north-east and the Regent's Canal to
south-east. It was less than 300 yards (270 m) from the site of the modern
Lord's ground.
Lord was
forced to abandon the Middle Ground because of the canal construction. The
decision on the route was made by Parliament in 1813. Lord, via his protégé
Lord Frederick Beauclerk, approached the Eyre family who agreed to lease him
another plot nearby in St John's Wood, but at an increased rent of £100 per
annum. Lord accepted and again removed and relaid his turf in time for the start
of the 1814 season. This third ground was the present Lord's, now home to MCC
for over 200 years.
Laws of
Cricket
MCC is the
body responsible for, and remains the copyright holder of, the Laws of Cricket.
Its Laws Sub-Committee is responsible for debating and drafting changes to the
Laws, with the Main Committee then voting on any changes proposed.
Membership
MCC has
18,000 full members and 5,000 associate members. Members have voting rights and
can use the Pavilion and other stands at Lord's Cricket Ground to attend all
matches played there.
In order to
join the waiting list of candidates for membership one must obtain the vote (of
which each full member has one a year) of three members, and the additional
sponsorship of a person on the List of MCC Sponsors (which consists of members
of all MCC Sub-Committees; MCC Committee; MCC Out-Match Representatives; and
the Current, Past and Designate President). As the demand for membership always
outstrips supply each year, there continues to be a substantial waiting list
for Full Ordinary Membership, currently around 27 years.[20] There are,
however, ways to lessen the time it takes to become a full member: one may qualify
as a Playing Member, or Out-Match Member (although this carries none of the
privileges of membership, apart from being able to play for the club).
In
addition, membership rules allow a certain number of people each year to be
elected ahead of their turn; beneficiaries have included Sir Mick Jagger and in
2018 the Prime Minister, Theresa, now Lady May. MCC also grants limited
honorary membership to people who have had distinguished cricket careers. The
club recognises achievement in women's cricket with, for example, Charlotte
Edwards an inductee in the 2010s.
Controversies
The club's
members refused to allow female membership up until 1998, with club ballots on
the change unable to achieve the two-thirds majority amongst the membership
required for implementation. The move to change was spearheaded by Rachael
Heyhoe Flint who applied as "R Flint" to slip into the male-only
application system. When Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, a longstanding supporter of
women's membership, took on the presidency of MCC in 1996 he led a two-year
campaign to convince the membership to vote in favour of change. In September
1998 a 70% majority of members voted to allow female membership, so ending 212
years of male exclusivity, and 10 honorary life members were immediately
admitted, including Baroness Heyhoe Flint. Until this time, The Queen, the
club's patron, was the only woman (other than domestic staff) permitted to
enter the Pavilion during play. In February 1999, five women were invited to
join as playing members.
There was
further controversy in 2005 when the club was criticised (including by a few of
its own members) for siding with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) over
the latter's decision to award television rights for Test cricket to British
Sky Broadcasting, thus removing Test cricket from terrestrial television. The
then Secretary and Chief Executive of MCC, Roger Knight, represented the club
on the board of the ECB and was party to this controversial and much criticised
decision, prior to which Test cricket had been shown free to viewers on British
television for more than half a century.
Another
controversy was MCC's decision to allow members and other spectators to
continue to bring limited amounts of alcoholic drinks into the ground at all
matches. This decision challenged the ICC, which was attempting to implement a
ban on this practice at all international matches around the world. MCC has
opted to write to the ICC on an annual basis to seek permission for members and
spectators to import alcohol into Lord's.
The
Secretary & Chief Executive of the club has a place on the administrative
board of the England and Wales Cricket Board and it is reported that Keith
Bradshaw (Secretary & Chief Executive 2006–11) may have influenced the
removal from office of England Coach Duncan Fletcher in April 2007.
In 2012,
MCC made headlines over a controversial redevelopment plan, Vision for Lord's,
that would have increased capacity but included construction of residential
flats on some of the MCC site. Internal strife over the process of making a
decision on the proposal led to the resignation of former Prime Minister Sir
John Major from the Main Committee.
In 2022,
Guy Lavender, Secretary & Chief Executive of MCC, announced that the annual
one-day Oxford v Cambridge and Eton v Harrow matches, both of which have been
played at Lord's since the early 19th century, would no longer be held at the
ground, so as to make room in the fixture list for the finals of competitions
for all universities and schools in pursuit of greater diversity. However,
following opposition from a majority of its membership, the club decided that
the matches would continue to be held at Lord's until at least 2023 to allow
time for further consultation. In March 2023 it was announced that the fixtures
would continue to be played at Lord's until at least 2027, following which
there would be a review and a possible vote in 2028 on whether the matches
should remain at Lord's.
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