MCC Members

The MCC has been referred to in the past as the Woolsack of Cricket and Lords Ground as the Mecca of Cricket. The cricket ground at Lords is owned by the 18000 MCC Members who are personally responsible for maintaining it as a world class cricket arena. MCC is a private Members Club with a public interest.

From time to time matters of great public concern arise, such as the loss of live international cricket matches from terrestrial television, the Stanford Cricket Circus and the Pietersen Captaincy to name just a few recent high profile examples. Sadly, the MCC is no longer perceived to be the influential guardian of our national sporting traditions and what used to be a powerful voice in the past is rarely heard even as a whimper today. As the onward march of commercialism gathers momentum the silence from the Long Room at Lords seems to denote implicit approval for the actions of the English Cricket Board. This is unsurprising when the MCC is represented by a Director serving on the Executive Board of the ECB and the MCC Chairman is also an ex officio member.

It was in 1970 that the control and administration of English Cricket was removed from MCC by the actions of James Callaghan who was Home Secretary in the Wil son Government. Our national game was placed in the hands of the Cricket Council and the Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB). Whilst things remained reasonably calm in the early days of the metamorphosis it did not take too long before personality clashes resulted in the regulating influence of the Cricket Council being destroyed. It is ironic that the TCCB has been replaced today by a privately owned company - the English Cricket Board.