MCC Elect Tony Lewis As Honorary Life Vice-President

MCC Elect Tony Lewis As Honorary Life Vice-President

Tony Lewis

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The MCC Committee has elected former England and Glamorgan captain, Tony Lewis, as the 31st Honorary Life Vice-President of the Club.

This is the highest honour that the MCC Committee can bestow on any Member of the Club.  It was was introduced in 1961 and recipients have included outstanding contributors to cricket in its many facets such as Sir Pelham Warner (1961), Sir Donald Bradman (1988), Sir Alec Bedser (1999), Ted Dexter (2003) and most recently, Tom Graveney in 2010.

Lewis’s invitation acknowledges the outstanding contribution he has made to cricket in general and MCC in particular, during a very long period.  Since making his First-Class debut as a player for Glamorgan in 1955 at the age of 17, Lewis has been a central figure in English and Welsh cricket.  He was the last man to captain England on Test debut and led Glamorgan to the County Championship title in 1969.  Following his retirement in 1974, Lewis subsequently has been Chairman and President of Glamorgan CCC, and moved effortlessly into the media sector as a writer and broadcaster on the game internationally for over 30 years.

Tony Lewis was elected an MCC Member in 1964 and has been inextricably linked with the Club ever since – first joining the Cricket Committee in 1967, serving a two-year term as President between 1998 and 2000, and founding and chairing MCC’s World Cricket Committee in 2006.  He also wrote the Club’s official history, Double Century, in 1987, and has performed many additional honorary roles within MCC during a 47- year period.

Tony Lewis said:

“It was with some surprise that I took a call from President Phillip Hodson, a man I have had the pleasure of knowing since the 1960s, to say that the MCC Committee had elected me as an as an Honorary Vice-Life President of the Club.  MCC has formed a major part of my life, and I am honoured to accept this invitation.

“I have always believed the historic ideal that MCC should be a private club with a public duty.  My own contributions ended with the creation of the World Cricket Committee, which I chaired for five years and which I believe has contributed an important, independent voice to the game around the world. I know that my successor, Mike Brearley, will lead that Committee with equal enthusiasm.

“To be appreciated by your peers is a huge thing to happen to you; to join a list which includes such eminent contributors to the Club and to the game of cricket as a whole is a real privilege.  It is with great pride that I open my next chapter with MCC.”
President of MCC, Phillip Hodson, said:

“Tony Lewis has been a superb ambassador and a major contributor to MCC for nearly half a century, and I am thrilled that he will continue his long-standing association with the Club as an Honorary Life Vice-President.

“During his Presidency he oversaw significant changes within the Club – including the admission of women for the first time in MCC’s history in 1999, and the introduction of the Spirit of Cricket as the Preamble to the 2000 Code of the Laws of Cricket.  Such changes have positively shaped the subsequent direction of MCC.”     
As an Honorary Life Vice-President, Lewis will have all the general privileges and status of a member of the MCC Committee.