MCC women join the men after 200 years
The historic moment came shortly after midday yesterday when eight women quietly entered the Long Room by a side door, thus ending a 212-year wait.
But it happened so quietly that hardly anyone noticed. One minute they weren't there; the next minute they were. The men were too busy doing what they usually do in the Long Room: gossiping.
The eight were clutching red membership cards, having been made (along with two absentees) honorary members of the Marylebone Cricket Club, an all-male preserve since its foundation in 1787.
They were mostly, it has to be said, of a certain age, wearing floral prints and pleats and looked decidedly unrevolutionary. It was hard to remember what all the fuss was about.
They posed for photographs, looking rather like a tranche of life peeresses, which in a way they are: the newest members of the House of Lord's.
The 18,000 male members of MCC caved in last year and agreed to admit women after the then president, Colin Ingleby-Mackenzie, forced two votes in seven months.
His successor, the former England captain Tony Lewis, denied the decision was motivated by a desire to get lottery funds, which had been denied them because women were excluded.
'Emphatically, no. Look around you. Three major new buildings, all three constructed within the last three years, and all three constructed without a penny of public money.' MCC, you understand, is loaded.
Lewis also said the change had nothing to do with political correctness. 'We are above all a cricket club. Women play cricket. So how can we be a cricket club without women? It's time for MCC to embrace both sexes.' He was applauded politely, and even one of the club's anti-women last-ditchers agreed to toast the newcomers with champagne. No one actually embraced; it is unclear whether that is now permitted in the Long Room or not.
Most people have to wait 20 years to join MCC, and the club's average age is 57 so even the most senior women are not going to look out of place.
Six of the 10 have played Test cricket, including Rachael Heyhoe Flint, the best-known agitator for change.
Also admitted yesterday was Netta Rheinberg, the former secretary of the Women's Cricket Association, whose involvement with the game dates back to 1933. 'Men thought we were really a bit ridiculous in those days,' she said.
Another was Norma Izard, a former president of the association. Her husband and son were both members of MCC while she was barred. She would reluctantly stay away when they came up to Lord's, knowing that her presence would force them to leave the pavilion and sit elsewhere.
Miss Rheinberg said she was always confident they would be accepted in the end. 'There was a move to sue MCC. But that never got anywhere.
'We decided to make our protest in a dignified fashion and wait.' For her, at least, the waiting has ended. And by midsummer there will probably be at least 20 more women, as current players are invited to turn out for the club and become playing members.
The MCC women's team will make its debut at East Molesey, Surrey, on May 11. Non-playing women of no special distinction will have to go on the waiting list with everyone else.
The capitulation at Lord's leaves a handful of other less-publicised bastions of single-sexery, mainly in the West End (including White's and the Garrick) and golf (including the Royal and Ancient, which makes the rules, the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers and Royal St George's, Sandwich, which is long said to have taken the view that women did not actually exist).
Various other clubs observe bizarre distinctions, barring women from certain bars, staircases or days of the week.
The man who fathered the reform of MCC, Ingleby-Mackenzie, has been approached by at least two of these institutions to sort out their sexual hang-ups.
He has declined, saying he did not want to make a career out of it.