THIS week the Irish chapter of MCC hosts a unique three-cornered tournament for fellow members from Wales and the West & South West of England. The Ireland side includes several prominent cricketers including Joe Morrissey, Ethesham Ahmed, Samir Dutt, Ben Wylie and Jonathan Bushe.
The visitors to College Park include some current and former county 2nd XI players, and also include long-serving Gloucestershire batsman Tim Hancock.
The games begin on Wednesday at 11.30am (Ireland v West South West); 5.20pm (Wales v WSW) which continues on Thursday at 10am; and finally Ireland play Wales at 1pm.
Sides from Marylebone CC have been visiting the picturesque arena for almost a century and a half.
On 31 July 1871 a side came to coincide with the Royal Visit and the Prince of Wales attended the second day’s play, arriving just in time to see the last Irish wicket fall in an innings defeat. He was accompanied by his Viceroy in Dublin, Earl Spencer, ancestor of Princess Diana.
The game was staged to raise money with a view to fostering professional cricket in Ireland and so that players from all parts of the country could meet and play against one another.
For MCC, five very good professionals came over and were joined by six amateurs who were living and playing in Ireland. Three of these had actually played for Ireland including one who was called upon at the last moment when it was found MCC had travelled a man short.
Ireland were bowled out for 58 and 24, with Nottinghamshire’s Alfred Shaw (9-32) and Frank Farrands (7-47) wreaking havoc. Shaw made 33 and Belfastman AJ McNeile 36 as MCC scored 170 and won by an innings and 88.
The earliest game in Ireland granted first-class status was between Dublin University and the MCC here in College Park in 1895.
Trinity had a very strong side at the time — they bowled out Warwickshire for 14 on tour the year before — and other games against Cambridge University and Leicestershire were also made first-class.
MCC brought a strong side, including former England captain Timothy O’Brien, who was born in Dublin and would inherit a baronetcy a month after the game. His teammates included Test players Jack Hearne and Mordecai Sherwin and several with county experience.
Trinity made 147 and 252, while the visitors chalked up 209 and 134 to win by 56 runs.
The students also played MCC on three other occasions around that time in non-first class games.
Since 1871, Ireland has played MCC 16 times in College Park, ten of them first-class fixtures. Ireland also played its first-ever limited overs match against MCC here, in 1974.
The 1950s was the golden era of this fixture, and crowds thronged the university grounds to watch some of the best English players in action.
In 1950 five England test stars played, including Walter Hammond who made 14 and 92 not out in what was to be his last first-class game for MCC.
The stars kept coming: Bob Wyatt, Freddie Brown and George Mann in 1952, Wyatt, Mann and Raman Subba Row in 1954, Colin Cowdrey in 1958 (when he made 42 and 8), and poignantly, Sir Leonard Hutton for his last ever first-class game in 1960. He was out stumped by the legendary Irish wicketkeeper Ossie Colhoun for 89.
MCC won only one of the games in that decade, by 22 runs in 1956 when Gilbert Chesterton took 7-14 in a first innings rout of 48.
In recent times College Park has seen Ireland A play MCC, while the club always hosts the annual Irish Universities v MCC fixture.