Lives in Cricket No 15 - Michael Falcon

it can be noted that the next youngest member of the committee was Jack Mason, then fourteen years older than Falcon, whilst the other younger members were ‘Plum’ Warner and ‘Shrimp’ Leveson Gower, both a year older than Mason. To add to the contrast, Mason, Warner and Leveson Gower all had experience both of Test cricket and of the regular first-class county game, whilst Falcon’s experience was limited to the University seasons, a few friendlies and the Minor Counties Championship. As it turned out, Falcon was only able to attend a couple of committee meetings before he was called away to serve in the First World War, but once that conflict was over he had an opportunity to return to it. Proposed by Stanley Christopherson and seconded by William Patterson, he was duly elected in 1919 and continued to serve until 1938. The constitution of the General Committee meant that he had to ‘retire by rotation’ every few years and seek re-election. In this he was invariably successful, but it was not quite a formality as evidenced by the 1929 election in which Falcon and Viscount Ullswater received an equal number of votes and he had to be specially chosen to continue to serve. That there was an element of a ‘closed shop’ about the committee has to be admitted: Falcon and his close friend Frank Mann advanced each other’s candidacy during the 1920s. In June 1919, Michael Falcon was appointed a member of the Cricket and Selection sub-Committee, where he was joined by such famous figures as Lord Harris, Lord Hawke and ‘Plum’ Warner. On this sub-committee he had a part in the selection of the 1920/21 Ashes touring side. Having proved to have a safe pair of hands, he was given the chairmanship of his own sub-committee in 1924. Whilst directing the Tennis and Racquets sub-Committee may not have been the most glamorous of tasks, Falcon served with diligence throughout the mid- and late-twenties and was returned to the more prestigious Cricket and Selection sub-Committee in 1929. In 1933 the MCC Committee was involved in the famous exchange of telegrams with the Australian Cricket Board of Control regarding what came to be known as ‘bodyline’ bowling. Michael Falcon had sent a letter regretting his inability to attend the relevant meeting and so was not involved in the early stages of the discussions regarding ‘bodyline’. He was, however, appointed to the special sub-committee whose task was to debate the question of ‘leg-theory as practised by fast bowlers’. Also on the Taking Over the Reins at Norfolk: 1911-1914 39