I need to apologise for a grievous error in my previous blog. I stated, almost unequivocally, that “our President in 1984, Utrick Henry Burton Alexander, known to all as Sandy. Mr. Alexander, a solicitor by profession, was born in China and may well have been the club’s longest-lived President when he died in 2014, aged 97.” I suggested that Howard Milton may well correct me if I proved to be wrong, and that is exactly what he has done.

The 35th MacKinnon of MacKinnon

The longest lived of all our 133 Presidents to date was not Sandy Alexander, but the man who held the post in 1889, our nineteenth president, listed somewhat inadequately on the Honours Board in the pavilion as “F.A. MacKinnon”. To give him his full due he was Francis Alexander MacKinnon, the 35^th MacKinnon of MacKinnon, who after playing for Cambridge University in the famous “Cobden’s Match” of 1870, played for Kent 78 times between 1875 and 1885, and even played one Test match, at Melbourne in 1878/9 under Lord Harris’s captaincy, in which he scored 0 and 5. MacKinnon XXXV was 41 years old in his presidential year, but lived on until 27^th February 1947, and at his death was 98 years and 324 days old. He still holds the record for the longest lived English Test cricketer, although he no longer holds the world record, which first passed to Eric Tindill of New Zealand, who died in 2010 about four months short of his 100^th birthday, and then to Norman Gordon, of South Africa, who became the first Test cricketer to celebrate his century, in August 2011. He died in 2014, aged 103 years and 27 days. He still holds the record, and will for at least another eight years or more, as the oldest living Test cricketers, John Watkins of South Africa and Don Smith of England, are mere babies aged not quite 95. And there’s more bad news for the MacKinnon clan (currently led by the 38^th MacKinnon of MacKinnon, Madam Anne Gunhild MacKinnon) – Francis Alexander MacKinnon no longer holds the record as the longest lived Kent cricketer. The new record holder is the New Zealander Tom Pritchard, who played one season for Kent in 1956, and who died aged 100 years and 165 days on August 22^nd last year.

The MacKinnon of MacKinnon did not have particularly impressive career statistics over his 78 matches for Kent, scoring two centuries but averaging only 16.42 with the bat and never being asked to bowl. However, that does not make him the worst player ever to be elected president of the county club, not by a long shot. There are very many who never played first-class cricket, nor even tried to, and it would of course be invidious, not to mention impossible but all the same rather enjoyable, to select one name from the ranks of the less than gifted to be nominated as the least capable cricketer.

Between 1870, when the 3^rd Lord Harris was nominated as President, and 1898, when the 7^th Lord Falmouth held the post, all but four of Kent’s presidents held a title. Some were merely knights of the realm, but there was a good sprinkling of barons, marquesses, earls, viscounts and baronets. Even up to the Second World War, there was a predominance of titled names on the honours board, but since the late 1950s, Kent, like most of the rest of Britain, has become much more egalitarian. Only my Lords Harris, Cowdrey and Kingsdown have been members of the House of Lords, and apart from them only Sir Robert Menzies, Sir Leslie Doubleday and Baroness Kingsdown have not been just plain Mr., Mrs., Miss or Ms (or undecided). The quality of the cricketing skills among the presidents has on the other hand risen while their social standing has slumped. With names like Cowdrey, Underwood, Ames, Shepherd, Luckhurst and Denness on the list, not to mention several distinguished county stalwarts, we have in recent years honoured many of our very best cricketers with the presidency. Long may this tradition continue.

So who is the best cricketer to have taken on the presidency? I think we can rule out the vast majority at a stroke, and look at those who have represented their country. There are not that many – Lord Harris (1875), F.A. MacKinnon (1889), Hon. Ivo Bligh (1892), Frank Penn (1905), S. Christopherson (1924), Jack Mason (1938), Hopper Levett (1974), Leslie Ames (1975), Colin Cowdrey (2000), Brian Luckhurst (2004), Derek Underwood (2006), John Shepherd (2011) and Mike Denness (2012). That’s thirteen men, which would make a pretty good squad to take to Leicester or Derby, or even Lord’s, later this year. The bowling’s a bit light, having to rely a bit too much on Shep and Deadly, but with Jack Mason and Stanley Christopherson to back them up, we wouldn’t fear too many batting line-ups. Christopherson was incidentally, president of M.C.C. during the Second World War years, making him that club’s longest-serving president. Lord Harris, Ivo Bligh, Colin Cowdrey and Derek Underwood have also all served as president of M.C.C.

These men would get the runs, too, beginning with our best opening pair of all time, Dennis and Luckhurst, followed by two men with a century of centuries to their names, and then the likes of Lord Harris, Jack Mason and Ivo Bligh to keep piling on the runs. This is a team that would take some beating, and the only problem is who would be twelfth and thirteenth men? I suppose reluctantly we would ask Hopper Levett to give the gloves to Ames, and our longest lived president, the 35^th MacKinnon of MacKinnon, would also step aside, to make way for others with better statistics if not grander titles.

And the best of the lot? Well, in my view it is Derek Underwood, but there is a very strong case for both Cowdrey and Ames, and for John Shepherd as the best all-rounder. If only Frank Woolley had ever held the presidency, the choice would have been far simpler.