I Zingari

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This article is about the amateur cricket club I Zingari. For the amateur football league based in Liverpool, see I Zingari League.
I Zingari Australia First XI 1889/90
I Zingari Australia First XI 1889/90

I Zingari (from the Italian for "the Gypsies") is an English amateur cricket club which was formed on 4 July 1845 by a group of old Harrovians at a dinner party and thus is one of the oldest cricket clubs still in existence. The English team still plays around 20 matches each year. Also known as IZ, I Zingari is a wandering (or nomadic) club, having no home ground. Uniquely for an amateur club, Wisden has reported all of its matches since 1867.

I Zingari was founded by John Loraine Baldwin, Hon. Frederick Ponsonby (later 6th Earl of Bessborough) and Hon. Spencer Ponsonby (later Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane) and Richard Penruddocke Long, who were dining at the Blenheim Hotel in London's Bond Street after a match against Harrow School. They decided to form a club to foster the spirit of amateur cricket, and the club rules are famously idiosyncratic. William Boland, a barrister, was appointed the Perpetual President, and remains in post after his death. As a result, the leader of the club is termed its "Governor". Recent Governors of I Zingari include Charles Lyttelton, 10th Viscount Cobham (1956 to 1977) and Alec Douglas-Home (1977 to 1989)

Its club colours are black, red and gold, symbolizing the motto "out of darkness, through fire, into light". The colours are curiously similar to the egg-and-bacon colours adopted by the MCC in 1860, except on the tie the stripes go in the opposite direction.

The club was at its strongest in the nineteenth century. It played nineteen first-class matches between 1849 and 1904, including matches against the Australians in 1882 and 1884.

An Australian counterpart, I Zingari Australia, was formed in 1888, and claims to be the oldest social cricket club in Australia, although there are older school, university and district teams. It first played on 29 September 1888, defeating Newington Past and Present by 37 runs. The Australian club was recognised by the English club in 1891 and given permission to wear the club colours. The Australian team still plays approximately 70 fixtures each year against other club, school and representative sides. Also in Australia, an I Zingari Rowing Club was established in Adelaide in 1882; it was renamed Adelaide Rowing Club shortly afterwards, but retains the same colours and motto as the English cricket club.

[edit] Trivia

The translation is actually somewhat incorrect, as the Italian for 'the Gypsies' is 'Gli Zingari'

[edit] External links

[edit] Further reading

  • I Zingari: The Club, the Cricket, the Characters, R.L. Arrowsmith, B.J.W. Hill, A. Winlaw, ISBN 1-899163-82-4
  • The History of I Zingari, R.L. Arrowsmith, R.L., B.J.W. Hill, ISBN 0-09-150550-X
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