appointed as MCC President. When his one-year term of office ended in late 1964, he was appointed to the influential role of MCC Treasurer, a position he filled until 1976. During this period, Allen instituted several reforms, including limiting the terms of office of key positions. He streamlined the MCC administration and recruited new people to key positions. Less successfully, he opposed the relaxation of eligibility rules for the County Championship to allow overseas players from 1968. He was heavily involved in a change in the relationship between the MCC and English cricket in 1968. The newly formed Sports Council required that, to receive financial support from the government, cricket be more democratically organised and not run by a private members' club. Allen and S. C. Griffith, the MCC secretary, liaised with the Minister of Sport to set up a new Cricket Council, comprising representatives from the MCC, the new Test and County Cricket Board and the National Cricket Association. This move significantly reduced the influence of the MCC, and at Allen's suggestion, the club's influence within the Cricket Council was further reduced in 1974. Allen was prosperous by this stage of his life. An inheritance from his mother, his earnings on the Stock Exchange and the success of investments he had made in Australia left him affluent—his knowledge of Australian markets was respected in the City. In 1965, Allen underwent the first of four hip operations spread over the following 14 years; he believed that his fast bowling may have brought about his hip problems. D'Oliveira affair In 1968, the MCC was involved in controversy over the non-selection of the mixed-race cricketer Basil D'Oliveira to tour South Africa, which was then under apartheid. The South African government did not want D'Oliveira, himself South African-born, in the England team because of his colour. The MCC were aware that there was opposition to a tour taking place, and that D'Oliveira's place in the team would be an issue, but wanted the tour to go ahead. The Shadow Foreign Secretary and former MCC President Sir Alec Douglas-Home visited South Africa in January 1968 and met the South African Prime Minister B. J. Vorster, who privately did not want D'Oliveira to come to South Africa under any circumstances. Vorster suggested to Douglas-Home that the MCC should not explicitly ask whether D'Oliveira's selection would be acceptable, but that it was likely no protest would