Allen and Billy Griffith, respectively the MCC treasurer and secretary, kept this information to themselves. When the English selectors met to choose the team, Gilligan, Allen and Griffith were present to represent the MCC. A BBC programme in 2004 claimed that Gilligan pressured the selectors to leave out D'Oliveira, but D'Oliveira's biographer Peter Oborne suggests that Allen carried far more influence at the meeting. He writes of Gilligan's part in the affair: "It would be wrong to make too much of Gilligan's embarrassing past. Given that presidents are appointed for only a year, it was a very strong president indeed who could impose his personality on the permanent MCC secretariat of Griffith and Allen, and Gilligan was not a strong president." Initially D'Oliveira was left out of the team, but when a player withdrew with an injury, the selectors added him as a replacement; the South African government barred D'Oliveira from taking part and the MCC cancelled the tour. In 1971, a stand named after Gilligan was opened at Hove Cricket Ground, but this was demolished in 2010 as part of a redevelopment. Gilligan died in Pulborough, Sussex, on 5 September 1976, aged 81. Notes References Bibliography Further reading Free Foresters cricketers 1894 births 1976 deaths Military personnel from London Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge British Army personnel of World War I Cambridge University cricketers English cricket commentators England cricket team selectors England Test cricketers England Test cricket captains English cricketers Lancashire Fusiliers officers People educated at Dulwich College Presidents of the Marylebone Cricket Club Royal Air Force personnel of World War II Sussex cricket captains Sussex cricketers Surrey cricketers Wisden Cricketers of the Year Gentlemen cricketers Marylebone Cricket Club cricketers English fascists English cricketers of 1919 to 1945 H. D. G. Leveson Gower's XI cricketers C. I. Thornton's XI cricketers North v South cricketers S. B. Joel's XI cricketers L. H. Tennyson's XI cricket team A. E. R. Gilligan's XI cricketers Royal Air Force squadron leaders 20th-century British businesspeople Marylebone Cricket Club Australian Touring Team cricketers