A look through Prince Philip’s sporting life appearances

Prince Philip’s love for sport had been with him his whole life, from very young, all the way to 2015 when he attended the Rugby World Cup final in Twickenham with Prince William and Prince Harry.

An outing that saw him witness New Zealand triumph against Australia, he was joined by many famous faces along with 89,000 fans, a record-breaking figure.

The Duke of Edinburgh was not just a fan of rugby, he had an interest in a wide array of sports.

Cricket was a passion of his early on, and a sport he was reported to be able to play very well.

This led him to become MCC president for two terms, in 1949 and 1974, the prior is when he and an English invitation XI beat Hampshire, with the duke taking a wicket just before the lunch break.

Wearing his red and gold MCC tie, the duke also opened the new ‘Warner Stand’ at Lord’s cricket ground in 2017.

During the opening ceremony, Philip was shown a selection of cricket bats that come from throughout the ages, including Albert Trott’s’ 1890s bat, which looks greatly different to what the professionals use today.

He also met a range of ex-players and was shown the prototype new pink ball, which had been developed to allow for ‘day-night’ test fixtures.

Prince Philip’s love of cricket was proven during a Royal visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1977.

The Royal Party had attended the last day a test between England and Australia at the MCG and Prince Philip reportedly became frustrated when the Australian officials tried to move them onto the next event of the day.

His frustration was supposedly due to the fact that the game was just starting to get better.

In November 2017, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip attended the Braemar Gathering in the Scottish Highlands.

They attended the traditional games with Prince Charles and Princess Anne.

Usually, the attendance of these games would have fallen under a Royal Duty, but Prince Philip wanted to honour the commitment as it was already in his diary.

The Duke of Edinburgh has also used his love of sports to give back to charity, raising thousands for the charitable organisations he has worked with over many years.

You can check out all of SWL’s Prince Philip coverage here.

Featured image credit: Carfax2 via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license