But girlfriend won’t play

MONOPOLY-mad Neil Scallan’s boardgame collection is worth a bank-busting £250,000.

The fanatic, 50, spends most of his earnings as an airport courier on building his haul, which already runs to 2,681 different versions.

Neil even holds the Guinness World Record for owning the largest hoard of boards.

But he fears some limited editions will stay out of his reach.

Neil, DHL export manager at Heathrow, said:

“My collection’s worth about a quarter of a million. It’s not a fun competition – it’s an expensive one.

“I try not to spend over £200 on a set – if you’re trying to get the most, you want to get them cheaply.

“Lots of companies out there love the fact they are going to be in my collection, so they might give me a few dollars off.

“But Park Hyatt Sydney hotel only sell their set to people who stay there.

“It would cost me flights to Sydney, the room and then the board, so clearly some things are impossible just to get hold of. I even went on TripAdvisor to ask anyone who stayed there to buy me one the next time they go.” Neil’s obsession began 14 years ago when he bought a couple of sets on holiday as souvenirs.

He has since amassed so many boxes he rents a storage container to hold them.

Neil, from Crawley, West Sussex, said: “My storage costs a fortune every month. “It takes me a whole week to get my boards ready for counting out, and then I’ve got to put them all away. “It takes an hour every day just keeping my list up to date.” There are another 70 sets at the home he shares with his girlfriend Mandy, but she refuses to play with him.

Neil moaned: “I’ve got no-one around me to play with, so I wouldn’t say I was an expert. Hopefully I wouldn’t be too bad because I buy books telling you the best ways. “Every five years Monopoly’s makers Hasbro do a World Championship. “The last was in Macau and I’m waiting to see where next year’s is.”