£500 to own piece of Lord’s
Fans can buy share in home of cricket
ATRIO of cricketing greats are supporting a remarkable initiative giving fans a chance to buy a slice of Lord’s, the home of cricket.
Launched yesterday, the scheme could make tens of thousands of people around the globe partowners of cricket’s iconic ground for a cost of £500 per share.
The backers include former England captain David Gower and exWest Indies skippers Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd. Other well-known supporters include former Test cricketers Allan Lamb and Chris Cowdrey, and ex-MCC chief executive Keith Bradshaw.
The investment will be through the New Commonwealth Consortium — to be led by chairman Gower — who will be selling shares in the strip of underground tunnels 200 metres long and 38 metres wide at the Nursery End of Lord’s.
The shares will come in the form of Lord’s Tokens printed by the Royal Mint and will be listed on the London Block Exchange — a market for online cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin — enabling investors to buy and sell. There will be a significant worldwide marketing campaign to drum up interest, particularly in India and Australia.
The scheme will divide the 18,000-strong MCC membership and is being orchestrated by the Nursery End landowner, property developer Charles Rifkind. It is his Plan B after proposals to build 94 luxury flats as part of a redevelopment of the Nursery End, which would have raised £150m for the MCC, was heavily rejected by club members in September.
The vote was seen by the MCC as closure in a civil war that dates back to 1999, when Rifkind bought a 999-year lease on the defunct railway tunnels under Lord’s from Railtrack for £2.35million. He outbid MCC in the biggest blunder in the club’s 235-year history.
Rifkind calls his new proposal a one-off opportunity to own a historic part of London from which your grandchildren might benefit. However, he also owns property at the pavilion end of Lord’s that could feature in a second cryptocurrency offering down the line if the first one proves a success.
Gower, who will be purchasing shares, said: ‘Although I supported redevelopment at the Nursery End, this is not a protest or reaction to the members voting against it. I should like to have a friendly association with MCC. I want Lord’s to regain its status as the finest in the world. If I receive any flak, it cannot be as bad as when we lost the Ashes in 1989.’
The launch yesterday, staged in a Rifkind property across the road from Lord’s, is a long-term property play as Lord’s still have an 119-year lease on the top 18 inches of land above the tunnels.
However, the belief is that if this project takes off, the MCC will be forced to the negotiating table.
Bradshaw, who shared Rifkind’s vision of a Lord’s super stadium paid for by property development, said: ‘ Let us hope that the expected groundswell of opinion will inspire the guardians of this great club to act, rather than witness another fallow and frustrating decade.’
The frustration at having his ambitions blocked by the main MCC committee led to Bradshaw leaving Lord’s and returning to Australia, where, as CEO of South Australian Cricket, he has overseen the Adelaide Oval’s redevelopment into one of the best multisports grounds in the world.
MCC chief executive Guy Lavender said: ‘It is not for us to speculate on whether this will be a workable proposition. It is an investment vehicle and we have no concerns about the involvement of Keith Bradshaw and David Gower.’