“A PART of Lord’s” is up for grabs. All for the price of £500. And you have David Gower and a unique crowd-funded property ownership model to sweeten the deal. In reality, the piece of land up for grabs is the tunnels underneath the Nursery End at the famous cricket ground. They had been bought by property developer Charles Rifkind in 1999 when the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), which calls Lord’s home, had a chance to retain it in an auction but failed.
The MCC has since rented the top 18 inches of the surface from Rifkind which has been the subject of a lot of negotiations over the past 19 years.
“The idea is that as the title deed to this ground describes it as “a part of Lord’s Cricket Ground”, we are within our rights to offer a part of a part of Lord’s. Each share which is being described as a token, because there will be a physical token as well as a Blockchain token, will operate in exactly the same way as any share in any major company,” Gower, a former England captain, explains. Each “co-owner” of the Lord’s turf will have a physical Royal Mint token, which will be their “proof” in addition to the share that Gower informs will be “transferable, saleable and inheritable”.
Talks of the new development were based on a document called the Vision for Lord’s drawn out in 2006 in collaboration between the club and Rifkind. However, the traditionalist MCC members took a stand to retain what they saw as one of the old-school charms of the venue and instead wanted to go ahead with their own “masterplan” which called not only for the refurbishing of the Compton & Edrich Stands and “grassing over” the part of the Nursery Ground which is presently used as a makeshift banquet and function facility.
