Tigers and Foxes To Share Ground - 28/11/2004

Leicester City and Leicester Tigers hope to become joint owners of the Walkers Stadium. The professional rugby union club have outgrown their Welford Road ground which was little more than a hundred metres from City's old Filbert Street ground. They need greater capacity, while the Foxes, who only came out of administration last year, need more cash to boost their bid to get back to the Premiership. The deal is not signed and sealed because both the governing bodies involved, the Football League and England Rugby Limited, require their clubs to have primacy of tenure. However, the two clubs hope that co-ownership of the £32m stadium will overcome this problem. City will have to buy out the Teachers' Pension Fund of America which owns the stadium. Once a fee has been agreed that would enable the Teachers' Fund to allow their members to continue to enjoy retirement at the ball game, the Tigers would buy a 50 per cent stake for a sum in excess of £20m, financed by a bank loan guaranteed against the stadium. A hard-wearing pitch, capable of withstanding two games at a weekend, would be laid in time for the start of next season at a cost of between £500,000 and £1m. The Tigers lease their Welford Road ground for a peppercorn rent from the city council, but difficulty in getting agreement on redeveloping the Next Stand in a way that would boost capacity sufficiently led the club to consider other options. The increasing popularity of egg chasing may make this a way forward for other football clubs, bringing the two codes together again at least in terms of ground sharing after their historic split. London Irish rugby union club are in the fifth season of sharing the Madjeski Stadium with Reading Football Club in a deal that has proved mutually beneficial with attendances for the rugby games averaging 10,650 last season. The two clubs also shared the cost of a new £350,000 plastic-based pitch in 2002. In what I still call Adams Park in beechy Bucks, attendances at Wasps games are higher than those at the games of struggling Wycombe Wanderers. This reflects the appeal of rugby to the most prosperous sections of the community and has led to fears that Wasps, once part of the QPR set up, may take over the football club. The other rugby code has seen London Broncos play at a number of football clubs including Charlton. I have never liked egg chasing, (at least rugby players respect the referee and don't roll around on the floor blubbing like big girls' blouses when they get hurt - Ed.) but if someone introduced Australian Rules to England I might be interested. However, judging by the game I watched last year at Melbourne Cricket Ground, you need a very big pitch.