Cricket




Inside Lancashire cricket’s civil war
County’s favourite sons have had enough with the way the club is run, accusing it of putting commerce over cricket

Inside Lancashire cricket's civil war
Published 07 May 2026 1:30pm BST

“Trust me, this is not something I am used to,” says Lee Morgan. “It’s the first time in my life I’ve been called a rebel.”

Morgan has been a fan of Lancashire County Cricket Club for more than five decades. Having worked for Deloitte, he then spent almost 20 years at Emirates Old Trafford until 2024 in roles including finance director and club secretary, operations and chair of the heritage committee.

He is one of 29 vice-presidents of Lancashire and, when he stepped down in 2021, Daniel Gidney, the chief executive, praised him for bearing “the main burden of keeping the club alive between 2009 and 2012”. Gidney equated his contribution to Lancashire to “iconic ex-players for their on-field exploits”.

Five years on, Morgan stands shoulder to shoulder with a number of those great former players, other Lancashire grandees and loyal members. They have had enough of the way the club have been run.

For years, Lancashire has had a strained relationship with its membership, but in recent months, that has bubbled over into a civil war between the club and some of its favourite sons, such as David “Bumble” Lloyd, Paul Allott, Neil Fairbrother and Mike Atherton. They are backed by two former chairmen, other former committee members, players and eminent lawyers.

“I’m falling out of love with the club,” Morgan tells Telegraph Sport. “If nothing changes, I will probably just move on with my life and do other things. I can’t believe I’m saying that because the club means so much to me. I’ve been a Lancashire fan since I was four, and in 20 years of work that association grew even stronger.

“In the last year, I’ve had moments where I have wondered if I am happier if we lose a game, because it might accelerate change. To think you’d want your team to lose, it’s illogical and very sad. A wicket goes down and my heart tells me I should be cheering, but actually, I am doing the opposite. That’s telling the biggest story of all in my head.”

In March, the rebels accused the board of being “largely anonymous”, “weak” and “not understanding the club or Lancashire cricket”. They said a “disconnect is apparent within the club and morale is the worst in living memory”, adding: “Put simply, the club is in a mess and this board is not strong enough.”

A couple of weeks later, the club held two special general meetings (SGM), one called by the board, another by the rebels. Multiple sources described the evening as “embarrassing”.

The board’s meeting had to be adjourned because the wording of the proposed changes was unclear, with a source saying the proposals were “ripped to shreds” by Jim Pickup KC, one of the rebels. They called the changes “undemocratic”. Lancashire have since accepted that the adjournment would be permanent. They commissioned a governance review.

The rebels’ meeting proposed to increase the permitted number of former employees on the board from two to four. It narrowly failed to reach the two thirds majority required. That created issues, though, because witnesses said support in the room was much higher than two thirds, and that proxy voters had not heard both sides of the argument, because the board had not circulated the petitioners’ explanation.

On the Lancashire members’ group’s X account, one said the evening was “more fitting for a third-rate banana republic than a members’ cricket club”. Only four board members were present, but Rob Andrew, managing director of the professional game, was there as an ECB observer, presumably baffled.

Vote of no confidence in the board.

The battlegrounds between the members and the board include the length of terms for board members, how those members are elected and who they are, how many signatures are required to force a special general meeting, and which arguments members see before an issue is debated at a meeting. These might seem trivial to outsiders, but they are emblematic of wider issues and fundamental to the running of a members’ club.

So the trouble rumbled on. Last Monday, the rebels submitted a vote of no-confidence in the board. They have 28 days to respond and hold the resultant Special General Meetings, which will be the fifth at the club in nine months. There is nothing special about Lancashire’s SGMs anymore. To make matters worse, each one is said to cost the club £30,000.

Two days after the submission of the latest no-confidence vote, Gidney announced his intention to retire at the end of the year. That continues a turbulent time at the club. In July, chairman Andy Anson resigned, and was replaced by the president, Dame Sarah Storey, a widely respected figure and Paralympics legend.

It is never wise to judge a situation by social media, but the departure of Gidney was celebrated by fans online. The rebels feel Gidney should not wait until the end of the year, while some fear he will be involved in selecting his successor.

After 14 years in the role, Gidney can depart proud of his record in the growth of women’s cricket, where Lancashire have been at the vanguard, and the evolution of Old Trafford, including the building of a Hilton hotel.

Gidney arrived in 2012, two years after the club’s lowest moment when they could have gone bust. But he helped lay out a plan for a better future, up to the launch this summer of the club’s second home at Farington and the sale of a majority share in their Hundred franchise to Indian businessman Sanjiv Goenka, owner of Lucknow Super Giants.

Business over cricket.

What Gidney has failed to do, though, is bring the people of Lancashire with him and, according to critics, under his leadership, Lancashire’s focus has been far more on commerce than cricket. The mood was neatly captured by one member, who told Telegraph Sport: “Lancashire and Old Trafford have become an events business attached to an inconvenient cricket team, and an even more inconvenient membership alongside that.”

On the field, Lancashire are English cricket’s sleeping giants. Despite a stacked squad, they have not won a white-ball trophy since the Blast in 2015, and remain in Division Two of the County Championship, which they have won outright once (in 2011) since 1934.

Performances bottomed out a year ago, when coach Dale Benkenstein left, and there were flickers of resurgence under the captaincy of James Anderson and young coach Steven Croft. Injuries have meant a promising, if patchy, start to the season. On Friday, they face another fallen giant with an unhappy membership and grumbling former players, Middlesex.

Many fans are unhappy with the long-term performance of the men’s team, but the details of their output are not central to the ill-feeling. The perception is that cricket has not been the priority, whether on the field, in the development of the ground or the board (only one board member, John Abrahams, is listed as having cricket expertise in the club’s own literature).

Allott played 205 first-class matches for Lancashire, then served as director of cricket, so he knows it is a difficult job. “The balance isn’t right,” Allott tells Telegraph Sport. “Let’s get it right. No one is suggesting we shouldn’t have an efficient, effective business and commercial hub at the club. But that can exist alongside a thriving cricket club owned by its members.”

Paul Allott spent 14 years at Lancashire as a player before becoming director of cricket in 2017 Credit: Matthew Lewis/Getty Images
It is not unusual to hear Lancashire described as the club “who know the price of everything but the value of nothing”. This was on display last month when they announced a paywall for live streams of men’s matches.

Other clubs had tried paywall streams in recent years with little success. But Lancashire dived in, hailing it as “a new benefit for members”, who would not have to pay. But most fans criticised this as tin-eared, penny-pinching that drew a curtain across county cricket’s best shop window. On Thursday, it was announced that the paywall has been delayed.

The initial announcement came at a time when Lancashire had pulled out of a much-trumpeted 10-year deal with the production company Badger and Coombes after 12 months, which was understood to be over a desire to save £50,000 per season.

Lancashire’s 2025 accounts are due imminently and should look strong after hosting India in a Test. The coming years are more complicated though. They do not host a Test this year and have missed out on the 2027 Ashes (they will host Pakistan in June). The hotel and events businesses bring in steady cash, but Lancashire do not have money-spinning concerts scheduled.

They are engaged in an ongoing legal battle with Trafford Council over an incident in which a member of the public was injured at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in 2022. It is not expected to be resolved until next year. In addition, the new site at Farington looks magnificent, but it will be expensive to run.

Morgan believes that, having extended the Hilton Hotel at the ground, the club would be “in serious financial trouble” if it were not for the Hundred sale, which has allowed them to reduce their debt by around 40 per cent, or £12m. Based on the club’s most recent accounts (2024), that would take the club’s total debt below £20m.

“There’s a lot of talk about the club being a £35m turnover business,” says Morgan. “The club does generate this level of turnover in a Test match year; however, Lancashire is actually a cricket club that just happens to generate a large revenue, which should be geared towards improving the way we go about running cricket in Lancashire. We believe the board has lost sight of that. There’s no cricket experience on the board and they generally lack visibility with staff and members.”

A general view of pla during Day 2 of the Rothesay Counyy Championship mach
Lancashire have won two of their four matches this season Credit: Alex Davidson/Getty Images
Members’ concerns are ‘wide’
The Allott and Morgan group came together after the pair of SGMs in 2025, at which the latter described the club’s conduct as “appalling”. They have tried and failed to secure meetings with the club ever since.

“I had had concerns about the governance of the club for a while, but they were just wrong and undemocratic,” says Morgan. “This is not just half a dozen people with their own personal gripes. We are trying to reflect and report the views of a much wider group of members and supporters. We are looking at the situation from different angles. It’s about cricket, finance, membership engagement, applying the rules of the club and staff morale – the concerns are wide.”

Allott says: “They are trying to erode members’ rights by stealth. If they want to move the club forward and alter the way the club is run, they have to be upfront with the members, discuss it with them. They refuse to do that.”

Lloyd expressed his dismay and “embarrassment” that his application to join the board was dismissed out of hand. Allott has also had an application rejected, while Morgan is hopeful that it is second time lucky in his search for election. Six board positions, including the chair, will be up for election this year.

Having worked for the club, Morgan knows members can be “challenging and difficult to deal with” but also recognises they are “the heartbeat of the club, some have been providing their support for years and live and breathe it. The board, as custodians of the club, have a duty to listen to them and represent them. This isn’t happening.”
 
Lancashire playing Middlesex and are batting, 87-3, Jennings 47*

Yet again, the opening partnership failed, no 50 partnership this season. Jennings again holding the innings together.

 

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