Article: How A British Lawyer Bagged Coldplay For His Tiny Weatherbeaten Sports Ground In Northern England | Practice Source - Legal News and Views

EXCLUSIVE: A northern English lawyer has revealed that his passion for rugby was his secret weapon in stealing Coldplay out from under the noses of the nation’s biggest stadiums and persuading the band to play at his local ground next summer.

A week ago, more than a quarter of a million fans queued up to buy tickets to see the most popular British band of the 21^st century in their home nation. A few days previously, Coldplay had announced that in summer 2025, they would be bringing their Music of the Spheres world tour to the UK, where they had decided to perform in only two towns.

The setting of London’s Wembley Stadium came as no surprise. The other venue, however, stopped people in their tracks – Craven Park in Hull, north-east England, a weatherbeaten sports ground that, on normal weekends, plays host to a few thousand fans cheering on their local rugby club.

The club’s owner, local lawyer and businessman Neil Hudgell, revealed to Deadline how this surprising turn of events came about due to his 20-year friendship with Simon Moran, a rival rugby club owner, but also the promoter of some of the world’s top live artists, including Coldplay.

“Simon told me Coldplay wanted to play somewhere northern, homely, working-class, and were exploring a number of venues,” Hudgell recounts. “One of those was Craven Park. At the time I didn’t think it was more than a long-odds prospect, but we were in the conversation, and I kept nagging Simon to see how things were going, I tried to give him the soft sell.

“I’m not sure to what extent our friendship played a part in that decision, but we are where we are.”

Hudgell, a longtime fan of the band, is confident that Coldplay share his ethos of giving back to the community, something he has prioritized throughout his time at Hull Kingston Rovers. Chris Martin and his bandmates have pledged to donate 10% of all UK ticket sales to the Music Venue Trust, supporting local bands across the country, and a proportion of the Hull concert tickets have been allocated to those living within 50 miles of Craven Park.

“That came from the band,” says Hudgell. “We were obviously quite happy to go along with it. The club has always been very community focused so it all fits. More local people can get there, and I hear a lot of have managed that despite how quickly the tickets went.