New training ground on the way

[Yellow Hammer]

It is wrong to claim there has been no work done at the current training ground for a few weeks. Polythene UK posted something recently about how they have just had their logo put on one of the walls inside the building. Also grounds man on iFollow talking about hopefully having built in sprinklers by next season, which is very costly, to make things easier. We aren’t moving anytime soon

 

[Gary Baldi]

Is it a case of looking 2-3 years ahead and expanding on what is in place at Horspath Road as the club tries to move up the league structure? Being a renter is not ideal as we see at Grenoble Road.

 

[windmill]

And it must be a nightmare since those lawnmowers were repossessed!!! My missus is banging on about me doing the lawn today and I only did it a week or 2 ago!!!

Your missus is quite right. With all the rain we have had the grass must be a foot long.

 

[Malc]

@Archieyellow where did you hear this? Everything happening at the training grounds smells of investment to me. That does not rhyme with finding new locations unless we're talking long-time fesability search.

 

[Deleted member 462]

And out of interest who is the new MD who is looking at them ?

 

[Archieyellow]

@Archieyellow where did you hear this? Everything happening at the training grounds smells of investment to me. That does not rhyme with finding new locations unless we're talking long-time fesability search.

A family member who works at a local football club met our MD a few weeks ago and out of the MDs mouth came oufc are looking at other training grounds in Oxfordshire as again like the ground we have hidden costs of running the training ground and the chairman is looking at different opportunities

 

[Archieyellow]

And out of interest who is the new MD who is looking at them ?

Yeah good one

 

[Deleted member 462]

Yeah good one

What ? U said the new MD has been going round clubs. So who is the new MD ?

 

[beyondthefourth]

Let's think about this as a possibility. Maybe the "hidden costs" are for evening sessions, where we'd be thinking of letting the academy or youth teams use the facilities?

Therefore (as we don't need the top quality facilities for the younger groups), we'd look at other options in the county to stage those sessions?

That's a scenario where what Archieyellow is hearing fits in, but also where we're not stupidly looking to leave the brand new, top quality training facilities we've invested heavily in.

 

[Deleted member 462]

Let's think about this as a possibility. Maybe the "hidden costs" are for evening sessions, where we'd be thinking of letting the academy or youth teams use the facilities?

Therefore (as we don't need the top quality facilities for the younger groups), we'd look at other options in the county to stage those sessions?

That's a scenario where what Archieyellow is hearing fits in, but also where we're not stupidly looking to leave the brand new, top quality training facilities we've invested heavily in.

That actually does fit as I think this is the last year we are contracted to use oxford city

 

[Yellow Hammer]

The women’s youth team currently train on some very bad pitches, and get changed in squash courts so a new ground for them may very well be being looked in to

 

[Deleted member 222]

It could be a new purpose built academy training ground which can house all age groups plus women’s team. The first then have full use of the current training ground.

 

[Archieyellow]

What ? U said the new MD has been going round clubs. So who is the new MD ?

Ok the MD the one who’s been here??? 12 months?

 

[Deleted member 462]

Ok the MD the one who’s been here??? 12 months?

Just the MD would have probably done mate. I don’t see what adding his length of service to the story does other than confuse people. And no not 12 months he was appointed by darryl.

 

[yellowbow]

If there is any truth in this then maybe NM should be a little bit more careful about what he says and to whom he says it to. It would be a little naive of him to not consider that rumours could spread that lead to speculation and confusion.

 

[LondonRoader]

I hope the next training facility is world class.

 

[MarkG]

As some people think the takeover is or was a property play, I don't think that us owning our own training ground on its own would help.

OK there might be a bit of scope for letting out pitches when not in use, but it would would take decades to make it back. I see Chelsea's training ground on the train to London, and it's basically several pitches out in the fields in the middle of nowhere with a big indoor pitch and gym / HQ, rather than surrounded by hotels and restaurants or housing.

 

[Deleted member 222]

I'll add that if we are to improve the academy then there are certain things the club would need e.g. a 4g pitch and an indoor dome. Horspath certainly has the space but again it's down to the council to how successful they want their professional football club to be.

Buying our own stadium would be expensive enough, to buy land then build a state of the art training ground would is another thing altogether. You could be looking at 100-150 million for both and thats just for a league 1 football club.

 

[LondonRoader]

As some people think the takeover is or was a property play, I don't think that us owning our own training ground on its own would help.

OK there might be a bit of scope for letting out pitches when not in use, but it would would take decades to make it back. I see Chelsea's training ground on the train to London, and it's basically several pitches out in the fields in the middle of nowhere with a big indoor pitch and gym / HQ, rather than surrounded by hotels and restaurants or housing.

Buying land to build a training ground, would that be big enough to build a retail park on later?

 

[Deleted member 222]

Buying land to build a training ground, would that be big enough to build a retail park on later?

To be fair it would when you considering it would consist of probably 3 full size pitches, 5 aside pitches, buildings.
I personally think it is a non starter considering the investment that has been made with the current training ground. Maybe our "new" MD is saying what the dream would be when it is very far from being a reality.