McKenna: Training Ground Development So Important Thursday, 31st Oct 2024 20:30 Town boss Kieran McKenna has stressed the importance of the Blues’ Playford Road training ground development, while chairman and CEO Mark Ashton has revealed that a planning application is set to be submitted within the next fortnight. A major rebuild of the training ground is the club’s next big project with Ashton having said that up to £30 million will be spent on the facility. “I think it’s so important,” McKenna told TownTV in an interview alongside Ashton conducted by Blues legend and board member Matt Holland. “It’s probably pretty well known that I’m a manager who believes in process and having a fantastic environment and fantastic culture and fantastic every day for the players. “The club has been fantastic in terms of supporting us so far up until this point. From the first day I walked into the club, my only demands going into the January transfer window having arrived right at the end of December, weren’t about players in that window, they were about TV screens, drones, goalposts, and getting towards that summer about the pitches. “We invested in that from the start and probably per square metre of the building that we have at the moment at the training ground, we’ve probably maximised close to what we can do with it. The club has invested in cryotherapy and so on, all the little things that can make a margin. “But it gets to the point where you have a 27-man Premier League squad, you’re trying to grow and develop the academy and the women’s team is going from strength to strength that the square metre-age isn’t enough. “To be able to develop our players to their best capability, to be able to grow and develop each department, whether it’s analysis, whether it’s sports science, whether it’s medical, to develop and grow each of those departments and to be able to retain and recruit the best players, and that’s the reality of it, to be able to keep our best players at the football club, to be able to attract better players to the football club, having a top-end training ground is a big part of that. “As we go into the next few years, the stadium now is something to be proud of, I think there’s a lot of work still to do in the next decades, but I think it’s something that everyone is rightly proud of how it looks. “And I think the training ground now and getting that project in the next couple of years will be a big investment and a big part of the medium and long-term future of this football club.” Regarding the state of play of the development, Ashton added: “The scale and bulk and the design of the building is now completed. The pitches are now completed. We’ve tweaked and turned it in the recent weeks to make sure that we tick all the boxes for category one for the academy also. “And over the next 10-14 days we’ll be submitting a planning application, we’re getting on with that, and once we do that, Kieran gets to get his hands on the internal works and tweak and turn them. “What we’re building is elite and we’ve done a lot of work looking at top Premier League clubs and international facilities across the globe at what we need and, excuse the pun, it is a real game-changer for us, because in fairness to Kieran he has sweated every ounce of the current facilities. “We’ve added bits and pieces on the way through but this needs now a brand new elite performance facility and we need to be on site pretty quick now constructing that.” Ashton stressed the importance of everyone at Town sticking together, despite the tough start to the campaign. “We talked three years ago about rebuilding this special football club and we had to be as one,” he said. “Whether that was players, staff, ownership, former players’ association, the local community, the wider community. “And as long as we stay together as one, this club will be competitive and no matter what this club will more forward. “We have an incredibly talented and dedicated manager and staff and players, both on and off the pitch, and whilst we don’t get it all the time, we learn on the way through. “[There were more than] 100 projects [over the summer], have we got everything right? No, we haven’t, but we are moving at breakneck speed. But that’s a stadium to be proud of, it’s a fantastic stadium. “It’s a fantastic fanbase and this is just the end of the beginning, there’s more to come, but we’ve got to stay as one, and that’s going to be absolutely key to this season for me.”
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