Stoke City Football Club are delighted to announce an exciting plan to develop a new £5,000,000 state of the art training facility at the Michelin Sports Ground in Trent Vale.
Plans for the proposal are set to be submitted to Newcastle-Under-Lyme Borough Council in February, and should they be accepted, work is scheduled to start this summer, in anticipation of the of the project being completed by the start of pre-season 2010/11.
The redevelopment of the current training ground will see a two storey 1,800 sq metre building erected, which will house changing rooms, medical facilities, kitchen and refectory area, a hydrotherapy pool and a gymnasium, as well as office accommodation including a media suite.
There will also be two full size football pitches for the use of both the first team and Academy, whilst long term plans are also afoot for a floodlit pitch as well as an all weather outdoor playing surface.
Announcing the news Stoke City chairman Peter Coates exclusively told stokecityfc.com: "We have always wanted to develop a high quality training facility which would be owned by the Club and which would serve both the first team players and the Academy.
"We are now able to do that. We have an agreement to purchase the land, subject to a successful planning application. We shall be spending £5,000,000 to develop a very modern comprehensive facility.
"This will be of long term benefit to the Club. It will enable us to compete and attract the best players and that applies equally to the young Academy players. It will mean that we can offer the best training, coaching and fitness facilities, all of which will bring many benefits to the Club"
Stoke City Head of Development Richard Smith adds: "We have instructed AFL Architects to design the complex for us as we felt they had the appropriate track record and experience for a project of this nature.
"They have recently completed an Academy building for Chelsea Football Club, having previously designed the first team facility for them at Cobham. They also developed Finch Farm, the training complex of Everton Football Club.
"The facility will improve our effectiveness through rationalising our current training operations onto a single site. It will be a facility that will do everything that we need it to do and have everything that we need going forward."
