Magpies consider training facilities outside of town

Having seen their hopes for a new ground and associated training facilities in Braywick Park dashed, Maidenhead United are reconfiguring their aims and ambitions, with a new training ground outside of the town potentially high on the list of possible projects.

With the council having effectively blocked any hope of a ground move in the short to medium term, the Magpies are now looking at how they can revamp York Road and bring in much-needed revenue and investment.

One possible way of doing that would be to develop a new training venue, most likely outside of Maidenhead, which could be used by the club’s teams at all levels as well as the local community.

This would, though, be subject to the club finding a suitable location and gaining planning permission for floodlit astroturf pitches and associated facilities, something which again could take years to come to fruition.

In the meantime, the club could look at taking out its grass surface at York Road and replacing it with an astroturf pitch, another costly project but one which would likely see an immediate return in terms of revenue.

At an open meeting for fans on March 21, chairman Peter Griffin and CEO Jon Adams stated that a ground move remained the most sensible and sustainable way of improving the club’s fortunes, however, the Magpies won’t be pursuing legal action against the council to try and force through their move to Braywick.

Speaking in Stripes Bar last month, Mr Adams said: “Even if we’d moved to Braywick we were conscious that we might not have got everything we planned for.

“We may have got the stadium, but not the secondary Astroturfs and things like that. That may have been too much building for Braywick. It’s a training venue, but what it would be is a community hub.

“It would be for the men’s and women’s first team but also for the youth teams, the community teams, it would be a gold mine in terms of what the club could generate in terms of revenues. Plus, there would be savings on what we’re spending on other hybrid training venues.

“We’re actively looking at that kind of facility. We would need to justify spending x amount of millions on a facility like that, but we would immediately see a return in hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds of profit per year, so it could suddenly be a very good business model.”

Mr Griffin also addressed the reasons why the club opted against taking legal action over their blocked ground move.

While they did seek legal advice, and thought they might have a case, it was felt any bid to overturn the council’s decision would result in a ‘Pyrrhic victory’ that wouldn’t achieve anything meaningful.

“We did have legal options open to us, which weren’t clear cut, but it was open to us,” he said.

“But we felt it would be a lot of money to put into something that may not bear fruit and the kicker to that is that, even if we made them honour the contract, they would then be sitting in judgement on us on a planning committee, so if we’d been successful to prove a point it would be a Pyrrhic victory where we wouldn’t actually achieve anything.

“We’ve taken the decision that we currently have no choice other than to stay at York Road.

“Leaving York Road would have been a huge wrench because of the history here and what it means.

“The only reason the move was suggested to move us forward was on a financial basis. That was about the long-term success and robustness of a club like ourselves.

“The reason for a move is still about the longterm survival and flourishing of the club, and that would have been secured with this move.”