Blades forging ahead with plan to relocate training base
SHEFFIELD UNITED chief executive officer Stephen Bettis has confirmed that the club remain in discussions with Sheffield City Council about a site to build a new training ground facility for the Blades’ first team.
The club are to spend £1.8m on upgrading first-team pitches at the club’s training ground complex at Shirecliffe following a request from Paul Heckingbottom.
The Blades manager felt that the poor condition of first-team playing surfaces was a key reason behind an injury crisis last season. Previous managers have also questioned the need for improvements to the facility, prompting the club to look at potentially relocating the first-team squad.
Bettis said: “We’ve been trying for so long to find another site to move (to). There is still one on the cards that we are in talks with the council about.
“We have been in discussions with them for about nine months and continue to do so.
“In an ideal world, we would move everyone to a new site close to Bramall Lane, but the reality is that isn’t going to happen because a site like that – that we can take – does not exist.
“The second best option is we move the first team somewhere else and we let the academy take Shirecliffe. The academy goes Category 1 at that point because we have enough space for them to do it.
“The best situation is we get the first team on another piece of land and we have factored that in at the moment.
“But we know that even if we get a bit of land today, it’s still two years before they are on it because you have to design it all, you have to get planning for it and then you have to build it.
“The fact that we are spending £1.8m on the pitches at the moment (means) we are not thinking ‘don’t do that’ because it will be great for the under 23s and under 18s in a few years time if this does come to fruition.”