Training Ground

Our new CEO has had his say on the training ground:

David Hopkinson on a training ground.

"When you look at the facility you have today, it's probably a seven out of 10. It gets the job done. I don't think we have a lot of world-class talent that say: 'I want to stay here because of the training ground' or 'I want to go to Newcastle because of the training ground'.

"Even with the renovation we're doing, which will make it better, we probably only get to an eight. We don't get to a 10. We can't get to a 10 on the current footprint, which is the reason why we're considering - not considering, planning - a very big investment to go and build a 10.

"If you look at the arms race that training grounds have become - in the Premier League, in football, in North American sports - the players are spending an inordinate amount of time there and the expectations have changed and evolved from simply where we train to: 'Yeah, that's where I drop the kids off because they're being babysat while I'm training' or 'This is where the car is being looked after' and 'This is where I get my haircut'.

"This is what's happened in North American sports, and now there are changing expectations here too of what players are going to want in order to choose to come here or stay. Those are the investments we're going to have to make to get to a world-class level."

This to me says we're going to start spending big in the areas that FFP can't hit us.

No bad thing to really expand the training ground either. Like City have done and you have all ages of Newcastle training together - becomes seamless movement between squads.

Like the sounds of that. Much more strategic and forward thinking. This can only benefit the team.

We'd better do it before they change the rules to stop us...because they will.

Sounds to me that they?ve decided to up sticks and move to a new site 🤔

A shiny new stadium might also be nice but I?d wonder if they are thinking of another location there too

The training ground /campus project is a lot more straight forward as the construction will be on a green site out of the way with no one complaining about protecting the rat colonies who dwell in Leazes park.

That endangered species the common rat. No wonder 28,000 Mackems signed the petition to block the Club building the new stadium in the park :D

Progress on the new build is gonna move forward where as the Stadium is going to take much longer due to the complexity.

Patience is a virtue, when the new stadium is completed it will be the envy of the Football world and will generate vastly improved match day revenue for the club.

All sounds good, but wasn’t that the talk 4 years ago when the takeover happened?

Why take so long to pull the trigger?

As Raga pointed out this isn’t a decision where history and fans have to be taken into consideration… a bit more out of it is better, and given most of the players live in Darras there’s lot’s of empty land in Northumberland.

A new 10 training ground would make getting a top notch sponsor on good money so much easier… non FFP investment to bring in money that counts towards FFP.

Fingers crossed something happens quick… becasue it’ll still not be ready by next pre-season if they were to start early Jan I’d reckon.

Sorry, not trying to be negative… but all the talk about a new training ground and new stadium has been on peoples lips for over 4 years now… and we are no further forward so I’ll believe it when it’s happening.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nufcian

All sounds good, but wasn’t that the talk 4 years ago when the takeover happened?

Why take so long to pull the trigger?

As Raga pointed out this isn’t a decision where history and fans have to be taken into consideration… a bit more out of it is better, and given most of the players live in Darras there’s lots of empty land in Northumberland.

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The way I interpret the delays was due to a multitude of reasons:

1. the musical chairs in the boardroom
2. incompetence of those in the roles
3. short term goals to upgrade Benton etc taking priority
4. confusion around the stadium as a combined project - which is so dumb
5. several proposed locations rejected

It appears now that with the realisation that the Stadium is a much longer play and wont be the easy win some of the first wave of execs thought, the new Exec group clearly want to get easier wins on the board.

The proposed site up near the Seaton Burn Travel Lodge is ideal.

There has been bits and pieces of development around the area and it's not protected land so the planning and approvals should be far smoother affair than the Stadium.

Let's see how the the County Council cocks this one up!

For me this kind of stuff along with club organisation/business side should be done first, improving the club from the ground up.

The stadium should be the cherry on the cake and the last thing to do IMO.

Not bothered with how long its taking, I know the owners once the dust has settled in the office, will do it well and with bells on.
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I just get the feeling from conversations I've had and interactions with the people at the club post take-over, that when Dan Ashworth got a whiff of the filth move that everything seemed to derail.

The tapping up happened months before Ashworth left, he was distracted and started to phone it in.

Eales just seemed to be LARPing as CEO. Cosplaying. He was more interested in the attention he got than making decisions.

I've made it clear from a commercial point of view how utterly incompetent Peter Silverstone was during his wasted salary as Commercial director.

The whole first team of C-Suite execs recruited. including Mitchell were a flop. Worst signings the PiF made since the take over!

Trial and error I guess. The club is now onto it's 2nd evolution of C-suite members.

So, we should see a far more professional, productive, aggressive and successful group.

That said, Eales et al were a huge step up from Ashley and Penfold.

It is Evolution not revolution.