We are delighted to announce that work on our training ground pitch based at St John Fishers High School is nearing completion after a complete surface rebuild.

For a long time the surface has been in desperate need of replacement and through a lot of hard work from officials at the school and the football club, a fresh grant from the Football Foundation was secured during the summer. This has allowed an almost £300,000 renovation to be completed at the venue which will see the entire playing surface replaced with a larger, much improved 4G carpet and a spectator area installed along one touchline of the pitch with spectator barriers. FA regulation sized goalposts will also be installed at the facility to enable us to host all formats from 5v5 all the way up to full size 11v11 matches when required.

The timing of the rebuild has been unfortunate as it has clashed with our usual winter training programme. This has meant that the club has had to sought temporary training venues until the facillity is ready for us to return. 

Club Secretary Rob Smith commented:

"On behalf of the club, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of our players and coaches for the patience shown during the training pitch rebuild. It's not been easy having to find alternative venues and it has seen our winter training schedule disrupted significantly and at great financial cost to the club. However, I believe that the long term benefits of the rebuild will definitely outweigh the short term inconvenience it has caused. Combined with the significant investment we are making into the grass pitches at our home site, the club now stands head and shoulders above with the facilities we can offer our players.

I would like to place on record our thanks to St John Fishers High School, the Football Foundation and inparticular Andy Graham for the efforts that have been put into the project. We all share the same long term goals for the facility and we cannot wait to get back and start maximising the facilities potential".

Once complete, the club will return to the facility to resume our winter training programme and will also be utilising the pitch on match days when our grass pitches are in need of rest.