Stoke City are exploring opportunities to purchase extra land around the city after spending more than £25 million on their current training base.
Stoke’s first team have just moved into a new £10m state of the art facility at Clayton Wood and work started last Monday on refurbishing the existing building, which will now solely be used by the club’s academy and women’s teams.
Part of the reason behind that investment from owner John Coates has been because of the growing number of players and staff over the last 15 years, including youth teams now covering every year – but 12 pitches on a 35-acre site are being used more than ever too and probably aren’t enough to meet the demands.
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Vice-chairman Richard Smith said: “We’ve invested £10m in this building and we will be investing another £3m in the refurbishment of the existing building – so £13m all told and when you tot up everything we’ve spent at Clayton Wood since I’ve arrived (in 2008) it’s £25m-plus now.
“You can never predict what the future holds. We’ve got land here but we have been exploring opportunities for land because, believe it or not, we are a bit short of grass. The pitches this season have been used more heavily than they’ve ever been used and we need to find a solution to that.
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“We are looking at different options. I don’t know what that looks like yet and I’m certainly not in a position to share anything but we’ve been looking at things across the city that may be able to relieve some of the pressure. We’ve solved the problem of the buildings but we haven’t yet solved the problem of the pressure on the outside area.
“It’s staggering that we’ve got 35 acres here and we are still short of grass surfaces to play football on. We’ve got nine pitches on the main site and another three on the south field on the other side of the access road.”
Stoke have poured money into infrastructure over recent years as football’s financial fair play rules have limited what they are allowed to spend in the transfer market.
There has been a new fan zone at the bet365 Stadium as well as the renovation of what became Ricardo’s bar, the installation of safe standing and moving the away end, replacing seats and transforming suites and lounges.
The next phase at a ground which turns 30 next year will involve improving concourses and what they can offer in terms of hospitality.
Smith said: “We have also started the next project, in the planning phase, at the stadium. We will be busy planning and designing those over the next few months and then looking to implement them, with any luck, towards the end of this year if not next year.”
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He added: “Things come in cycles as well. There are projects that I did in 2009 or 2010 which were great when we first did them but now need doing again. Times change as well. For example, when the stadium was first built we had 50 executive boxes but football isn’t like that anymore.
“People want to be in a more social environment, a bit different environment. They don’t want to be coming to a football match suited and booted necessarily. There is a place for that but it’s not everybody’s thing and, for want of a better expression, the designer jeans brigade want a different thing. Some of the projects we will be looking at will be to try to fix that issue.
“But I think the most significant project that we’ll be doing over the next couple of years will be to try to improve the concourse facilities so that fans have a better experience. The fan zone has been a great success, Ricardo’s has been a great success and now it’s about the next stage of that metamorphosis at the stadium.”
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