The Club's Training Facilities

Come on. I was talking about facilities 100 miles away like Barrow. The facilities need to be near the club so that we can sign players who live in all directions.

Please explain why they would be suitable a 100 miles away ? A good few of our players live in the North East, some live in Harrogate, would they have signed for us if we trained in Nottingham ? Of course they wouldn't. Having facilities a long way from the club would restrict which players signed for us many don't relocate.

 

Agreed. My point is that we don’t have any ambition to own anything (or not that I’ve seen). Surely the aim of any professional club is to build a structure for the long term, but what are the goals and objectives of Bradford City Football Club for the next 5, 10 or 20 years? Obviously we have a reluctant owner who doesn’t want to invest, but he’s been here 8 years now. Can we truly say the training facilities at Woodhouse aren’t holding us back? I seem to remember Hughes and maybe Alexander saying they were trying to find somewhere to train after heavy rain. Given the amount of rainfall we’re experiencing year on year, this could become an issue and impact the training schedules during the autumn/winter period.

 

We won’t always have players predominately from the north east though. I think Barrows move was to try and capture players from that area and they still have to travel to Barrow every other week. Going by your comment, why not look in the Middlesbrough area for land. It’ll certainly be cheap enough. Wherever the training facilities are, some will have a longer journey than others.

 

To be clear I don’t just think it’s the trainning facilities it’s a number of factors which include:
Programming - Andy K has commented on this and the facilities this session. Notts county game was the last reference.
Gambles we take on injured players as cheap options or to prove a point.
Pitch and it’s heavy ness - one of if not worst in the FL this year.

Root cause of all them is money and investment lack of. We keep looking at players and managers but the constants like the above hold us back as much as anything else.

 

You're getting there. Keep thinking along those lines and you'll be a lot closer to the truth of what the key problems are, (clue, it isn't the fact that we train at a school).

 

Good shout.

It would take vision and money. Something we as a club don’t have.

 

I totally agree about the lack of a plan throughout the whole of the club and that is down to Rupp and Sparks. Plus it shouldn’t be left to the manager to sort out an alternative venue for when the weather impedes training, now that is inexcusable and unprofessional Sparks! It should be in place before the season starts. Now that does impact on results!

 

Non of the named clubs have better existing facilities than us, neither seem to own much either.

 

Weird that the training set up was not an issue during the Parky years .............what we sort our training set up and suddenly we are gonna fly through the divisions ........ the bog standard players we have sogned over the last 6/7 years would have suddenly performed a lot better.

To me its a wank argument fair enough if we had been piss poor over the last 20 or so years then there may have been an argument but the Parky years proved that there is little wrong with it.

We all why this club is failing and its got nothing to do with Woodhouse grove...........like someone saod you would think training was held on the Valley parade car park rather than a load of well maintained football pitches

 

Ah but we have lots of soft tissue injuries because Apperley Bridge is a water park 10 months a year

 

Other teams have advanced since then both in terms of training set up and financial clout.

 

And the other two months there's dog poo all over it.

 

We could be the only club in the football league that has an ice skating rink as part of their training facilities.

 

I take it you have heard that rumour too

 

Whatever the things we agree on or disagree on regards this topic, it all boils down to one thing.
Rupp out!

 

That's the rumour I heard, Alex Pattison slipped on dog poo and not only got injured, but players wouldn't go near him and called him names like stinky head.
He's never been the same apparently.

 

As Wrexham have been mentioned, they are on the lookout for a permanent training facility. As Reynolds alludes to interview, over here is like his home country of Canada where there is a lot of bureaucracy involved in getting anything built. If they are serious, which two promotions on the bounce suggests, then I expect they will invest in decent level training set up of their own.

 

Madness, your training facilities need to be in the centre of your sphere of influence. Would Man Utd have a training facility in Birmingham ?

 

Which other teams have comparable facilities located in one site, I struggle to find any evidence other than “” They” have plans”

Of course you are right about financial investment. .