[ Project focus: St George’s Park ]
I
t’s been a long time coming but when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge offi cially opened the £105m St George’s Park National Football Centre on 9 October this year, it marked the culmination of a project that, it is hoped, will elevate the position of English football on the world stage.
Planning ahead The concept of having a dedicated facility for the training and development of the 24 English national football teams stretches back to 1975. Suffi ce to say that beyond ascertaining that it would be a good idea, the wheels were not properly put in motion until many years later. At the end of the 1990s, the Football
Association’s (FA) then technical director and sometime England caretaker manager, Howard Wilkinson, was given the task of progressing plans for a National Football Centre. In 2001, the
FA selected and purchased a 330-acre freehold site in Burton-on-Trent, with a view to creating what Wilkinson referred to as ‘the Oxford and Cambridge University of coach education’. However, due to the additional investment
required for the construction of the new Wembley Stadium, the idea did not progress any further. In 2003, it was decided to mothball the project, and in 2004 there was even a proposal to drop it altogether.
New life In 2008, the FA fi nally decided to reignite the project. The plan was to create a state-of-the-art training base, with offi ces for the FA’s technical experts, accommodation and sports science and medical facilities. Speaking at the time, the project’s chairman,
David Sheepshanks, said: ‘Our aim is to make St George’s Park a sporting destination of choice
An aerial view of St George’s Park, home of the new National Football Centre, to the west of Burton-on-Trent
November 2012 ECA Today
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Getty Images / David Goddard
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