Jealous

[Collar Feeler]

Cor, I bet you know him and everyfink!

Nope never met the bloke but I have reliable sources which make the info more than just baseless rumours. Like everything posted on here, take it with a pinch of salt and make your own judgement. Ask yourself this though, would Bloom invest £100 million already (take into account other costs and investment over the years on top of the £93mill for the stadium) and then be content to see the Albion languish in the lower reaches of the football league? Of course he won't. He is a businessman too and wants to fill the stadium and get corporate money flowing in to repay his investment. The only way to do this is to entice thousands more paying fans and businesses to turn up and to do this he needs to provide top quality facilities and football at the highest level. The Championship is the minimum level he expects and he has made that publicly clear on a number of occasions. Gus will be given a blank cheque in the summer to get anyone he wants to get us out of L1. The sums I have heard mentioned are huge and in the several millions although only time will tell!

 

[strings]

If we were to build an academy/new training complex, I imagine it would be a lot easier to get planning permission than it would for the stadium, it doesn't have 22,500 fans travelling in and out, and doesn't neccessarily have to be within Brighton and Hove - quite a few teams train in outlying towns. Also, ideally a training ground would have to be surrounded by tree and not overlooked, leaving the coaches to get on with their work uninterrupted.

 

[northstandsteve]

No source on the £20M to be spent on the academy, but do know someone who is looking on behalf of the club for the right site. Its great to be an Albion fan with so much to look forward to. It looks like {oyet will have a major clearout in the summer. Whether he gets a blank cheque i don't know, but with the stadium due at the end of next season should not be difficult to recruit the right talent.Agree that no expense is being spared to get the stadium finished to a high spec with decent decor and facilities.

 

[perseus]

Training Ground

Bloom wants a state of the art academy and is prepared to spend £20M.

cf.

Wapedia - Wiki: Bodymoor Heath Training Ground

Tony Bloom went to Lancing College. There is land nearby with planning zoned as sports and recreation.

There is plenty of land around for this sort of thing. But some of it is in the Lewes Council auspices. You could bung in a golf course and a Conference Centre to make it pay its way.

 

[Twinkle Toes]

No source on the £20M to be spent on the academy, but do know someone who is looking on behalf of the club for the right site. Its great to be an Albion fan with so much to look forward to. It looks like {oyet will have a major clearout in the summer. Whether he gets a blank cheque i don't know, but with the stadium due at the end of next season should not be difficult to recruit the right talent.Agree that no expense is being spared to get the stadium finished to a high spec with decent decor and facilities.

How right you are Mr Steve. It's also amazing how so many of us are on a 'feel-good-tip' again after the great victory at The Valley. Hey - but that's football, isn't it? Marvelous!

 

[Sheebo]

How right you are Mr Steve. It's also amazing how so many of us are on a 'feel-good-tip' again after the great victory at The Valley. Hey - but that's football, isn't it? Marvelous!

We'll all pipe down when we lose on Sat but stuff it enjoy it while it lasts!

 

[Gordon the Gopher]

No source on the £20M to be spent on the academy, but do know someone who is looking on behalf of the club for the right site. Its great to be an Albion fan with so much to look forward to. It looks like {oyet will have a major clearout in the summer. Whether he gets a blank cheque i don't know, but with the stadium due at the end of next season should not be difficult to recruit the right talent.Agree that no expense is being spared to get the stadium finished to a high spec with decent decor and facilities.

His brief I believe is something within about a 20 mile radius of Brighton!

 

[DIFFBROOK]

I would imagine, the training ground issue is also on Blooms agenda. Attracting good players is about the "package". The stadium, the clubs ambition, the City, the money. But also good players want good training facilities.

So, I would imagine a training ground is on the agenda.......might even be on that agenda now. Agree, it should be reasonably straight forward to find a spot for that. as planning conditions will be a lot lot less strict.

 

[raymondbriggs]

all of this is bollox but finding a training ground?
Big enough for a football pitch
A gym and treatment centre
various sports and a running track
cross country running adjacent
parking
an office complex
convenient location


Something wrong with the Pitch at Withdean?

 

[Brovion]

If we were to build an academy/new training complex, I imagine it would be a lot easier to get planning permission than it would for the stadium, it doesn't have 22,500 fans travelling in and out, and doesn't neccessarily have to be within Brighton and Hove - quite a few teams train in outlying towns. Also, ideally a training ground would have to be surrounded by tree and not overlooked, leaving the coaches to get on with their work uninterrupted.

Absolutely. If you look at clubs like Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs (to name but three) their training complexes are nowhere near their actual grounds. And as you say transport links aren't an issue which they obviously were for the ground.

I guess it could be anywhere within relatively easy reach of Brighton, certainly anywhere along the dual-carriageway section of the A27 or up the A23 maybe as far as Crawley. Maybe Perseus's Pende will get used after all!

 

[The Large One]

Sheepcote Valley would be mildly ironic.

 

[perseus]

Prefrabicated Greenhouse

Mk Don's facility.

Buckingham Group Contracting - Land Regeneration Contractors, Remediation Contractors - MK Dons Training Academy, Woughton

 

[perseus]

Which club?

 

[pishhead]

Which club?

Manchester Uniteds Carrington training ground.

 

[perseus]

Manchester Uniteds Carrington training ground.

Why has it got a blue roof ?

 

[pishhead]

Why has it got a blue roof ?

Because you don't see too many red roofs?

 

[Withdean Wanderer]

Judging by that picture of Carrington, then Waterhall probably isn't out of the question.

 

[pishhead]

Judging by that picture of Carrington, then Waterhall probably isn't out of the question.

Quite agree but I think a more likely option would probably be somewhere in the mid Sussex area.

 

[Colossal Squid]

Er, am I the only one thinking people are getting just a little bit carried away here?

Let's not run before we can walk, it took us long enough to get this lovely new stadium under construction and I for one won't be moaning once we're in it that the training facilities need working on.

I agree we seem to have had a bit of luck with Bloom's investment and signs point to him being a far more sensible and astute businessman than the likes of Mark Goldberg or Mike Ashley BUT everyone banging on about just how wealthy he is, waving blank cheques all over the place and making wild demands to have bigger and better facilities than Europe's biggest clubs seems a little over the top to me and we should just be grateful for what we've got now and wait and see what happens next.

If Gus gets a healthy war chest for spending in the Summer in readiness for next season that would be great and if new training facilities are on the way I shall be delighted but rather than speculate on just how much better we're going to have things in the future wouldn't it be more fun to wait and see what happens so we might be pleasantly surprised if a little cash is splashed around rather than readily expecting the money to keep flowing endlessly, always looking to the next investment before even finishing paying for the last?

And to say Bloom is more deserving of a statue than Dick Knight is really disrespectful if you ask me. I am certainly grateful for Bloom's investment and look forward to years of success with him as chairman but you CANNOT overlook all the work Knight did for us simply because he wasn't as wealthy as our current chairman.

A lot of people seem to think the job of chairman is simply to plough their personal fortunes into the club but that's not exactly how big business works. The chairman should be looking after the club's interests, tightening the strings and steering the club towards running as efficiently and as profitable as possible. Personally I believe this is Big Tone's plan, which is great but the more time we spend speculating about how readily he's going to spunk his hard earned cash will surely only cause expectation to rise too quickly.

What if in two years from now we HAVEN'T been promoted? Are people going to start moaning that Bloom should have invested MORE, sacked the boss and bribed the Brazilian FA to give us first dibs on all their most exciting young talent?

Seriously, can we all just calm down a little?

 

[perseus]

The players spend more time at the Training Ground than playing matches. The location and facilities are important.

I tend to think mid-Sussex is more likely because some of the new player signings may live in London and may not wish to move home. Burgess Hill preferable to Pende.