New Training Ground

Quoted from DB

On a post yesterday, from Youngy I believe, the question was where do Barrow train. I believe this was all brought, in various posts, about by the distance we are from anywhere to attract any sort of decent new blood.

The new Barrow training ground is near Knutsford Ideally placed to attract players from the Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham areas. They only have to travel to Barrow itself on match days, as do a Russian club who train in Moscow and fly into and out of a Siberian town on match days.

Would it be good idea to relocate the training ground to the end of the M180 / M18 so that travelling to train would not be a problem in attracting new signings for us. I would also mention that this could be financed by the sale of Cheapside for housing; about 10/15 properties @ £100k per plot , £1 - £1 1/2 million.

Quoted from Ruston AT

    Let me throw this one in, when does Barrats football pitches covenant run out? No one has built on the old swimming pool ground YET!  The changing rooms on Barrats are being allowed to fall into disrepair somethings going on!

Quoted from BobbyCummingsTackle

I know what you're saying but a 'trawler shaped stadium' sounds dreadful....

Quoted from Marinerdan

We live in a village just outside Donny. The main reason we moved away from Grimsby were the transport links.

Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, York, Hull and Grimsby are all less than an hour away. Nottingham,
Derby, Harrogate, Huddersfield and even the outskirts of Manchester are not much over an hour away. Regular direct trains to London

The council here are also more proactive about attracting inward investment and actually building things rather than just drawing ‘artists impressions’.

Quoted from Bigdog

First of all I believe that we rent the land at Cheapside so there's zero chance of it being a fundraiser for new training facilities. Decent training facilities will cost upwards of £5m anyway. And secondly, the long term aim of the club is for good players to play for the club for longer than five minutes and settle in the area like the Buckley team did. Just because the club is in the state it is at present doesn't mean that we should long term plan for worst case scenarios. Training facilities at the end of the M180? Seriously? A better brand identity for GTFC, new training facilities, a new stadium, a winning team and a manager players can believe in are much more compelling arguments for a player to sign for us than cutting a daily commute down by thirty minutes. And what about the youth set up? Do we get the kids to travel down the M180 for every session or go to the lengths and cost of building two training complexes? Knutsford is ok for Barrow, they'll be non-league for good sooner rather than later, and we should aspire to something much more than that. Training ground near Doncaster? Knee-jerk and barmy imho..

Quoted from MarshMariner

You could buy Scunny for 1/2 million..

Quoted from immariner

Yeah, I've been thinking this for a while and I think it's pretty imperative we do move training grounds at some point in the not-too distant future. If we were to keep it in Lincs the ideal location would be around Brigg/Elsham, at the apex of the A15/M180. Outside of Lincs, Hatfield/Thorne near Donny would be decent.