CONFIRMED HSBC Sports Ground - New first team training centre

All advertisments are hidden for logged in members, why not log in/register?

Champagneblade said:
If the first team are to move to HSBC eventually, doesn’t that in turn create some capacity at Shirecliffe that could be rented out?

Likewise, what happened to the Academy site at Crooks? Is there not some additional capacity there?

Whilst we may be part of the solution, this isn’t an SUFC problem.

Private company sells land it owns to other private company who has plans for the land.

The fact HSBC didn’t mind it being used by other teams is great but clearly would have been a happy kicking the can down the road exercise for the Council. Clearly overuse isn’t going to work for the SUFC seniors team.

Is there no land more on the outskirts that could be explored for these teams?
Click to expand...
I think Shirecliffe is opened up for grass roots in the evenings (or at least it used to be)

Crookes seems to have been abandoned. I some times take my daughter on there for a kick about and plenty of others (students/kids/families) seem to make use of it.

Either way though there is probably a solution if the will is there.

Funnily enough it was a pig fan doing the moaning on Look North last night. I
 

CrookesBlade said:
I think Shirecliffe is opened up for grass roots in the evenings (or at least it used to be)

Crookes seems to have been abandoned. I some times take my daughter on there for a kick about and plenty of others (students/kids/families) seem to make use of it.

Either way though there is probably a solution if the will is there.

Funnily enough it was a pig fan doing the moaning on Look North last night. I
Click to expand...
Yes i noticed it was a pig doubt he would be moaning if it was the piggies , Of course he would say he would still moan but do we really believe that I for one would not believe him . Have they still got that tent?
 
CrookesBlade said:
I think Shirecliffe is opened up for grass roots in the evenings (or at least it used to be)

Crookes seems to have been abandoned. I some times take my daughter on there for a kick about and plenty of others (students/kids/families) seem to make use of it.

Either way though there is probably a solution if the will is there.

Funnily enough it was a pig fan doing the moaning on Look North last night. I
Click to expand...
Maybe Crooks is the solution? Or partial? Though I still don’t think the resolution should fall on SUFC.
 
Champagneblade said:
Maybe Crooks is the solution? Or partial? Though I still don’t think the resolution should fall on SUFC.
Click to expand...
It shouldn’t, the FA need to funnel more money down the pyramid.

I know the owner of a sports club in North Sheffield, he has 8 grass pitches and rents it out as a whole to a local football club.

He’s had a bid in to the Football Foundation/FA for the last 3 years to put 4G on there and make it an all year round facility. They’ve kicked it back for various reasons each time.

He’s willing to invest using matched funding (the numbers don’t stack up if he pays for it himself) but they want to channel money elsewhere based on box ticking criteria. This is a prime example of why there is a shortfall.

I’m in the US and they are pretty shit at football on the whole, however there are multiple parks locally with dozens of pitches, floodlights and goals that are available to use for local teams. It’s night and day to the UK. Granted there’s a lot more land here in Texas but they also have baseball, American football and basketball facilities to fit in as well.
 
The sharrow facility is a great little 4 g and widely used by the multi cultural community ,trained on there a few times , think football foundation money went into that .
 
Houston_Blade said:
Clubs are scrapping over every available bit of land, it’s boring for those not interested but the issue is that you have a window of around 4 hours Saturday and Sunday mornings to fit in a host of age groups, formats and teams.

Even clubs with facilities have to limit numbers of teams per age group to fit on their pitches.

You need training pitches, 5v5, 7v7, 9v9, 11v11 (3/4) and 11v11 full size, multiples of these if you have multiple teams per age group. Floodlights so you can train in winter etc.
Click to expand...
Thanks Houston_Blade… will openly hold my hands up and confess you’ve educated me!

I thought it may be complex but never as complicated as you’ve described.

Thanks for taking the time to explain everything, really appreciate it :)
 
Jaime said:
Thanks Houston_Blade… will openly hold my hands up and confess you’ve educated me!

I thought it may be complex but never as complicated as you’ve described.

Thanks for taking the time to explain everything, really appreciate it :)
Click to expand...
No worries, as much as some posters will assert it’s a piece of piss to find a pitch they really haven’t got a clue!

I was involved with a local club for a few years and we put bids in on multiple parcels of land to have a ‘home ground’ similar to a Middlewood or Handsworth etc.

We got absolutely nowhere, we had the local council, FA, planning department and football foundation all to satisfy as well as finding a piece of land to purchase or lease long term (50 years+ was the requirement to get funding).

It’s much easier for landowners to sit on it and hope it eventually gets planning permission to build residential houses on.
 
Champagneblade said:
Maybe Crooks is the solution? Or partial? Though I still don’t think the resolution should fall on SUFC.
Click to expand...
I fully agree. The facility is for sale and SUFC have every right to buy it. Would be a nice touch if they could find a way to help the affected grass roots clubs out in partnership with FA and the local authority but ultimately it’s not the club’s responsibility.

SUFC aren’t responsible for decades of playing field sell offs and underinvestment in leisure facilities.

There is a huge net benefit to the city in having a proper training facility for its Premier League side. Seems to me like a pig fan stirring the pot and the local press have smelled an easy headline.
 
CrookesBlade said:
I fully agree. The facility is for sale and SUFC have every right to buy it. Would be a nice touch if they could find a way to help the affected grass roots clubs out in partnership with FA and the local authority but ultimately it’s not the club’s responsibility.

SUFC aren’t responsible for decades of playing field sell offs and underinvestment in leisure facilities.

There is a huge net benefit to the city in having a proper training facility for its Premier League side. Seems to me like a pig fan stirring the pot and the local press have smelled an easy headline.
Click to expand...
As tough as this season has been, at least we own our assets.

To the best of my understanding Wednesday don’t own the stadium and as mentioned elsewhere the training ground neither.

I wonder how much they pay for the training ground? It would be a typical Sheffield Council pisstake if they were there for free.

For a bloke who is not intent on putting any more in, this is a huge hole to fill and not one you’d expect fixed in the future, so those 3m payments will continue.
 
Champagneblade said:
As tough as this season has been, at least we own our assets.

To the best of my understanding Wednesday don’t own the stadium and as mentioned elsewhere the training ground neither.

I wonder how much they pay for the training ground? It would be a typical Sheffield Council pisstake if they were there for free.

For a bloke who is not intent on putting any more in, this is a huge hole to fill and not one you’d expect fixed in the future, so those 3m payments will continue.
Click to expand...
i wouldnt think they pay anything ( a peppercorn rent) but they are responsible for all the infrastructure on the land (drainage etc) which they have provided and "if" they leave they have to leave it in a "as good if not better" state.
ultimatly its eduction land so cant really be built on either ( for housing).

SCC do charge the pigs to use hillsborough car park on match days
 
Champagneblade said:
But do they need it 24/7?

Could there not be room at certain times?

Also what if Crooks?
Click to expand...
I might be wrong but I don't think United own Crooks I think it might still belong too McCabe. The only reason I'm saying this is because someone I know says there are plans too build Houses/Flats on it and residents are not happy.
 
bladesmanluke said:
Do they realise that if SUFC don't buy it then it likely gets turned into housing?
Click to expand...
No it wouldn’t. It will be earmarked as sport facility and you’d have to change to the use and get this voted through by the council. The council are very reluctant to give planning permission to areas like this. If there was much chance of doing that HSBC would have got a lot more for it than what we are paying them!
 

I see that Crookes has been closed for 2 years ,and internal discussions on its future are being discussed, lucrative plot of land
 
Last edited:
Working Class Hero said:
To be fair, I've been involved in grassroots football for a long time and it's clear the council just doesn't have the budget any more. There are nowhere near as many council pitches now as there were when I was a kid, as it would be impossible for the council to maintain them all. Those that are left are generally in poor condition and Sheffield was already a nightmare for pitches, due to the fact someone decided to build the city at the bottom of a mountain range.

The obvious thing would be to use some of the obscene amount of money that football itself brings in, to create quality grassroots facilities. This has happened on a small scale (the City has two FA funded "St. George's Parks", and there are grants available to football clubs/venues) but it's a drop in the ocean. Unfortunately the money is allowed to be spewed out to players and agents instead, as we all know.
Click to expand...
Fully agree that it’s time for professional football to step in and do something to preserve the roots and traditions of their game. They could do this with a fraction of their enormous wealth, but don’t hold your breath.
I realise that the councils across the country have been hung out to dry by central government, but how does anybody watch the local news articles about child obesity, boredom-driven delinquency, and the closure of community sports facilities and youth clubs without joining up the dots? It’s pathetic.
 
A few years back when I was organising games, the Helipad pitches at Shirecliffe were always free, there are 4 or 5 pitches, probably with space for more and the bottom 3 are all decent, flat pitches with decent drainage.

Considering how hard it is getting pitches elsewhere, I always wondered why it was always empty. Maybe it's the lack of changing facilities, and if United want to pay a token gesture to account for the loss of 3 pitches, then maybe a grant to put some changing rooms on those pitches wouldn't go amiss.
 
It might sound callous but I don't see how this is United's issue. HSBC are the ones who were allowing local teams to play on their site. HSBC has then decided to sell this piece of land, knowing that local teams use and need the site. It is therefore HSBC's responsibility to manage the fall out of this, not ours, other than for a bit of goodwill.

If someone was renting their drive out for someone to park on, but then sold their house and the new owner wanted to stick a pond on the drive instead, it wouldn't really be the new owner's responsibility to find another car parking space for the guy that was using it before.
 
S64 Blade said:
It might sound callous but I don't see how this is United's issue. HSBC are the ones who were allowing local teams to play on their site. HSBC has then decided to sell this piece of land, knowing that local teams use and need the site. It is therefore HSBC's responsibility to manage the fall out of this, not ours, other than for a bit of goodwill.

If someone was renting their drive out for someone to park on, but then sold their house and the new owner wanted to stick a pond on the drive instead, it wouldn't really be the new owner's responsibility to find another car parking space for the guy that was using it before.
Click to expand...
I totally agree with this. It just simply isn’t our problem. HSBC only started to rent out pitches when internal demand fell due to a combination of staff reductions and more general apathy towards team sport.
I think it’s great that kids have much better facilities to play football than I had as a youngster but I spent most of my spare time on any available piece of grass with my mates and I very rarely see that these days.
It’s great that there are many passionate advocates for junior teams and I’m sure they’ll make sure their teams get to play plenty of football somewhere else.
Surely we can all agree that the two facilities owned by the Blades need to be 100% focussed on creating benefit to us as a professional club and hopefully enabling us to challenge at as a high a level as possible with our financial constraints.
 
MartBlade said:
I totally agree with this. It just simply isn’t our problem. HSBC only started to rent out pitches when internal demand fell due to a combination of staff reductions and more general apathy towards team sport.
I think it’s great that kids have much better facilities to play football than I had as a youngster but I spent most of my spare time on any available piece of grass with my mates and I very rarely see that these days.
It’s great that there are many passionate advocates for junior teams and I’m sure they’ll make sure their teams get to play plenty of football somewhere else.
Surely we can all agree that the two facilities owned by the Blades need to be 100% focussed on creating benefit to us as a professional club and hopefully enabling us to challenge at as a high a level as possible with our financial constraints.
Click to expand...
Certainly and I agree that these teams should have somewhere to play. The real buck stops with the local authority and the FA (if they are serious about grassroots football).

United should and do a lot for the local community, but the club can't be responsible for it all.
 
CrookesBlade said:
I fully agree. The facility is for sale and SUFC have every right to buy it. Would be a nice touch if they could find a way to help the affected grass roots clubs out in partnership with FA and the local authority but ultimately it’s not the club’s responsibility.

SUFC aren’t responsible for decades of playing field sell offs and underinvestment in leisure facilities.

There is a huge net benefit to the city in having a proper training facility for its Premier League side. Seems to me like a pig fan stirring the pot and the local press have smelled an easy headline.
Click to expand...
Do we know how SWFC help the grass roots game in the city ?
 
petcharlie said:
Do we know how SWFC help the grass roots game in the city ?
Click to expand...
They do have a community program same as us but looking at the websites and what’s on offer the difference is night and day.

www.swfccp.co.uk

Sheffield Wednesday FC Community Programme

www.swfccp.co.uk www.swfccp.co.uk

Sheffield United Community Foundation

Community programmes are aimed at strengthening self-esteem, developing personal skills, promoting health and wellbeing, improving academic achievement and generally empowering people in the local area.
sufc-community.com sufc-community.com

United’s community efforts are something to be proud of
 
crazyblade1889 said:
No it wouldn’t. It will be earmarked as sport facility and you’d have to change to the use and get this voted through by the council. The council are very reluctant to give planning permission to areas like this. If there was much chance of doing that HSBC would have got a lot more for it than what we are paying them!
Click to expand...
That's true, but who'd buy it? Not the council they're skint. Although it's not stopped them buying up half the city centre they're already balls deep on that gamble. There's probably nobody else who can afford to buy it from HSBC without turning it in to housing unless the Eagles and Sheffield FC do a U turn on the transport ground
 
The grassroots teams affected have been in contact with United and they say they have been blindsided by HSBC announcing and kicking grassroots teams off early. There are ongoing discussions with both clubs and the council that sound positive. It’s going to cause problems in the short term (next season) but hopefully it might actually improve things long term.
 

Back to actual training facilities, check out what little old ‘muff are putting up…


This is what we’re competing with. It’s all down to luck with ownership.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

All advertisments are hidden for logged in members, why not log in/register?

All advertisments are hidden for logged in members, why not log in/register?

Back
Top Bottom