Ebbsfleet United continue search for training base

Sunday 30th May 2010

EBBSFLEET UNITED officials continue the search for a suitable training ground as the club prepare for life in Blue Square Bet South, writes Stephen McCartney.

It has been 12 months of struggle for the Stonebridge Road outfit. Last summer manager Liam Daish lost all but three of his squad due to a crippling budget cut and had to throw in untried youngsters and in turn they struggled before Christmas.

But despite a valiant effort after Christmas, the club still, as expected, lost their Blue Square Premier, after eight years playing at the highest level of non-league football.

Daish has recently issued a statement, expressing his concerns about the shoddy training facilities, if any, that he and his full-time squad had to work with last season.

He said: “A decision by the then chairman John Moules, to move training facilities from Fleet Leisure to AI with assurances that facilities and equipment (portable goals etc) would be ready for the first day back of pre-season, but this never happened.

“By October-November we could no longer train at AEI as the premises were subject to a takeover by a new owner. No showers or pitches.

“For the remainder of the season we had no base, limited tools to develop our young players who are still learning the game. Many were travelling long distances (e.g. Brighton, Basingstoke, Luton etc and in Scotty Ginty's case Peterborough) to train on whatever facilities we could find including 3G five aside pitches, occasionally full size 3G pitches at Dartford, local public parks and our Matchday pitch at Stonebridge Road – certainly not ideal for our groundsman Peter Norton.

“Our portable goals, rehab and conditioning equipment, bikes, rowers, weights and machines were left at AEI collecting dust and are still there as we had and still have nowhere to put them.

“A training facility is essential to a full time set of players, fact. The players, who are young deserve a working environment to improve as a team and also individually, physically and technically. The players did not have that last year.

“Going forward this has to be addressed and made a priority if the club wants to remain full time.”

Whether the club will remain full-time remains to be seen - the club has been very dormant with news on it’s official club website concerning players’ comings and goings - but club officials have posted news on the unofficial fans’ forum about their search for new training facilities.

During Chris Kinnear’s days of managing Margate, the club used the facilities at Gravesend Rugby Club, situated at Donald Biggs Drive, Milton Road, but club secretary Peter Danzey insists this venue wasn’t suitable.

“Gravesend Rugby Club was inspected by Liam, Macca (Paul McCarthy) and myself last year and the surfaces for football training are terrible,” he said.

He added: “The problem with schools is that we cannot use them during the day if we stay full time and there are no floodlights if we go part time.

“I have been in local football for close on 50 years and the statement ‘there are loads of venues in the Gravesend/Northfleet region’ is simply untrue.

“During last season I went to every venue I could think of and none of them were up to the standard Liam wanted.

“If you would care to list these venues, I will be only glad to go and look at them. Please bear in mind we are looking at least the standard of AEI or better.

“My local league played 3 Cup finals at Fleet Leisure during the season just finished and every team complained about the state of the main pitch and said they would rather have played on local Council pitches.

“Also in the three finals there was a total of nine footballs lost over the gardens that are so close to the pitch.”

The club has previously used the impressive facilities at Kent League side Corinthian - the training venue of the Fleet’s new league rivals Welling United.

Another person added: “In terms of training facilities, we have been trying to get something more acceptable in place.

“To day the least, it was very difficult for Liam this last season to not know where he could take the players for training and the reliability of the facilities.

“If we want to be a professional football club, we need to urgently sort this area out.

“In recent weeks we have looked at a number of locations including Greenwich University, Charlton and several others. We have even looked at the old TA ground on Grove Road by the ground.

“I am trying to put together a comprehensive list with pros and cons for every location with a view to trying to nail by mid-June.

“Peter was talking to the people at Corinthian and we already have some provisional costings. The club will need to have further conversations with people and we should get to a position where Liam has 3 or 4 workable options to chose from.

The only limitation should be cost, but sometimes the extra £1-2,000 paid out could reap great rewards.

“I hope you appreciate that it is an issue that the club takes very seriously and is trying to deal with.”

Local football clubs with decent football pitches that could be investigated include Thamesmead Town (who will be opening their impressive facilities and 3G training pitch at the end of this year at Bayliss Avenue), Dartford (the community pitch at Princes Park), VCD Athletic (Old Road, Crayford), Erith & Dartford Town (an eight-lane athletics track and decent playing surface) and Beckenham Town (Eden Park Avenue).

Visit Ebbsfleet United’s website: www.ebbsfleetunited.co.uk