Sheffield United make significant progress in new training ground amid £1m investment, Tottenham Hotspur link
Sheffield United’s owners have given the green light for work to start on building the club’s new training ground at Dore, which in turn will start the ball rolling in terms of upgrading the United academy to category one. The former HSBC sports ground site was purchased by the Blades back in 2024.
But progress had stalled somewhat on the development of the new training centre, with United’s focus and budget being funneled into the first-team squad to try and improve their chances of getting promoted to the Premier League.
But that situation has now shifted somewhat, with chief executive Stephen Bettis confirming this evening that the project is no longer “on hold.”
“I think the last time probably anyone heard from me was maybe the Radio Sheffield interview I did in the summer,” he added, speaking at a United Fan Advisory Board forum at Bramall Lane.
“I think at that point we'd gone out to architects. We'd met with five or six architects, created a short list and pretty much highlighted the one that we wanted to go with. But at that point, I'd not got the green light to kind of move things forward.
“I've been given the green light to move things forward, so we've appointed the architects in question. These guys have got a great history. Leicester's training ground, Spurs' training ground.
“Not that our budget's going to be anywhere near that, but they've done some really nice smaller training grounds as well. We're not getting a nine-hole golf course like Leicester, unfortunately. So that's my handicap not looking good!
Sheffield United make significant progress in new training ground as new timescale confirmed
“But yeah, they're engaged. They've started working. We've set up working groups internally with the various stakeholders.”
A range of United staff are included in the planning process, with United effectively handed a blank slate to build a new facility from scratch after inhering a former working men’s club at Shirecliffe and trying to adapt it to their needs.
The move to Dore will also free up that site to be dedicated solely to the club’s academy, allowing them to become a category one system. Bettis claimed that United already have staffing levels of a top-level set-up, but space remains the main issue.
“You won't believe how obsessed our physios and training guys are over whole flows of the building,” Bettis added. “Saying: ‘Players come in this entrance and then they go past this and they go past that.’
“Everyone's getting involved in how the whole flow of the building works and stuff like that. But they're instructed. The whole professional is probably going to cost close to a million pounds to get it all designed, planned, commissioned, and costed so that we can go out to tender and get contractors to quote to do the job.
“It's probably going to take at least a year to get to that point, being honest, to get planning and get it all done. But the good news is that we're cracking on with it.”
Continue Reading