State-of-the-Art Football Pitch Nears Completion
A new £1.09 million football centre for Bilston, boasting a state-of-the-art football pitch is almost complete.
City of Wolverhampton College’s Football Development Centre, based at its Wellington Road Campus, is set to open in March.
The new facility includes a floodlit 3rd generation artificial grass surface, four external changing rooms, facilities for officials and a grass training pitch for mini soccer games.
The facilities have been developed in partnership with Bilston Youth Football League, NPV Football Development and Wolverhampton Wanderers, and with the help of a £620,279 grant from the Football Foundation, the UK’s biggest sports charity.
The centre will be used as a training venue for numerous sporting organisations, including Wolves Girls and Women’s Football and Bilston Youth Partnership League, and give local people access to a first class pitch to play and practise on.
Specialist sports ground contractors A P Thompson have spent four months preparing the site and have now started laying the artificial surface, filled with rubber crumb, which cushions joints and is the closest surface to actually playing on grass.
Director of Health, Leisure and Hospitality Earl Laird said: “This first class football centre is a terrific addition to the leisure facilities already offered by the college, and we are looking forward to opening its doors to the public next month.”
The football centre forms the final phase of a complete redevelopment of the whole campus. The first stage of the redevelopment opened in 2002 with the completion of a new building including a new science laboratory, IT suite, 150-seater restaurant, new teaching accommodation and community room. The completion of the second phase last year saw a new nursery, construction block and sports centre opened.