By David Owen
May 6 – The Football Association (FA)’s national football centre will be a hive of activity next month while Roy Hodgson’s England squad are on the other side of the Atlantic in Brazil attempting to win the country’s second FIFA World Cup and their first in nearly 50 years.
But the £80 million St George’s Park facility at Burton on Trent in the English Midlands will in effect be masquerading as the national swimming, judo and table tennis centre.
This follows the announcement that all 440 or so athletes expected to represent England at this summer’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow are to visit the venue to collect kit, attend briefings, fulfil media duties and generally make use of the facilities which include 11 football pitches, an injury rehabilitation centre and a 228-bed hotel.
There is, alas, no football at the Commonwealth Games, but athletes from 17 other sports will visit Burton between 18 and 29 June.
On 19 June, for example, as England prepare to take on Luis Suárez’s Uruguay in bustling Sao Paulo, boxers, cyclists and squash players will be taking their turn on site.
Five days later, with England facing a potentially make-or-break encounter with Costa Rica in Belo Horizonte, athletes and triathletes will be visiting.
And, should Steven Gerrard and team-mates contrive somehow to top their group, earning a last-sixteen clash against the Group C runner-up in Recife, that match would be played on the evening of June 29, after the Glasgow-bound lawn bowlers had become the last athlete group to take their turn in Burton.
Jan Paterson, Team England’s chef de mission, said: “We are delighted that St George’s Park is to play host to Team England at this crucial stage of the journey to Glasgow 2014…
“It’s a significant moment for any athlete when they receive the first formal recognition that they will represent their country. The Team England kitting out experience at St George’s Park marks that for each of them and demonstrates how much importance we place on that moment.”
Phil Morris, group managing director of England’s kit suppliers Kukri, said the company had had to “tailor and bespoke the kit for an incredibly varied size and build of athlete attending Glasgow, so we are both excited and proud as we await their reaction to both the design and tailoring we have produced”.
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