Crystal Palace and Brentford joined Portsmouth, MK Dons and Wolverhampton Wanderers in using the site’s state-of-the-art facilities across the summer, with Manuel Pellegrini’s Real Betis, Southampton’s B Team and Brighton & Hove Albion’s Academy making up the footballing cohort. 12 pre-season fixtures were completed at England’s base, offering players pristine playing surfaces on which to finish their pre-season preparations.
As with previous years, elite sports teams making use of the base reached well beyond football, with four pre-Olympic and Paralympic camps being hosted on-site ahead of this summer’s events in Tokyo.
July also saw the return of business events on-site, with members of the Leaders Performance Institute hosted as part of the organisation’s Leaders Meet: High Performance Environments development day. St. George’s Park provided the perfect backdrop for the high-performance community to explore case studies and explore how the area will continue to evolve now and into the future, with the world-class facilities a base for the England Technical teams who operate at the epicentre of the high-performance landscape.
Multiple grassroots tournaments also took place across the world-class playing surfaces at the Burton site, in addition to the fifth edition of The FA Disability Cup – the largest competition of its kind in this country, giving players within impairment-specific football a national competition of their own.
Holly Murdoch, General Manager of St. George’s Park said: “After playing a part in England Men’s Senior team reaching a major tournament final for the first time since 1966, it has been a pleasure to host so many sporting teams and sports-stars on our grounds. After what has been a challenging 18 months for all sports, seeing our facilities being utilised to their full potential has been very exciting for all the team on site.”
Throughout the pre-season, the ‘team behind the teams’ ensured St. George’s Park remained fully operational, with a COVID Screening Centre, administering over 7000 Lateral Flow Tests.
For further information on the pre-season activities at St. George’s Park, please visit: https://www.thefa.com/news/2021/aug/16/sgp-pre-season-wrap-up-20210816
