Western Sydney Wanderers ready to kick on with new home ground and $15m centre of excellence
After a lacklustre two years, the Wanderers will head into the next A-League season playing out of the new Bankwest stadium and training at their $15m state-of-the-art centre of excellence.
The devil, as always, is in the detail. Like the fact that the senior pitches at the Wanderers’ new training centre are the same size as Bankwest Stadium’s, to the centimetre.
Like the fact that the floodlights on every one of the nine pitches will be, with 500lux LED power, so bright you could broadcast an FFA Cup game on TV.
Like the orientation of the gym and its floor to ceiling windows that mean a player in rehab is just yards away from the training pitches and visually connected.
And like the blinds on the windows in the media centre, ready to secure training sessions from prying eyes.
It’s not just on game day that the new season promises so much for Western Sydney. After years of training in the midst of children’s athletics carnivals, with dressing rooms so far removed they were almost in a different suburb, the Wanderers players will return for pre-season at the $15m centre of excellence that has been years in the making.
Off-field staff will be in much sooner - Monday in fact, and there was a noticeable spring in the step of staff moving their equipment across on Friday morning, even in pouring rain.
As a way of drawing a line under the past two seasons it is hugely symbolic, but the facility is all about the future. Three pitches are ready now and the other six will be in use by January, housing the A-League and W-League teams right down to the youngest junior teams on one 11ha site.
The complex was designed after chairman Paul Lederer and CEO John Tsatsimas toured elite clubs around the world and garnered ideas from all of them.
The female teams have their own dedicated changing rooms.
All of the academy coaches share an office with Markus Babbel. And at the centre of it all is the $1m gym which means for the first time the A-League players will scarcely have to leave the site during their working day.
A coffee shop tender has just been awarded to provide a base for parents while their children train in the academy teams, and eventually a licensed club will follow to allow supporters to use the complex.
Famously there are no registration fees charged to those players. “In this area, there are people who can afford it, but there are lots who can’t,” said Lederer. “It would be a travesty if young talented kids couldn’t play because they can’t afford to.”
The whole site has been leased from Blacktown City Council, who will maintain the pitches. “Having the Wanderers based here gives hope and inspiration to local residents, there’s a pathway from local teams right up to the A-League,” said mayor Steve Bali.
In every sense, the Wanderers are coming home. Now they just have to start winning again.
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