Bournemouth players move into ‘state-of-the-art’ training ground

The first-team staff started to move into the building at the start of this week, with the players training there for the first time on Wednesday. All staff and players will be based at the site from next Monday, with inductions taking place throughout the week.

Owner Bill Foley has previously said there will be an official opening of the facility in April.

“We are opening our own training facility [and] should be ribbon cutting that when I’m over there in April,” the American said earlier this month.

“This is a serious facility. Our players have already seen it, they have already toured it. We will have an indoor pitch, four outdoor pitches, they will be under the lights. It really is a state-of-the-art facility.”

The project was first approved in October 2019, after the Cherries purchased the former golf club site for £3.75m in January 2018. Work began before being paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, resuming in the summer of 2022, following the club’s promotion back to the Premier League.

The 6,000 square-metre dome, constructed by Collinson Tensile, was completed in January 2024 and some Academy and women’s training sessions are already taking place there. An indoor dome is a requirement of Category Two Academy status and the new building helped Bournemouth gain promotion in the summer of 2023.

The club hope to go up to Category One status within the next couple of seasons. 

The architects of the new building were AFL, who said their design “minimised the visual impact within this sensitive green belt site while maintaining privacy for all.”

Bournemouth’s Technical Director is Simon Francis. He joined the club as a player in 2011 and remembered: “When I joined the club, 200 yards over that way we were training at Canford School.”