Fleetwood Town train on new pitches as manager Graham Alexander targets success

Fleetwood's players have trained on the pitches of their new training complex for the first time, with the facility expected to be completed by the end of January next year.

Alongside incorporating a full sized 3G pitch, the new £6m first-team training facility will include pitches for community use and will be a new home for local side Thornton-Cleveleys FC.

Steve Curwood, chief executive of the League One side, said work on Poolfoot Farm in Thornton, three miles from Highbury Stadium, is close to its completion.

"It is a massive day for the football club. Not only is there quarter of a million pounds of craftsmanship under our feet today but it’s such a massive day in the club's history," he told Sky Sports News HQ.

"We now have our own facility which is the next stage of our development in what will be transformed by the end of January."

Curwood also believes the new training facilities can act as a launchpad for any future success at Fleetwood.

"We've got to cement where we are now. We've got in to the Football League in rapid time really," he said. "We've got to develop and become not this quirky Fleetwood Town, who have risen very quickly, but we now need to cement ourselves and be recognised as a League 1 club.

"To do that the training facilities matter. We've shared rugby clubs and we've shared our own pitch with different facilities. This (new complex) allows us to track players, develop players and take that continuity forward on the playing side."

Manager Graham Alexander agrees that the new facilities could give the club an extra edge when bringing players to the club.

"If it’s a close run thing between us and another club (to buying a player) then if we can put in better facilities, which we have done over the summer, it will give us a little bit of an edge on that side of things," he said.

"Players want to train in the best facilities, they want to go out on pitches and that’s what we have."

Fleetwood are in the process of a squad overhaul this summer, and Alexander feels that lowering the average squad age could help move Fleetwood above and beyond their 10th placed finish in League One from last season.

"We've looked at the younger profile of the squad and the long-term potential of these players so we've got to work out, not just over the summer, but over the last 12 months to bring these sort of players in," he explained.

"We've had the development squad up and running for 12 months now and that's paying dividends with a few players coming through into the first-team squad.

"But we also feel we've bought in some really good, experienced players that are still great ages, 26-27, so we feel there’s a good blend in there to go into the season and we’re looking to hopefully improve on what we did last year."