‘Awful’ - Amanda Staveley makes Newcastle United training ground admission

Amanda Staveley has described the training ground Newcastle United the new owners inherited upon the takeover of the club in October 2021 as ‘awful’. Mike Ashley’s decade-and-a-half reign as Newcastle United owner came to an end over two years ago, but the club are still putting in place plans and developments to help them align with fellow Premier League rivals.

One of those is a new and improved training ground - something that was often neglected under the previous ownership. Speaking to the Athletic, Staveley revealed the club are discussing various ways to improve the facilities after inheriting an ‘awful’ training base: “Everything is up for discussion.” Staveley said. “When we took over, I think we all assumed the right solution would be to put everyone (male and female teams) together.

“But what I’ve learned is to bring in the best people and help them work out what’s needed. We want to provide the best environment and facilities for both teams, whether that’s under the same roof or with separate training grounds.

“The men’s team now have a fantastic training ground, which had to happen because we couldn’t have attracted elite athletes to come to Newcastle if we hadn’t drastically improved. It was one of my real bugbears when we took over. It was awful.

"It’s great to see the men’s training ground now, but we haven’t got any more space there and things take time to build. We’re looking at a lot of our colleagues at other teams to try to work out what environment will produce the best performance."