Wigan Athletic close in on purchase of Bolton Wanderers' Euxton training ground

Wanderers are close to agreeing a deal with local rivals Wigan Athletic for the sale of their training ground at Euxton.

The club has refused to comment on a commercially-sensitive matter but sources suggest the agreement could be finalised within the next week.

Wanderers would continue using the training ground until the end of the season before moving to their Lostock base, alongside the academy, for pre-season in the summer.

Building work would also have to be completed on the academy site to house first-team staff and players but the club is confident the 40-acre facility, which houses 12 turf pitches and one all-weather pitch, would be suitable.

The former BAE Lostock site, off Lostock Lane, has been home to the Eddie Davies Academy since 2008 and was officially opened after nearly two years of planning wrangles.

League One Wigan have been searching for a new facility to house its first team and academy, which they hope could soon achieve category-one status.

Their current base at Christopher Park in Standish does not fulfil the necessary criteria but Wanderers have transformed Euxton into one of the best bases outside the top flight over the last decade.

Managing two bases has become difficult for the Whites in the current financial predicament, however, and after looking into a number of alternatives including a former golf course at Charnock Richard, Wigan are ready to complete the purchase of the land.

Source

TBH I never saw the sense in having two sites.

The plan was always to move the first team to the ED academy anyway. I've played there before and it's got plenty of high quality pitches with about 3 or shitty cabins which will need to be knocked down and Or made much more presentable. Good move imo

It's well known throughout football that the ground at Euxton is absolutely state of the art.

With a never ending injury list and a probable second relegation in four years, it either makes you dread to think where we'd be with just a bog-standard facility, or wonder if it makes a difference where the hell they train.

Grass is grass.

If Lostock's flat and not covered in dog shit and broken glass, it'll do.

There's no point having a state of the art (who defines that, by the way?) facility, if you've got a perfectly good alternative already in place.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but on reflection, why the fuck do we need two separate training grounds?

It all smacks of the "we're bigger than we are" type of thinking that's got us in this mess.

Consolidation and prudent planning is the key from now on.

Unless of course Big Rog breezes in on Friday - all bets are off then and I will support any attempts he might make to buy Old Trafford or Th'Etihad and turn them into training grounds for the Under 9's.

Naturally.....

it's official now, we have sold it to the pie eaters

Lostocks pitches are better than euxtons. And there's more of them.

i read somewhere though that they only have portakabins at Lostock so they would need to spend some cash to improve that side of things. Unless of course they expect them to go back to the Macron for everything else other than training

Norpig wrote:i read somewhere though that they only have portakabins at Lostock so they would need to spend some cash to improve that side of things. Unless of course they expect them to go back to the Macron for everything else other than training

Well they're staying put at Euxton till the summer. Plenty time to upgrade lostock with Deanos millions

Lostock is a lot easier to get to for the average Bolton fan than some fancy complex buried away discretely in Chorley.

I suspect that's a worry for the players, especially on a Monday morning after getting battered at home.