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Wanderers hope significant investment in the club’s Lostock training ground this summer will produce better results in League One next season.
For several weeks, ground staff have been hard at work re-laying pitches and solving drainage issues which have been a major bugbear for Ian Evatt and his predecessors in recent years.
A major storm in January 2022 tore down the club’s indoor training ‘bubble’ – which had been an option for the first team during the worst weather. Seeking a replacement has proven a time-consuming task, which is still with insurers.
Evatt and his players shifted to the main stadium for the final few weeks of the season, a surface that has also experienced its fair share of difficulties this season.
Wanderers CEO Neil Hart admits poor weather does make effective training difficult with the current playing surfaces at Lostock, and he hopes the improved facilities will have a positive effect on the team.
Speaking to The Bolton News, he said: “We have a really busy summer. We have already started work at Lostock on the main training pitch next to the Astro.
“We are redoing the top pitches for Ian and the team, improving quality and putting slits down to improve drainage because we have had a lot of issues. We’ll be putting Fibresand in for the first time on those pitches, so I am hoping that will make things better.
“We have also got some landscape and drainage experts doing some work for us as well, looking at pooling the water and how we then deal with it.
“Regularly through the winter I’ll get a call from Ian to say the pitches are disgraceful, they are unplayable, and when I go up there, I am shocked what they have been training on.
“We needed to invest significantly, so I am really glad that is going to happen now because it will benefit the players, benefit the team on the pitch too.
“That will be supported by investment in the Wanderers Bond.”
The main stadium will play host to a two-day Pink concert next month. The US band are using it as the base for rehearsals for their world tour and have now started adding the extra infrastructure for the event.
Hart has confirmed that Wanderers are planning two home friendlies at the end of pre-season against European and Premier League opposition. And with a complete pitch to relay, he admits there is not a second to waste.
“Pink are here for 10 days building stages, towers, food villages, it is a huge amount of work,” he told us.
“The concerts are June 7 and 8, and nearly sold out, so we will be expecting two busy but very fruitful evenings.
“Pink will take two days to load out, and the minute they are gone we will be straight on the pitch and do the work that is required. That should be ready for pre-season and the games we have planned.”
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