With the season now and well truly over, 24/25 season tickets launched and pitch renovations started, this is a good opportunity to provide supporters and partners, a broad update on FGR.
The last two seasons have been a huge disappointment for everyone connected with FGR, including the staff who work hard behind the scenes on Matchdays. After the various changes in personnel earlier this year I stepped in to be the interim CEO; to steady the ship and focus on doing everything humanly possible to help the club avoid relegation, which we sadly fell short.
As a team, we have been working hard to deliver on the most urgent changes for the club – such as matchday ticket & season ticket prices - but we've also been tackling several key long-term objectives; including improvements to the stadium, the Candriam Training Centre at J13 and upgrades to the catering facilities and bars.
FGR has always had a very small back-office team that work exceptionally hard and, despite results on the pitch, have performed brilliantly since I stepped into the CEO role. We'll be recruiting new members of the team over the coming months to make sure we're able to better deliver on the Matchday experience. As part of this I am pleased to confirm that I will be taking on the CEO role on a permanent basis.
The off-season is an unusual time at FGR; from the outside it might appear to be a quiet time at the club but in reality it's a hive of activity to get everything ready in time for the new season – pitch renovations, hospitality, bars & catering, league requirements, stadium improvements and several sustainability projects, to name but a few.
As you may have seen, our application to move the first-team temporary facilities to the new training ground at J13 was refused by the council. This was really disappointing given the location is adjacent to the M5, we have planning consent for the long-term plans and it was a temporary structure with minimal impact. It's hard to predict when our planning issues will be resolved.
With the 24/25 season fast approaching it means we have had to change our plans and the first team will be now based at The New Lawn. They'll be using the facilities onsite and travelling to J13 when needed. This brings a range of interesting challenges to the stadium and quite a significant impact to the facilities available, most notably for fans it means we have to close the Gym Bar.
The first-team need a professional gym and so we're converting Gym Bar back into a usable space for the players to train and work out. This means that supporters will no longer be able to use this space on matchdays. This decision has not been taken lightly but hopefully everyone will appreciate that providing suitable gym facilities for the first-team is a crucial component in our ability to compete in the league next season.
There will be two training pitches at J13 that will be ready for use when the first-team return in late June. These will provide a significantly improved playing surface for the first-team and will match the new pitch at the stadium.
With the Gym Bar no longer available on Matchdays we are working on several improvements to both the Fan Zone and Green Man, to increase capacity where possible and help improve the Matchday experience.
Quite simply, we're running out of space and this is one of the key factors in the need for FGR to move to a new stadium, we have outgrown The New Lawn.
We'll share more details and images on the improved Fan Zone and Green Man in due course. Keep your eyes on our website and social channels for that.
Despite the fantastic work from head Groundsman Nick and the Grounds Team, the pitch last season really struggled. The surface consistently looked good, which is a testament to the hard work, however it was the drainage system that really let us down. Postponing the Wrexham game due to the weather was bitterly disappointing for everyone involved at the club, rearranging a hugely popular fixture to midweek means fewer people can attend and it has a significant financial impact. We actually had an additional four games that were very close to being postponed, all due to surface water on the pitch.
Structural surveys of the pitch have identified multiple major issues including; drains that have collapsed, drain pipes that actually go up-hill and areas of the pitch that have been poorly constructed. In recent years, we've carried out targeted repairs to specific areas as we were focusing on our eventual move to J13, however the cumulative effect of these issues combined with the continuing delays from the council mean that more significant work is required. Several proposals were submitted to the Board and the decision was made to invest in a hybrid pitch at the stadium; with all new drainage, irrigation and a surface that would be significantly more durable than a normal grass pitch.
A hybrid pitch is made up of about 95% grass and 5% reinforced polymer, allowing the pitch to be constructed using a much higher sand content than a standard grass pitch. The polymer is installed using a machine which stitches the material directly into the ground to produce a durable, high performance and stable playing surface. At the end of the pitch’s life the polymer can then be then removed and recycled.
This is a big investment into the club which will not only help first team performance but also drastically improve our ability to cope with exceptional weather that now occurs more frequently due to climate change.
The durability of a hybrid pitch will also allow us to do more at the stadium next season, alongside the first team we'll be able to have multiple FGR Women’s fixtures, FGR Academy games and it will allow us to host far more post-season games and tournaments.
This year’s Youth Tournament had over 600 kids attend and we had more teams apply than we could accommodate. Next summer we're planning a two-day 'Youth Tournament Weekend' to allow more teams from the local area to experience playing at the stadium; a great community benefit and a fantastic experience for all those kids.
Unfortunately there is an impact to our pre-season plans, it's going to take a significant amount of time for the new pitch to be installed before it can be used. This means we won't be able to host any home pre-season friendly games and, for the same reason, we have also requested that the first game of the season be an away fixture.
Further details on the pre-season schedule (including the various away games, ticket prices, etc) will be announced in due course.
All of this means that the 24/25 season promises to be exciting; and with reduced prices for Season Tickets, now is a great time to renew or buy your first season ticket and help support the team.
Dane Vince
CEO
