Reading release aerial footage of new training ground

READING have released aerial footage of their new £50m training facility, which will soon be home to their first team, Academy and women’s sides.

The Bearwood Park site, set over almost 120 acres, will host three full-size first-team pitches (with the same dimensions as the pitch at the Madejski Stadium), a floodlit artificial 3G pitch, goalkeeping practice area, first-team building and Academy facility.

You can watch the drone footage of Bearwood in the video below.

Academy Manager Ged Roddy said: “A very special facility is emerging out of the Berkshire countryside. The scale and scope of the new Bearwood campus is testament to the vision and ambition of the club.

“The new infrastructure will give the club and its Academy the tools to compete with the very best.”

For the last 15 years, the club’s training ground has been at Hogwood Park in the village of Finchampstead, but the site was deemed unsuitable for significant development and expansion.

The new training ground, which is five miles from the Madjeski, is three times bigger than Hogwood and will cost more than £50m to complete, according to the club.

Phase one was finished in July, when owner Yongge Dai said: “This new forward-thinking facility has been carefully researched and planned out. It has been designed to serve not only our first team, but also every age group in our Academy, our women’s team and our staff.

"Bearwood Park will help bring Reading Football Club even closer together. I believe this will be one of the very best training grounds in the country and I am delighted to open the gates to the first team for the first time this morning.”

Phase two, which involves completion of the buildings, is currently underway. It is envisaged that the first team will continue to train at Hogwood for the remainder of this season and a date has not yet been set for the site to become fully operational.

Reading are 21st in the Championship. Their Academy, which has been Category 1 for eight straight seasons, ranked 14th in our 2017/18 Productivity Rankings.