Yeovil Town have confirmed plans to move first team training to Bristol from the start of the 2025/26 season.
The Glovers will train at the SGS WISE Academy, part of the West of England Institute of Specialist Education (WISE), to the north of the city which the club says will give players and staff “access to top-class facilities in a high-performance environment.”
News of the move had been rumoured by former loanee and one-time permanent player Otis Khan in an interview with the I Had Trials Once podcast last month.
In a statement on the club’s website on Tuesday evening, manager Mark Cooper said: “From a football perspective, this is a really positive step for the club. The facilities at SGS Wise are first-class and will help create the kind of professional, high-performance culture we want to build here. It’s about giving the players everything they need to develop, compete, and succeed. At the same time, our heart remains in Yeovil – we’re doing this to bring success back to our fans and our town.”
Loading ...The statement from the club said that the relocation of training, which had previously taken place at the Alvington Playing Fields in Yeovil or on the artificial surface at Huish Park, would broaden its “recruitment reach.” It added: “By positioning ourselves in a more central and accessible location, we are better placed to attract a wider pool of talent – an important factor as we continue building a squad capable of pushing closer to a return to the Football League.”
Executive chairman Stuart Robins said: “This move represents a major milestone in the continued evolution of Yeovil Town Football Club. Providing our players and staff with access to elite training facilities is essential if we are to raise standards and push toward our ambition of returning to the Football League. The SGS Wise Campus offers exactly the kind of environment we need to drive progress and deliver results, while maintaining our strong identity and connection with the Yeovil community.”
The decision has raised questions from some supporters about the connection the club will maintain with the local community in Somerset by choosing to move its training base more than 70 miles away from Huish Park. Strengthening links with the community has been a centrepiece of the initial pitch made by new owner Prabhu Srinivasan who described service to the community as “equally important“ to success on the pitch in an open letter published after he completed his takeover.
The statement added: “This move represents a major milestone in the continued evolution of Yeovil Town Football Club. Providing our players and staff with access to elite training facilities is essential if we are to raise standards and push toward our ambition of returning to the Football League. The SGS Wise Campus offers exactly the kind of environment we need to drive progress and deliver results, while maintaining our strong identity and connection with the Yeovil community.“
You may recall that Mark Cooper spoke about training facilities at the fans forum back in January – click here to relive the answer, it starts about one hour and 33 minutes in to the recording.
Answering a question, the manager said: “The club went down in to the Championship and went down in to the non-League with no legacy whatsoever – no training ground, nothing. For me training facilities are the most important thing. I am not bothered about (the Huish Park) pitch because we are only on it 23 times a year, we train four or five times a week and that is where my work is done, so I need really good facilities if we are going to be better.
“That is one thing that will attract a player, certainly a good young player, who will ask ‘have I got somewhere really good to work every day?’ or am I going to come and train all over the place on a mud pit. Little things like that can attract players, so we have to strive for that.
“I am talking about trying to build organically, it is not boom or bust. Instead of spending money on a striker in the summer, we might put it on a training pitch which makes more sense to me.“
What is the SGS WISE Campus?
Opened in 2005, the SGS WISE Campus is the sports facility of the West of England Institute of Specialist Education (reckon they thought of the acronym first?).
It is based in Stoke Gifford which actually falls in the district of South Gloucestershire, but to all intents and purposes it is really north of Bristol – don’t tell the villagers we said that though! If you are driving, Google Maps suggests it is a 72.2 mile journey each way taking about one hour, 20 minutes – depending on traffic.
WISE is involved in teaching a whole range of subjects across the Bristol area including arts at the Bristol School of Arts, construction and engineering, hairdressing, beauty and complementary therapies and animal science and conservation – and sport, of course.
On the WISE website, it describes its Football Stadium Pitch as follows: “The Football Stadium Pitch at SGS WISE Campus features a 3G surface suitable for both training and matches. It is RFU and FIFA approved with a shock pad for enhanced safety and performance. The pitch is frequently used by prominent non-league teams such as Bath City, Mangotsfield United, and Yate Town FC. With seating for 100 spectators, it also serves as the home ground for the college’s elite teams, hosting matches on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Whilst being marked out for football, this pitch can also be used for other contact sports including Football, Rugby, and American Football.“
There are a wide range of grass pitch facilities – including two football pitches which will probably be our preference – along with indoor 3G, sports hall, and rugby and American football. Exactly which facilities you get to use is unclear, but we assume there will be no gridiron training being undertaken.
SGS Colleges which runs the facility has its own football academy which has been responsible for producing a number of male and female professional footballers including Antoine Semenyo, the former Bristol City winger now plying his trade at AFC Bournemouth in the Premier League, and a number of Bristol City Women’s team members (current and former) including Jasmine Matthews, Aimee Palmer, Flo Allen, Georgie Wilson and Maisy Collins.
If they get promoted I don’t think anyone will complain about this. It will looked upon in hindsight as a good decision.
However, comparatively all the reasons given to justify why SGS Bristol is a good training base.. they have all of that somewhere on the Millfield School site.
Only thing you could say is Indoor facilities might not be for football… but if it’s an indoor Tennis centre just put up a couple of goals FFS
Would think it’s a sensible decision, if we are looking to the likes of Bristol City, Cardiff and Swansea as a source of potential players to build a team around.
The distance from Yeovil to Bristol is nowhere near 70 miles!
But the distance from Huish Park to the SGS WISE campus (technically South Gloucestershire rather than Bristol) is 72.2 miles.
The congestion up there gets pretty crazy. To get to the North of Bristol makes sense to use the motorways. If you do that roughly 72 miles sounds about right….go over to Street, and Bridgwater to join M5 then up.
Via Taunton & motorway it is, if you go via the A37 it’s 47 miles, but that takes you through central Bristol & the clean air zone, which doesn’t make any sense commuting wise
I believe this is a good move if it helps to attract better players to the club. I do however think it’s a little rich for Mr Cooper to be quoting “our fans…. Our town” ect. It’s well documented that he cannot stand the town and is actively looking at other jobs.
In the spirit of “open and honest” Can you point us in the direction of these documents and the evidence that he is actively looking at other jobs?
Apologies Steven, a poor choice of words from myself. Rather than “well documented” I should have said “common knowledge” it’s obviously not documented. No manager in their right mind would go on record saying they wanted out of a job, however I did stand in the terrace and socialise in the fan’s zone towards the end of the season and there was plenty of talk of Mr Cooper being keen on a move away.
I think it’s great and I also think it’s great
Makes complete sense, providing that new training facilities more local are going to be invested in while we train in Bristol, with the view to returning back to Yeovil. Better facilities with the increases (and more lucrative) catchment area of Bristol, Cardiff, London, etc that are all commutable to Filton. Our current training facilities are Sunday league level at best, and modern footballers at this level are unwilling to uproot their families and lives for a 1 year contract in Yeovil…
Listen to all the Gloverspast’s to see why this is bad idea. Our favorite teams and players are the ones who engaged and wanted to be here.
However if we get promoted no one will complain.
Ultimately, no lower league player is signing for a club based on the town itself (insert long list here of pretty unpleasant places across the country who have successful football teams attracting lots of players). While for us the town of Yeovil and its surroundings are important, for our players it is just one of many relatively random provincial towns across the country where they will spend a couple of years of their career. It’s a shame, sure. But I think it probably makes sense football-wise.
Think there is a concern that repeated travel every week on top of what they already do, could impact player match performance and concentration.
Particularly when there’s world class facilities at Street, Millfield School. They’ve trained there before.. why not again?
15 miles from Yeovil, not ~70 if you go on motorway.
Interesting that the vote, to date, and comments here do not align. Two core questions I was asked when managing large scale change were:
Is it in the Strat Plan?
Will it wipe its feet?
I am not sure we have a Strategic Plan to guide our decision making. Just seeing statements and broad narratives.
As for comparative costs between SGS and Millfield, who knows.
For me, I value the sense of community the Club has meant for me. Green and White houses in High Lea, Len Harris bringing me an away programme on Monday mornings at Yeovil School, my primary school teacher at Pen Mill on the Board. Seems like Frank and Sonny were also binding young people to the Club in a similar way…but they, and thats gone.
It comes down to what you value. I dont buy that success and community is a trade off. Life is not as binary as some will project. There are always options.
A Strategic Plan should reflect the organisations core values and Im confused by what those are. (Maybe the vote to date reflects that).
After all the turbulence of recent years we should be building from our roots in Somerset, not presenting it as a negative place in which to live and work.
Derek could you please explain what is meant by wipe it’s feet?
Revenue more than costs in a strict financial outcomes aspect. More broadly benefits outweighs disadvantages.
The Bristol training arrangement is all just an impact of the previous club ownership. It may just be temporary. With new owners, they may just say No.. we can use Millfield Schools pitches, and a gym over in Street.
As some have noted above – hopefully this is temporary, and in due course the land purchase + financial investment in to community assets will see the wasted space around HP be put to better use. All in good time of course…
Disadvantage of Millfield is it’s all split up facilities. Outdoor pitches over near Kingweston, and indoor sports hall would probably be Strode College.
Not a dedicated training base with everything in the same place.
Yeovil “exiles” it is then. Been supporting this YEOVIL team for a tad over 60 years, yes I’m old fashioned. I will now just sit back and think of the past glory days, Town 3 Crystal Palace 1Dec 1963 FA cup 2nd round ( lost to Bury in next round). So sorry but no season ticket renewal for me, until Mark Cooper does leave, such negative and boring football. I am sure I can find some paint that needs watching whilst it dries. Training in Bristol just about the last straw