Oldham Athletic boss Micky Mellon excited by training base

An aerial view of Oldham Athletic's Chapel Road training ground, which has undergone improvements to the pitches and facilities <i>(Image: Oldham Athletic)</i>
An aerial view of Oldham Athletic's Chapel Road training ground, which has undergone improvements to the pitches and facilities (Image: Oldham Athletic)
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Oldham Athletic report back for pre-season training today to a new-look training ground.

Chapel Road has undergone a transformation since the players signed off for their summer break.

Money has been spent on improving the training pitches but also establishing enough facilities at the training base to use it as their permanent midweek base.

Up until now, the players and staff had commuted between the club and Chapel Road on training days.

But Latics now have all their training, prehab and rehab needs at one site.

And manager Micky Mellon is confident they will reap the benefits of the upgrade.

"When I first came here I was asked what does a League One club look like, and we spoke about how we were going to get there, and part of that was you've got to have your own training base that is tailored towards building an Oldham player, so we've been able to sit down and design a training ground that we think will help us create players for ourselves," he explained.

"Also logistically it was becoming a problem because we were coming here (Boundary Park) and doing prehab for injury prevention stuff - and then having to travel 10-15 mins down to Chapel Road, through the traffic.

"When the weather changes, on the route back again we were having to do the warm-down stuff and the players were wet. It's just the logistics, it was really hard work.

"But probably the main thing is that's what really good football clubs have, they have their own training ground."

And Mellon anticipated benefits when it comes to attracting new players as well.

"A League One player now, top end League Two player, one of the first things they'll say is 'where do you train? What does that look like?' And that will be a huge selling point," he continued.

"It's terrific, and it's a massive step forward for a football club like Oldham that's never had a training ground, which beggars belief really but that's the progression the owners have given us now and long may that continue."

Latics chief executive Darren Royle reflected on the significance of the training ground improvements for the club, adding: "There's been a ton of work going on around the training ground, which is really exciting.

"We've never had our own training ground, and we will have our own training ground, as in the players and staff based there as a performance centre, so it's a huge thing in terms of the evolution of the club."

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