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Whether it is the chopsticks in the canteen with individually engraved names on for Manchester City’s Japanese players, the bespoke pineapple and mango recovery shakes made for Khadija “Bunny” Shaw to satisfy her taste buds or the underwater treadmill allowing players to watch Sky Sports News while in the recovery pool, it is not difficult to understand why the squad say they love their new women’s team headquarters.
The £10m state-of-the-art building, designed for the first team at the City Football Academy adjacent to their Joie Stadium home ground, has everything from hamstring strength testing kit in the gym to a barista-style coffee machine in the canteen, all aimed at maximising performance for female athletes. Along one corridor is printed: “We will find a way to win …” – a mantra repeated by the head coach, Andrée Jeglertz, regularly this season. They hope this facility will help make winning a habit.
City’s captain, Alex Greenwood, who will lift the WSL trophy this Saturday, is glowing in her praise for the new site. In the room where she and her teammates watched Arsenal’s draw with Brighton last Wednesday that secured City’s title she is asked whether it is the best facility she has seen.
“For a women’s team specifically, yes, for sure,” Greenwood replies. “Obviously, at England we have St George’s Park, which is incredible. At Lyon, we had a facility which was OK. It was good, it met its needs, but nothing comes close to this. I think it’s the best because it’s specifically for us, in every way.
“I also hope this is a shift for women’s football, for other clubs to push their women’s team to have their own facilities. As someone who is massive on growing the game, I really hope other clubs take a look at this and go: ‘OK, let’s do the same.’”
City would 'love' to enter team in third tier
ShowManchester City would like to enter an academy team into the Women's National League, their managing director, Charlotte O’Neill, has said. The Football Association has proposed including four Women's Super League clubs' academy sides in the third tier from 2027 as part of a restructure of the third and fourth tiers, as revealed by the Guardian in April, and consultations between the FA are key stakeholders are ongoing.
WSL academy teams play in a Professional Game Academy league but, under the proposals, two from the north and two from the south would enter the third tier. They would not be eligible for promotion but could be relegated. The idea has divided opinion and some lower-league sides are firmly against it.
"We'd definitely be open to it," O'Neill said. "We've seen in Spain, for example, from a women's point of view, how powerful that's been for Barcelona.
"The mechanism is difficult. How do you make that fair for all professional clubs? The impact that has on the National League. We’re very mindful of that and respectful of various positions, but if you're asking me would I love to be able to put a B team into the national pyramid, absolutely. It would be hugely beneficial for the Lionesses, not just us."
O'Neill said City she did not expect City to make wholesale changes to their squad this summer: "We’ve built this team, especially over the last two years, and the depth is there that we maybe didn’t have before. So in the summer, it’s not about a squad transformation. It’s about adding in the key positions that we need. I think we will make moves in the summer but we don’t need an overhaul. We’ve got one of the youngest squads in the league that’s playing really well together. I think our plan is always to move and to be in the market for top talent but it’s not going to be a squad overhaul." Tom Garry
City are by no means alone in having opened such a site: Brighton’s £8.5m women’s team centre opened in 2021 and many others have followed suit, but the details in the WSL’s newest purpose-built facility are impressive. The changing room has been designed – at the players’ request – to be akin to that found inside the Etihad Stadium, with the squad positioned in a circle to try to make everybody feel equal. The surnames are in squad number order except for one: Shaw, the No 9, is next to Greenwood to continue a superstition because they always have sat next to each other while together at the club. The changing room is yards from the pitch the squad most frequently train on.
Previously the women might have shared a gym with City’s boys’ academy. Now their gym equipment is programmed for female athletes, includes specialist equipment for non-invasive shock wave therapy. Recovery drinks, bespoke for each player’s schedule or nutrition plan, are left waiting for them. On the staircase up to the lounge, canteen and staff offices, players with 100 or more City appearances are honoured, including Steph Houghton, Jill Scott and Izzy Christiansen, who is outside coaching the youth team.
The squad moved into the 17,000 sq ft building on 10 March, after the February-March international break, a day after the staff. They have since clinched the club’s first WSL title in a decade and reached the FA Cup final.
“We’re trying to build the winning machine,” says the managing director, Charlotte O’Neill. “If you look at this facility, it tells you what City Football Group thinks of women’s football and this team.”
The canteen has a menu built around the women’s team’s schedule, rather than being shared with the boys. Emma Deakin, the director of performance services, who was central to discussions about the design for three and a half years, says: “We’ve got three specific chefs that work with the women’s team – they work really closely with our nutritionist to plan menus. Over there [with the academy] the requirements are different and you’ve got 200 under-14-to-19 boys to feed. We can be really specific around the girls’ tastes and knowing what they want to eat and how to fuel.
“We were in that building [with the academy] and those facilities are amazing but it didn’t feel like a home for the women’s programme. It just felt like people were coming to work. [Now] it’s so much better.”
A chef also travels with the team for away games. City are trying to pride themselves on is reducing the injury risk and the physios and doctor are based adjacent to the gym on the ground floor.
Another key focus has been “togetherness”, and Jeglertz describes the players’ lounge, which converts into a team meeting room, as the “heart” of the facility. He says his favourite thing about the new building is: “just the possibilities of connections between me and the players. I see them every day, you don’t need to book a meeting [any more], you walk past them all the time, you can easily go [and] speak to a player.”
In reception the honours wall catches the eye. Most noticeably, a lot of space has been left for trophies to be added. The club intend to dominate and this new facility may just make that possible.
