Leeds United's Thorp Arch redevelopment takes shape as attention turns to pre-season

Beren Crossin Football

The Premier League season may have finished, but development work is already underway on Leeds United's next Thorp Arch project with pre-season a little over one month away.

A general view of Thorp Arch, Leeds United's training ground. Image: Joe Mewis

Diggers have ripped up Leeds United's Thorp Arch training ground within hours of their Premier League return ending.

The turnaround times in football between seasons are tighter than ever with more and more action being packed into a 12-month cycle which allows for a little over one month of downtime for pitches.

Therefore, staff like Stefan Jones, the head groundsman at Thorp Arch, must work quickly to make any changes they need to the surfaces the players will soon to be taking to again.

While there have also been unconfirmed pictures of Elland Road's pitch being taken up, Jones himself posted an image of a very different Thorp Arch within 48 hours of Sunday's full-time whistle.

Posting on Tuesday morning, Jones said day two of the new pitch construction at the training ground involved digging out the clay which sits underneath the turf.

Day 2 of new pitch construction digging out all the clay

With the delayed end to last season because of Covid, there was even less of a close season last summer for clubs to make any meaningful changes to their pitches.

Therefore, it is expected this summer will be especially transformative for clubs up and down the country.

With a return to something like a normal schedule in 21/22, pre-season is sure to start in late June or early July for the Whites.

While Thorp Arch has been gutted, Elland Road is expected to get the same treatment with the complete redevelopment of the drainage system underneath the pitch.

United paid Tottenham Hotspur something in the region of £300,000 to lay one of their spare pitches at Elland Road in January with the intention to then rip it up this summer and solve the drainage issues which have dogged the stadium for years.


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