Notts County Football Club and St George’s Park National Football Centre have come to an agreement that will see Keith Curle’s squad train at the state-of-the-art facility over the next 12 months. 
  
The Magpies will still have access to their existing Highfields training facility, which will be put to use the day before matches and when the Three Lions are preparing for an international fixture.
 
As the Magpies aims to gain promotion from League One to the Championship by playing attractive, passing football this season, Curle feels that the move will only prove to be beneficial to his squad. 
 
“If you have a look at the overall playing surface and the atmosphere of the place, I think it’s pretty obvious why we’re training here," explained the former Manchester City, Sheffield United and Wimbledon defender.
 
“It’s a fantastic, consistent training surface for us to play on, a professional environment and it’s absolutely unbelievable that we’re able to come here.
 
“I think we will notice the benefits throughout the season because we’ll be playing on a consistent surface day in, day out, even in inclement weather when other training surfaces will not be as good.

“We won’t have to modify our training because of the conditions because of the foundation of the playing surface.
 
“At the end of last season, the training ground was dictating the work that we were doing.
 
“Obviously, if you’re playing on a bobbly surface and you want to be a passing team, it wasn’t conducive to how we wanted to play.”
 
He continued: “A decision was made at Board level to try and find the best surface that we could.
 
“I think it shows the ambition of the football club, because we are guests of the National Football Centre. As soon as you come here, you’ll be involved in an environment that is used for all the elite athletes.”

County defender Julian Kelly added: “It’s amazing and it feels like you’re at a club like Manchester United’s training ground.
 
“I’ve never seen a pitch as good as the one we’re using and the facilities, the food, the changing room, everything is top class.
 
“It shows that we want to push on and it shows that we want to play football as well.
 
“We don’t mind the extra travelling, there’s no way that you can’t adapt to it, you just fit in straight away, as soon as you get through the gates.”