Brooking backs Burton

Sir Trevor Brooking has revealed his delight after The Football Associaton board voted to build a national centre at Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire.

The FA's Director Of Football Development has long championed the cause for a national training base which will incorporate medical, exercise, science, coaching, video analysis and educational departments.

The FA has already invested £25m in the 350-acre site, which was visited by England Manager Fabio Capello (left) recently, and plans are in place to have the centre in operation by 2010 with planning permisson pending.

And Brooking believes the decision is a huge boost for the development and the future of English football with coaches set to benefit from a whole host of new technology and educational techniques.

"I am delighted," he said.

"We got a temporary green light in December but there were a couple of things that had to be sorted with partnership funding and planning issues.

"I can understand problems with funding but we needed to make a decision one way or another and I'm pleased we can move it on and hopefully it will be available for use in a couple of years.

"We've needed a home for coaching and playing development in this country. This is like a sponge for the knowledge of what's happening in this country, what the best practices are for different age groups here and across the world.

"We should be sucking it all in, and then allow people to come in and access that.

"It will be a great opportunity for all the coaches across the country. All other countries have a home for their coaching and at the moment we don't."

Sir Trevor was speaking at the opening of the new changing rooms at Surrey-based club Abbey Rangers, one of the most successful community based clubs in the country.

"Abbey Rangers is a fine example of a good junior football club," added Brooking.

"The idea is to encourage those that are running a few teams to expand into different age groups.

"If you can do that, then the justification is there to try to identify that club as being worthy of investment, whether it's facilities or pitches, so they have a home to continue their expansion.

"Abbey Rangers made an approach and got the funding - as well as some from the Community Club scheme - so they got two bites of the cherry.

"They received nearly £600,000, but it was still obviously a challenge for them to get over the £700,000 mark. They've done that though to build a real, quality facility.