Crawley Town return to Oakwood for training

Reds were relocating their training sessions to the school, only to find there are no water pipes installed.

Reds director of operations Kelly Derham said they are returning to their former base at Tinsley Lane, home of Oakwood FC.

She revealed: “Worth School would have been ideal and if it wasn’t for the hot and dry weather we would have been there.

“We have not walked away from Worth and could train there again in the future.”

“The problem we have in Crawley is wherever you are, the pitches become unusable and that leaves you with having to train on 3G, which is bad for players’ knees.” Last season Crawley trained at Beddington Lane, Croydon for several weeks after Christmas and this still remains an option.

Derham added: “People say to us we should have our own place, but it is a question of money. it could cost £0.5mill for our own pitchm, and we need two of them!

“In years to come we would love our own training ground, but we’ve been in the Football League all this time without one, so it can be done.”

New head coach Gabriele Cioffi said: “I like the set-up at Oakwood, we need a place which is our second home.

“Our first home is obviously Broadfield Stadium.

“I think it’s important to be close to your facility, I’m really happy there.

“It’s the right environment, it’s isolated so there is no noise from cars.

“There is more than one pitch, the club is available to us and I’d like to thank Gillie (general and first team manager Mark Gilbert) and the chairman (Stuart Lovegrove).”

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