My first visit to the new RH Academy this evening up at Woburn Lane for the U18 game versus Notts County, what a facility we've got on our hands. A huge amount of thanks has got to go to Steve Hymas, John Radford, Mark Burton & whoever else has had any small input into building and developing this site. Our future is in fantastic hands, I only got to see a small part of it tonight, but you can see that this has certainly not been done on the cheap, not that it ever would have been under our fantastic owners and directors, but us Stags fans were used to facilities being done on the cheap, with how Haslam treated the redevelopment of Field Mill.
Woburn Road leading to it has all been resurfaced, along with the carpark and the overspill carpark has been leveled. A small room for refreshments was open throughout, which also had Sky Sports TV on and provided a place for a warm, as it was freezing up on Woburn field, hopefully this will have some beer pumps introduced too
. Nice astro-turfed steps were leading down to the phenomenal 3G pitch, overlooked by a small seated stand.
As a Pleasley lad, I've played on these grounds many times as a youngster, I've watched my old man and his generation playing on the sloped pitch whilst representing The New England A & The New England B sides. I know of a few posters on here who I've also watched representing those sides. I went to Farmilo school, which is at the side and dreamed of one day playing for the Stags. Those days of dreaming are obviously behind me, but i felt an enormous sense of pride tonight as I saw our next generation, our fresh batch of young lads beating County 3-0, all at the beginning of a journey that will take them from the fields of Pleasley to hopefully the fields of Anfield, Old Trafford & beyond. We will have the beating of most of the local sides when it comes to being able to attract these promising youngsters to our club, with this facility.
Thank you Steve & family, thank you John & family, thank you anybody who has had any small input into this. Wow, what a future we have got.