town blue

MANCHESTER City have followed the example of Premier League champions and rivals United and chosen Trafford as the training base for their first team.

The Blues - newly promoted to the Premier League - are using a training ground in Carrington, just 600 metres from the £14 million base of arch-rivals United.

City have leased the land for 12 months from Manchester Metropolitan University.

The club's Platt Lane facilities will be used by the junior and reserve players while the first team benefit from extra space at the facility in Carrington.

But - as is the case with their illustrious neighbours - training sessions will not be open to the public.

A City spokesman says: "There is no access to the general public. It is a private training facility.

"We have been offered it for 12 months and we will then review the situation."

But he said the location in Trafford next to United's ground was irrelevant: "It is about good training facilities - it is not about where we are training. We have more space than we had at Platt Lane."

United moved into their purpose built centre in Carrington at the start of the year. It includes an extended grass pitch with rehabilitation area as well as shale, goalkeeper training and grass running areas. There are nine full size plus four junior grass pitches.

Indoor facilities include three pools - the spa, hydrotherapy and main pool; sauna and steam rooms, fitness monitoring and rehabilitation rooms and a gym and weight area packed with £80,000 of equipment.

PICTURES and information on United's training ground can be seen on this web site, by clicking on the blue column on the right of the home page.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.