4 days ago
Hamilton Accies seek site in town for youth academy as deal for temporary base close to being secured
The League One club are set to keep academy operations in Hamilton, while the first team prepares to move to Cumbernauld
Hamilton Accies are seeking a site in the town for their elite youth academy.
The club has confirmed their lease at Broadwood for next season only applies to first team operations and the club's under-19 side, leaving the renowned academy without a home as things stand, following the club's decision to quit New Douglas Park last month.
The news comes shortly after one of the club's greatest success stories, Lewis Ferguson, captained Bologna to the Coppa Italia for the first time in 51 years.
With the first team's move out of the town pushing forward, Lanarkshire Live Sport understands work is underway to keep the academy in Hamilton long-term.
In the meantime, a temporary venue in the town is close to being secured for an initial two-year spell to retain a status within Hamilton, with all academy staff and operations based there.
A club source said: "The lease at Broadwood is for the first team and under-19s. The intention was never to move the football club to Broadwood, the intention is to keep the overall football operation somewhere in Hamilton, just not at New Douglas Park.
"All of the first team operations, coaching staff, analysis, physios and sports scientists are all going to Broadwood on a full-time basis.
"The academy will be remaining in Hamilton. We are in the process of finding a suitable location that we can turn into an elite academy and first-team training base, similar to what St Mirren has at Ralston.
"We are looking at working with the council to try and achieve something like that for the academy.
"That is in line with the long-term vision anyway. If we had bought New Douglas Park, we would be making it a grass pitch to comply with the SPFL.
"You can't have an academy training on a grass pitch seven days a week, so that has always been part of the plan."
Hamilton's move out of New Douglas Park will come at the cost of some jobs and asked about potential job losses, the source added: "There are obvious losses in terms of us not needing to bring in the likes of cleaners or a stadium manager at Broadwood.
"There's two jobs at risk and if those jobs are deemed to be unsuitable, we will go through a redundancy process, but there will be recruitment across other areas of the club as well."
