Warrington Town chairman discusses ground improvements

Last week, the club outlined their plans for upgrading their home ground in order to satisfy ground grading requirements for their new level, including a new seated stand and terracing area complete with additional turnstiles, toilets and refreshment kiosks, and take the capacity to the minimum number of 3,000 required.

An already extensive list got longer when Town were told their pitchside pathways had to be almost trebled in width to 2.7 metres, bringing the estimated cost of the work up to around £200,000.

Yellows are eligible to have most of that cost funded via grants from the Premier League Stadium Fund, but they will still have to find around £80,000 themselves – a “Groundfunder” campaign to help had been set up and is thought to have raised just under £4,000 since its launch on Thursday.

If the work is not completed by the end of March, they will be relegated back to the Northern Premier League regardless of where they finish in their first ever Step Two campaign and would be ineligible for promotion next season.

Cantilever Park must reach a minimum capacity of 3,000 in order to continue hosting National League North football (Image: Sean Walsh)

“We’ve got two tasks this year – we’ve got to stay up on the field and we’ve got to stay up off it, and this is a major part of the second one,” club chairman Toby Macormac said.

“I think we will get there, but it’s going to mean a lot of hard work over the coming months.

“We’re not scared of that – historically, we’ve shown as a club that if we have a target to reach, we will get to it.

“I have to say that I’ve been overwhelmed by the comments and the offers of help – it just shows that we will pull together and we will get there regardless of how difficult a task it will be.

“It’s not as easy as saying we’ll get this £80,000 and all the funding and then its job done. There’s a lot of work involved, and then there’s things like planning permission, keying into services like electrics etc.

“It’s a really big task and something we need to start sooner rather than later.

“We could have invested a load of money into doing it and then not needed to, as we’ve seen in the past when we’ve lost play-off finals etc.

“When we finally got over the line, we had to start looking at upgrades and with the cost of living crisis we’re currently in, everything has gone up.

“There’s things we’ve looked at historically that we knew we needed that we’ve now revisited and some prices have doubled.

“It makes the task more difficult because we’ve got no choice.”

Watch the full interview with Toby Macormac on the club's Youtube channel below

'A great matchday experience'

The new stand and attached facilities would create a segregated area for away supporters where required but will be open for home fans to enjoy on most matchdays.

As such, Macormac insists the club want to do more than the bare minimum required and improve the matchday experience for their exponentially growing fanbase as well as visitors.

“It would be quite easy to do what other clubs have done for us, and that’s putting the away fans in a tiny segregated area with a small snack bar and a portable toilet,” he said.

“It’s not the right thing to do – we’re trying to provide a great matchday experience for our home fans and we should provide that for visitors as well.

“It’s important that we put the right facilities in because when we don’t have to segregate, we want our fans to use that area. It has to be of a good quality.”

More small improvements such as the addition of an outside bar are also being made, with Macormac confirming supporters would start to see the very beginnings of work being done at the next home game against South Shields on October 14.

However, anything substantial will of course have to wait for both the granting of planning permission from Warrington Borough Council and the approval of funding from the Premier League fund.

“With the way the fixtures have dropped, there’s a window where we can start to do some work in terms of taping areas off and making some cuts in the land,” the chairman said.

“At the next home game, people will see some taped-off areas where work will be starting.

“There will be a point where we do have to press the button but the challenge with funding is none of it can be retrospective.

“For example, if we decided to get a head start by putting some concrete in for the new stand, we wouldn’t get that funded. It’s a black-and-white rule and everyone who applies for the funding understands that.

“We pretty much have to get everything piled up ready and when they say we can start, it’s “charge of the light brigade” time.

“We definitely need help and if people think they can contribute, please do get in touch. It’s an extensive list, but I think it can be delivered.”

The proposed new stand will be at the Wash Lane end of Cantilever Park, next to the small-sided artificial pitch (Image: Sean Walsh)

When the plans were announced, several questions were asked about whether or not the club plans to alleviate problems with car parking around the ground on matchdays.

With the small club car park reserved for officials, supporters often have to rely on street parking on Loushers Lane, Wash Lane and Station Road, thereby increasing congestion in and around the ground.

While assuring a potential solution was in hand, Macormac admitted interior improvements currently held priority.

“It's difficult and we’re no different to a lot of football grounds within towns – the ground has always been there but the infrastructure of the town has changed around it,” he said.

“A lot of the local residents use the social club attached to the ground and we get a lot of buy-in from them, but we understand it can be tough for them on matchdays.

“People can turn up late so they’ll gamble and leave their car somewhere.

“We are working on things behind the scenes – there’s some parking nearby that we’re in discussions over and we’re hoping to have that set up in time for next season.

“We feel we can get up to 250 cars on there, so that would pretty much be an overnight solution but it would come at a cost.

“If you’re doing the priority list, we have to get the inside of the ground done before we can get to that but it is on there.

“We understand there is an issue on matchdays even for motorists passing the ground, but we’re working hard to try and solve it.”

Victoria Park move 'not financially feasible'

Other comments also mooted a possible move to Victoria Park – approximately half a mile closer to the town centre – and adapting a ground used predominantly for rugby and athletics for football use.

And as when tickets for Town’s play-off final against Bamber Bridge in May sold out in less than a day, others have called on the club to explore a groundshare at The Halliwell Jones Stadium with Warrington Wolves to accommodate bigger crowds.

While Macormac did not completely shut the door on exploring the latter should his club climb any higher up the footballing pyramid, he says neither option is currently feasible.

In terms of Victoria Park, he estimated the cost of the work required to make it suitable for their needs to be double that of bringing Cantilever Park up to standard.

“I totally understand the questions about Victoria Park, but I think they are made based on people driving past it, seeing the big stand and the big car park and it looking ideal for us to move there,” he said.

“It would take a substantial amount of money to get Victoria Park ready for what we’d need.

“If it’s looking at around £200,000 for us to improve our existing ground to a Grade Two, I’d say it would probably cost around double that to do the same to Victoria Park by the end of March.

“It’s got a number of simple things that need doing to it that are very costly.

“The pitch needs to have a permanent, fixed walkway all around it, you’re not allowed to view the game from outside so it would need a high fence putting around it – that’s two things already that it just doesn’t have.

“You’ve got to have seating for 500 people and I don’t think it has that. Changing rooms and officials rooms have to be a certain distance away, and I think some of the changing rooms there are upstairs.

“I’m not certain but I think the pitch might also be undersized as well because it’s designed for rugby and not football.

“There would be a huge amount of work to do, even moreso on the athletics side of the stadium.

“The good aspect of Victoria Park is the car parking – it’s pretty common for people to park at Victoria Park for our home games and walk down.

“Eventually, we could look at running a park-and-ride service from there as we’ve done that historically from Priestley College.

“In terms of moving there as a playing entity, it’s just not financially feasible for us or for Warrington Borough Council, who would have to help foot the bill.”

Victoria Park has been mooted as a potential new home for Warrington Town FC (Image: Mike Boden)

On The Halliwell Jones Stadium, he added: “It gets mentioned a lot when people talk about matches with bigger crowds, but you’ve got to think of the logistics behind it.

“It’s a fantastic stadium and would not doubt do a great job for everyone involved, but it’s more the matchday side of things.

“Who takes the concourse? Who staffs it? Who pays for the staff? There would have to be some sort of landlord-tenant agreement – how does that work? Is it a rental agreement or a profit share?

“We’d have to look at our fixtures clashing with the Wolves, there’s even different lengths of grass required that would put more work on their groundstaff.

“As you go into the detail of it, you’ll just keep adding to the list so for where we are now, the most viable solution is to get the work done here at Cantilever Park.

“I don’t think you can rule out anything to do with the Halliwell Jones in the future if we were to be knocking on the doors of the Football League as then you would be looking at some very big crowds.

“At the moment, even though we’ve made huge advances on and off the field, it’s not right logistically for both clubs.”

'A plate-spinning exercise'

As well as doing the work off the field, Town naturally need to ensure their place in the National League North is secure on it as well.

Despite a difficult recent run, they currently sit 14th in the table and five points clear of the relegation zone having played 10 of their 46 matches.

Manager Mark Beesley’s playing budget has been impacted by the need to divert resources to the ground work and with several key players currently injured, it has meant much of the season has been played with a stretched squad.

“We’ll have our tough weeks and our poor results like any team does and I’d love to invest more into the team as we’re threadbare at the minute in terms of players, but we’re just not in a situation at the moment where we can go out and bring four or five players in,” Macormac said.

“It would be no good having a strong team out on the pitch and finishing 10th but then getting relegated for the ground, the same way as it wouldn’t work vice versa.

“It’s a plate-spinning exercise at the moment but touch wood, we’ll get there.”

Town have won four and lost five of their 10 National League North games this season (Image: Sean Walsh)