Bodymoor Heath

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Bodymoor Heath is a small village in the North Warwickshire district of the county of Warwickshire in England. It is situated on the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal close to the much larger village of Kingsbury. Bodymoor Heath is also where the training ground of Aston Villa Football Club is situated.

[edit] Bodymoor Heath Training Ground

The training ground site was purchased by former Aston Villa Chairman Doug Ellis in the early 1970s from the farmer who owned the land. It lies in proximity to The Belfry Golf Club and Kingsbury Water Park, just a few hundred metres from the M42 link to Tamworth.

The ground is situated near Fazeley by the side of the Fazeley canal, within walking distance of Drayton Manor Theme Park and Middleton Hall, complete with its own lake and working quarry.

Situated in the more rural part of the Midlands, many of the past and present Aston Villa players have taken up residence in various palatial homes within the area, enabling them speedy travel to training sessions.

The ground itself is surrounded by fields on three sides and the A38 on the fourth, and when built was considered a modern establishment well advanced from the old training facility in Trinity Road, Aston.

Planning permission has been a huge problem in the club's intent to modernise both the training facilities and the ground itself.

[edit] Redevelopment

Although Bodymoor Heath was state-of-the-art in the 1970s, by the late 1990s the facilities had started to look dated, which prompted then-Villa manager John Gregory to criticise Ellis, stating that he believed he was "stuck in a time warp",^[1] citing the Chairman's reluctance to invest. But it wasn't until 2005 when development plans for the training ground were introduced.

In November 2005, Ellis and Aston Villa plc announced an £8 million redevelopment of Bodymoor in 2 phases which, it is said, will bring the now antiquated facilities up to the standard of the best in the world.

But before the largely disappointing 2005-06 Premier League Campaign on behalf of the team, Ellis had revealed that the club had budgeted for 10th-12th place^[2](eventually finishing 16th), and as a result the construction on the new development came to halt, on a project that had already been scaled down from its original plans.

However, once Randy Lerner purchased the club on 18th September 2006, the club announced that construction on the redevelopment of Bodymoor Heath would continue.

The new training ground was officially unveiled on 6th May 2007, with the Aston Villa squad moving in for the 2007-08 Season.