National Football Centre

The National Football Centre is a new complex near Burton-on-Trent on Staffordshire which will be used to train the national squads, plus future generations of footballers. It has 11 full-size pitches, a full-size indoor pitch, and a training pitch that replicates Wembley.

The project will also include the construction of two, three-storey hotels – a 142-bed five-star Hilton Hotel and an 86-bed three-star Hampton by Hilton – as well as a spa and swimming pool, training and conference suites for the Football Association’s learning team. The site will also feature a 90-seat lecture theatre and a modern digitally equipped library, an indoor sports building with a multi-use sports-hall, gyms, restaurants and all the associated hard and soft landscaping.

Billington Structures  and Tubecon provided in the region of 3,000 tonnes of structural steel for this prestigious new project to Bowmer and Kirland. Three large steel-framed structures have been erected by Billington Structures which will formed the indoor sports areas.

The steel erection was a complex procedure as the design comprised 80m wide spans of large column free space. A series of large 4.5m deep trusses have been erected. The roof of the indoor pitch, supported by the trusses, has been constructed from a PVC material which is held in place by more than 10,000 brackets, welded to the truss sections by Tubecon. The fabric roof disguises the amount of detailed work that has been necessary to achieve the overall look.