Club to reposition press area and move admin staff area

Stevenage came through a crucial pre-booked stadium inspection on Friday to rubber stamp its entry into The Football League.

At a meeting in the club’s Knebworth Room, representatives from the club, borough council, county council, police, the Football League and the Football Licensing Authority were all shown around the stadium by chairman Phil Wallace as Football League officials verified every aspect of Boro’s self certification to Football League standards.

Speaking to his club’s website, Phil Wallace said “We were concerned about this inspection and have been a bit like swans for the past two to three weeks – calm on the surface yet working like crazy below to make sure we passed. There were a number of areas we knew we had to address and, thanks specifically to fantastic efforts from John Ryder and everyone at the ground, we got everything done in time.

“I feel like I haven’t stopped for two weeks trying to get every box ticked and cram in additional things like FL youth schemes and websites but it’s all been worthwhile”

Among the changes that had to be made between winning the championship and the inspection was a repositioned press area to provide the required number of places, moving the administrative staff from the first floor to under the South Stand to provide space for a media room and a new hospitality room for visiting directors and plans for CCTV installation and a police control room.

Wallace added: “We’ve explained that, as a temporary measure, we’ll operate a control room from the existing executive box and have cleared that ready for refitting, but our plan is to build a new two storey building over the tea bar in the south west corner to provide a dedicated police control room. This requires planning approval so we’ll operate from a temporary base until we can build it.

“Another subject we will address during the close season is the truly awful state of the west stand toilets. I am ashamed of the facilities we’ve offered to our fans in that area, especially our female fans, over the past few years and extend my apology to them.

“We now intend to completely overhaul those toilets, bringing them into line with FL regulations and, more importantly, providing modern, tiled, clean toilet areas for all.”