Opinion – Lennoxtown upgrades merely papering over the cracks | OneFootball

Celtic’s Training centre upgrades at Lennoxtown are only a start. Significant investment in the playing squad and youth development is urgently required if they are to be deemed worthwhile…

Celtic FC Training Session at Lennoxtown Training Centre on December 10, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Celtic recently announced the completion of several key upgrades to the Lennoxtown training centre, in a bid to boost the facilities that a club of our stature should naturally boast.

It was revealed that phase three of an 18 month project had come to an end, with new facilities such as a state of the art gym, new medical facilities, and upgraded changing room facilities being installed into the training base.

Crucially though Lennoxtown still lacks a full size indoor pitch facility, like the one at Barrowfield which is used by the women’s team and the Celtic academy.

Julian Araujo of Celtic – new loan signing from Bournemouth at Celtic Team Training on 2 January 2026. Stuart Wallace/Shutterstock

The club went into great detail, and even boasted of the ‘significant investment’ put into the revamped team base, which also hosts the Celtic B side. The news comes hot on the heels of that re-development of the old Barrowfield training ground, the place were the Lisbon Lions trained, which is now home to the stars of the future as well as Celtic FC Women. Remarkably the club banned The Celtic Star from covering the SWPL1 team.

Whilst it’s a good move and one that should be applauded, it’s still not enough, and we need so much more for our club to remain successful in the long run.

I’m not talking about our much publicised incompetence on the recruitment front, which is also in need of a dramatic overhaul. I’m talking about our need to improve on the coaching capacity at grassroots level, all the way to the very top.

James Forrest of Celtic. Celtic Training Session at Lennoxtown, 01 August 2025. Photo: Stuart Wallace IMAGO/Shutterstock.

We’ve struggled for quite some time in the youth development aspect, and a big part of that is down to the lack of proper investment when it comes to grassroots coaching.

Both the quality and quantity of our qualified coaches are shockingly poor, with our set up lagging miles behind clubs of a similar stature throughout the continent.

To improve our record in this area requires plenty of time and investment. Celtic football club was once widely renowned for producing great footballers, but that sadly hasn’t been the case for quite some time, something that is a source of concern for those who care about the club.

We need to up the ante in that area, and adopt a competent coaching system, one that will help us fulfill our ambition of producing top class players that will be beneficial to the first team.

Improving facilities is a step in the right direction, but will only be deemed worthwhile if we implement a much more efficient structure in regard to coaching, to ensure we reap the benefits in the long term.

Substantial structural investment is all well and good, but significantly more is required to make sure those facilities bear fruit and Celtic can be the best possible version of itself as a modern thinking football club. The days of jobs for the Bhoys are coming to an end from the Boardroom down. It’s not longer feasible and for the supporters, no longer acceptable.

Just an Ordinary Bhoy

Celtic in the Thirties by Matt Corr. Click on image to order

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