New era for Barrowfield as state of art training centre opens

In partnership with

The Celtic Star

·20 septembre 2025

New era for Barrowfield as state of art training centre opens

Celtic’s new training centre is great, but scouting and youth development has grown stale, and in dire need of an overhaul…

New Barrowfields, image Celtic FC

Celtic yesterday raised the curtains on the new all signing all dancing training facility on the old Barrowfield training site, and it looks mighty impressive it has to be said. The new site will host both the youth sides and Celtic FC Women’s team, boasting state of the art facilities that will only be of benefit to the club moving forward.

Vidéos OneFootball

The club stated: Celtic Football Club is delighted to announce that the new state of the art Training Centre at Barrowfield is now complete, and the facility is now fully open for use by our Women’s team and Academies. The complex, which sits proudly in the heart of Glasgow’s East End, re-emphasises Celtic’s strategy of maintaining a strong commitment to both developing our own players and investing in women’s football, with the project representing the largest infrastructure investment by the Club since the redevelopment of Celtic Park in the late 1990s.

Three former Celtic captains, Paul McStay, Tom Boyd and Roy Aitken toured the newly redeveloped Barrowfield training centre, reflecting on past memories and looking ahead to its future – watch below.

Whilst it’s a positive move, there’s still plenty of room for improvement on all things Celtic, especially when it comes to the scouting and youth development aspect of the club. Having top class facilities will only work if we have the right cogs running the engine.

For many years now that area has been severely neglected by the club, which is telling in our grassroots track record, with only the likes of Callum McGregor, James Forrest, Kieran Tierney and Anthony Ralston contributing long term to first team success in the past 15 years.

Players like Colby Donovan and Dane Murray offer some hope as far as the current first team squad is concerned and both Academy players could feature tomorrow at Firhill.

The obvious reason for that is the severely lack of required number of coaches at grassroots level, with scouting also severely neglected. In total we have six registered scouts on the payroll, seven if you include Jay Lefevere who is the head of that network.

I don’t have the number of coaches at youth level to hand, but our set up is watched over by Chris McCart, Stevie Hammell, and Shaun Maloney. All experienced guys within the game, but surely we should have more of their ilk overseeing that level? Even the coaches and scouts in employment have either a connection to the club or know someone who does, a job for the Bhoys so to speak, which is something we’ve got to move away from.

Chris McCart has been around for ages, and his Motherwell connections no doubt helped him bring abroad Stevie Hammell, whilst as high rated as Shaun Maloney is in the coaching world, it would be naive to suggest that he would be in his current role had he no connection to the club whatsoever.

Academy of operations manager Brian Meehan has occupied his role for nigh on 20 years, and first joined the club way back in 1992, whilst the likes of Stephen McManus and Johnny Hayes will need no introduction. Even further down the ladder is a name some of you will remember in Mark McNally.

Celtic FC Women. Photo AJ (The Celtic Star)

What we need is a more competent youth set up, with an increased number of experienced coaches from all across the board. The same with scouting. Increase the numbers and cast our net far and wide searching for the best available talent.

After all what good is it having top class facilities if you don’t have the right talent to nurture? And a complete overhaul of our youth and scouting department will go a long way to rectifying that.

Elena Sadiku, Celtic FC Women Head Coach. Photo AJ (The Celtic Star)

As far as Celtic FC Women is concerned the new Barrowfields gives the squad a first class training base with the facilities matching Lennoxtown in all aspects and of course that have that full sided indoor dome. The plan seems to be to develop a home grown team which should see Celtic return to the top but this time with a team developed at Barrowfields.

Just an Ordinary Bhoy

CELTIC IN THE EIGHTIES by DAVID POTTER – OUT NOW!

Celtic in the Eighties by David Potter. Out now on Celtic Star Books. Click on image above to order.

Help raise funds for Celtic Youth Academy by playing the Celtic Pools Weekly Lottery and you could win up to £25,000. The lottery is £1 per week. Click on image to join.