HUDDERSFIELD GIANTS chairman Ken Davy today pledged to revitalise a neglected sports complex.
Mr Davy’s company, Huddersfield Sporting Pride, has bought the Woodfield Park complex at Meltham Road, Lockwood, for an undisclosed sum.
And he has outlined plans for the former police sports ground, which has hosted countless sporting contests.
Mr Davy said: “It has been a sports ground for 100 years and we are delighted to have acquired it.
“Clearly, it will provide a training facility for the Giants.
“However, the intention is to expand it into a full community facility with a whole range of sports and we look forward to that being achieved.”
The complex, which includes a cricket field, a soccer pitch, tennis courts and a bowling green – as well as a dilapidated pavilion – was put on the market by West Yorkshire Police.
The police sports club had used the ground for many years.
A spokesman for property agency BNP Paribas RealŠEstate, said: “It was put on the market late summer and we have achieved a sale quite quickly.
“We received four or five bids on it, but Mr Davy’s bid was the best in the round.”
Mr Davy said: “It will provide a training facility for the Giants, but it is not the only facility they will use. It has a fantastic pitch and potential for further development.”
Regarding community use, Mr Davy said: “We have a fairly blank piece of paper, but we envisage tennis and potentially bowls as well as a number of other sports.”
He said the site required “significant” expenditure, adding: “It will take time to get the physical facilities complete in the way we would want them.
“But I like to think we are talking 12 or 18 months rather than 10 years. Having just acquired it, we are in the early stages.”
Mr Davy said he hoped Woodfield Park would complement indoor sports complex The Zone, which is operated by his charitable body, Sporting Pride Community Trust.
The Zone features football pitches, a dance studio, children’s party rooms and one of the biggest play structures in the country.
“Woodfield Park could be a superb outdoor facility in the way that The Zone is a superb indoor facility,” said Mr Davy.
“It would be nice if we can get Woodfield Park to provide community facilities for the kind of things that need ‘big spaces’.”
Woodfield Park was bequeathed as a gift to the Huddersfield Borough Police around the time of the First World War.
The woman who donated the land was the owner of the Woodfield Estate.
The only stipulation she made was that the land should be put at the disposal of local police officers and their families for recreation.
It was soon developed with sporting purposes in mind: a cricket pitch, a bowling green, a set of tennis courts, and a fitness trail (a kind of army assault course) around the perimeter of the land.
For decades, it provided a home for the police soccer and cricket teams and over the last 20 years or so as a base for the Storthes Hall soccer club.
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