From the luxury games room, 1,040 Yorkshire tea bags and a coffee machine that can print an image of your face, there is one element of the Lionesses’ base hotel that stands out among the many impressive features.
Hanging upon the wall is a special painting of all 23-players from their childhoods. Each member of the squad submitted a picture from their grassroots beginnings, with those images transformed into a piece of artwork by painter Harry G Ward.
‘The significance of this painting is everything that we’ve been trying to do for many months and years, which is around connecting us back to our history,’ says Kay Cossington, the FA Women’s Technical Director.
‘It’s about connecting the players back to their grassroots clubs and it’s also honouring how important grassroots football is to the journeys of our professional players and I think we all fell in love with this painting when we first saw it.’
For the first time ever, the Football Association opened up the doors of an England team hotel to the media.
The FA has opened up the doors of an England team hotel to the media for the first time
The Lionesses’ base camp in Terrigal contains darts and table tennis to help players unwind
Investment that has gone into providing the European champions with an impressive base
England staff visited Australia several times across 14 months to get the camp just right
There is also a television to watch other games as they happen during the Women’s World Cup
Georgia Stanway made her mark on the artwork at the hotel, aimed to inspire their success
Located in the coastal town of Terrigal, 60 miles north of Sydney, is the Crowne Plaza Pacific Hotel – where Sarina Wiegman’s team moved into on Sunday. This ‘home away from home’ will be their base camp for as long as they remain in the World Cup.
‘We’re here in Australia, but what you want to create is that home away from home,’ says England’s general manager Anja van Ginhoven. ‘When you walk in here it feels immediately like England, like Lionesses, like “us”.’
After playing Denmark in Sydney on Friday, England will fly to their final group game in Adelaide and back to their base camp before a potential last 16 fixture. Van Ginhoven and Cossington visited Australia several times in the space of 14 months. The pair visited around 37 hotels and 23 training grounds in nine days in order to ensure England secured the best tournament venue to account for travelling. In the space of three days, from July 21-23, their four-star hotel was transformed – with the help and investment of sponsor Nike. There are pictures of every player and inspirational quotes on the walls. There are books, a craft station where players can draw pictures and a ‘relaxation room’ to watch World Cup matches, play table tennis, darts and table football. All of the different rooms are named after England legends.
‘We had a project group with Nike people in there and a few members of staff,’ Van Ginhoven explains.
‘We just basically started with an empty floor plan and then it’s up to us to say, “okay, that’s the new room, this is the game room, that’s the relaxation room.” That’s the first decisions we take and then it basically evolves step by step.’
Upstairs is the Lionesses Down Under studio, a daily live show which is broadcast on social media and hosted by England legend Jill Scott and presenter Kyle Walker.
Scott, who is staying in the team hotel, walks past during the tour, coffee in hand – shortly staff had said they had made 40 of the specially designed lattes in four hours.
Cossington has worked at the FA for 18 years and said investment that has gone into providing the European champions with such an impressive base is ‘night and day’ from where the women’s game was when she first joined the governing body.
‘The home Euros [of 2009] was probably one I really remember vividly. We never had anything like this, we did the best we could with the resources we had at the time. You were printing things off yourself and putting them on doors, the banners, the pop ups, you’d carry them around with you
‘The thinking behind a base camp such as this is credit to how the game has evolved and what’s important around performance. You see the investment from the FA has been incredible, to actually provide the girls with what’s required and necessary to give us the best chance of success.’
There are pics of every player in the Crowne Plaza Pacific Hotel, alongside inspirational quotes
The Lionesses Down Under studio is situated upstairs for a daily live broadcast on social media
There is a plaque respecting the traditional custodians of the land, the Darkinjung people
Staff said that 40 specially designed lattes were created in four hours as the team settled in
The resources available to England’s players are vastly improved from previous tournaments
Among the gadgets and games, there are more serious features. Outside the team meeting room is a World Cup wall chart, which Lucy Bronze is in charge of filling in, with all the results from the tournament.
The Lionesses have their own private beach they can walk along during downtime while the FA have made a point of educating players about the local culture and history – with a plaque in the hotel acknowledging the ‘traditional custodians of the land, the Darkinjung people.’
Importantly, there is also allocated time for friends and family to visit the base, as was the case with their Euros hotel – The Lensbury Resort in Teddington.
The Lionesses are 10,551 miles from Wembley, England’s home of football. Each time players walk past their childhood painting hanging upon the wall, they are reminded how they got here. ‘It’s a constant reminder,’ Ginhoven says. ‘Asking yourself the question, “Why did I actually start playing football?” Because that little girl just loves the game.’