How Can A Portable Sports Shelter Help You This Winter?

Anyone involved in the running of amateur sports clubs will know that the job of keeping everything in good shape is not an easy task. Members’ subs will only go so far and sometimes it is only income from grants, sponsors and generous benefactors that keep the facilities and pitches ship-shape.

This is a world away from the biggest sports clubs and venues in the world, as shown by recent events in the football world in particular.

While work nears completion on Everton’s new Bramley Moore Dock stadium in the northern docklands of Liverpool, Manchester United’s super-ambitious new stadium project is starting to take shape, with a potential new 100,000-seat stadium replacing the existing historic but ageing Old Trafford, the catalyst for a massive local regeneration project.

While all that is going on, Saudi Arabia is planning to build 11 new stadiums for the 2034 World Cup in what the Times reports may be “the most expensive sports construction project ever undertaken”.

Compared with that, small sports clubs may look on with envy at the spectacular designs, innovative architecture and extraordinary facilities. However, if you do have some funds available, portable sports shelters can still offer something eminently practical to help keep important facilities dry this winter.

Assuming you already have dressing rooms, these can still provide extra pitch-side cover on matchdays to keep equipment dry, provide a place of refreshments and storage for spectators, or for substitutes and coaching staff.

It may not be quite the new Old Trafford, but then again, it may provide better protection against the elements than the current much-maligned stadium roof.

When not protecting people on matchdays, it can be moved to a safe place so that it can be kept safely stored away from any thieves or vandals. This flexibility also means that if you have more than one pitch at the club, it can be moved from one side to another, depending on which pitch is in use at any one time.

Another very practical use for the portable cover is if any of the permanent facilities are out of action, or already at capacity. A clear instance of where they may be used for temporary changing facilities, for example, is if a club has two pitches and there are both male and female teams playing, ensuring there are segregated facilities.

Naturally, you will need a shelter that can withstand all the rigours of the English weather. Over the course of a football, hockey or rugby season it will be covered by falling leaves, battered by the wind, rained on, snowed on and spattered with mud. Let’s be honest; nobody designing futuristic stadiums for the 2034 World Cup in the desert will be thinking of that.

Nonetheless, portable shelters are practical, effective and very valuable, not to mention a step up on what some clubs may have to put up with as everyone on the sidelines stands exposed to the elements for the whole match.

Some may have their fancy new stadiums on the drawing board or even under construction, but those playing grassroots sports are not asking for that. Such luxuries are for the elite, but portable shelters meet some very basic needs affordably and practically.