THE BIG INTERVIEW: Holly Murdoch, General Manager, St. George’s Park

With the start of the rescheduled UEFA EURO 2020 now just a matter of hours away and with the England National Football team safely ensconced at their St. George’s Park base camp, we sat down with General Manager, Holly Murdoch, to discuss the importance of the next few weeks for the venue.

With UEFA EURO 2020 kicking-off this week after a year-long wait due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the National Football Centre at St. George’s Park will play a crucial role in supporting the England men’s team as their base camp during the tournament.

For the past five-and-a-half years Holly Murdoch, in her role as General Manager, has assumed overall responsibility for the day-to-day running of the site. As the venue prepares for one of the most important periods in its history, following one of the most challenging year’s, she explains why the excitement is reaching fever pitch.

About St. George’s Park

Set in 330-acres of Staffordshire countryside, St. George’s Park is the home to all England’s national football teams, providing world-class facilities to prepare ahead of international fixtures since it was built in 2012.

Those facilities include 15 outdoor pitches – with an exact replica of the Wembley Stadium surface – a full-size indoor 3G pitch, an indoor futsal arena and a suite of rehabilitation and sports science areas.

The state-of-the-art performance facilities incorporate cutting-edge technology and the very latest apparatus, providing the ultimate training and rehabilitation hub for teams.

Visitors to the site, including a wide variety of professional sports teams and business guests, enjoy world-class facilities and impressive accommodation with a 228-bedroom Hilton Hotel catering for individuals, groups or team bookings, along with major sporting or business conferences.

The high performance centre and indoor training facilities welcome not only England teams but visiting teams from the English Premier League and English Football League, and has attracted custom from international clubs including FC Barcelona.

About Holly Murdoch

Holly Murdoch has full management responsibility of The FA’s £105m National Football Centre, with responsibilities including:

• Working closely with the FA’s Technical Team to ensure that St. George’s Park as venue provides them with the best possible training and learning environment.
• To work with the FA’s senior leadership team ensuring that SGP continues to support the wider organisations strategic objectives.
• Complete P&L responsibility of the venue including hotel, training pitches and high performance centre.
• Leading a team of 200+ and managing key operating agreements across the site including Hilton Hotels.

#EURO2020

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