Top-class facility gets Real stamp of approval

Emmet Malone describes how Carton House became the pre-season base for one of the world’s top clubs

FOR REAL Madrid, this week’s visit to Ireland is supposed to be a low-key first step towards the restoration of their status as Europe’s top dogs after a painful year in Barcelona’s shadow.

And for Carton House, the Co Kildare hotel where the team are staying, the Spanish side’s presence is reckoned to be “step two or so” in what general manager David Webster sees as “a five-step process” to continental pre-eminence in football’s training camp league.

Working closely with Platinum One, who are promoting this week’s visit by Real, Webster and owners, the Mallaghan family, see the move into top level soccer as the logical extension of the work they have done since the Tyrone footballers first started to use the hotel as a base a few years back.

The team were getting on the bus to go somewhere else to train, says Webster, when it occurred to some of the Mallaghans, who originally come from the county and are closely related to Mickey Harte, that they really should provide appropriate facilities on site.

It was another considerable step up to cater for the likes of Real and Conor Mallaghan puts the investment in pitches alone at around €500,000. But, according to Eamon McLoughlin of Platinum One, that money is already beginning to pay off with this week’s star guests swiftly picking the Co Kildare hotel as their preferred base over St Andrews in Scotland (where Barcelona were based two years ago) after being shown around the two.

Newcastle United were also there at the weekend and a handful of overseas clubs will visit this week to see the place while Real Madrid are on site.

If things go to plan, says McLoughlin, the hotel will attract clubs and national teams from across Europe and beyond with the company hopeful of being able to line up high-profile friendly games for them while they are in town.

On this occasion, the lack of an available large venue means that Real will play next Monday in front of less than 10,000 paying customers, most of whom will be in temporary seats put in for the day, all of which must put something of a dent in Platinum’s ideal business plan.

But McLoughlin, while declining to actually confirm that the company will take a significant hit this time around, confirms that, like Carton House, he and his employers see this very much as being an investment in the future.

“Real have started their pre-season in Austria for the last few years but they were looking for a change and when an intermediary came and asked us, on the strength of what we did with Barcelona in Scotland, did we want to work with them, it was a no-brainer,” he says.

“If we’d said no it might have been another five or six years before we got the chance again.”

Work on getting the facilities up to the required level had been going on for six months or so when the initial contact was made and Real’s arrival has potentially, he believes, saved the partners an awful lot of time and effort in terms of persuading other potential customers that they are up to scratch.

“We’re over the first hurdle because the place has the Real Madrid stamp of approval.”

Getting this far has taken a willingness to listen to those running GAA and rugby teams who have stayed previously and to act on their suggestions.

A separate gym and 13 bedrooms specially equipped for bigger guests are just two of the investments that have been made.

But Webster and the Mallaghans accept there will be more required if they and McLoughlin are to succeed, as they hope to, in making the place the base for the Irish rugby and soccer teams as well as the training camp of choice for some of Real Madrid’s rivals for top spot in Europe next year.