Taking advantage of the East wind of the provincial games, the “cradle” of Chinese women’s football regains its vitality
Text/tuyangcheng Evening News reporter Su Hao
Fu Wenzhuo, director of the National Women’s Football England and Germany training base, has been very energetic recently, since he entered the base to work in 1996, his long-cherished wish for 27 years will eventually come true-to introduce 80 million yuan bond funds through the east wind of Guangdong Provincial Games, the “cradle” of the Chinese women’s football team in the 1980 s was rejuvenated.
The Shining signboard of Britain and Germany in the past
it takes more than an hour to reach the base from Guangzhou to the north. The two gates stood parallel. The small gate could only accommodate two cars. The iron gate was locked tightly and weeds climbed up the wall. This was the old gate 37 years ago. The old gate is 20 to 30 meters left. It is the new arched gate of the base. It is spacious, atmospheric and clean. It enters by car. The new six-storey complex building project is coming to an end, most of the six standard football fields have been laid, and a brand-new baseball and softball stadium has just finished the provincial sports games. Indoor five-person football field and artificial grass football field are also under planning.
The National Women’s football Yingde training base was founded in 1986. It was once a shining signboard in Yingde city, and it is as famous as the haidang base in Kunming. Chinese women’s football team will always train here for 3 to 6 months before winter training or competition. Every winter, women’s football teams in various provinces and cities also go south like migratory birds. At its peak in 1987, there were more than 30 women’s football teams training and competing in this base. Therefore, this is called the “cradle” of Chinese women’s football, from which Chinese women’s football takes steps to rush out of Asia and the world.
In the 90’s of the last century, because the conditions such as the training site couldn’t keep up with the needs of the times, the once glorious base gradually withered. At the beginning of his graduation, Fu Wenzhuo’s base was mainly to undertake some U-series events of the Chinese Football Association and the events of the Education Department. 2013 was the best year, only six events and two-month winter training tasks of the Chinese Football Association are received in a year, and the base can only be used for 100 days at most.
Since 2015, the base has interrupted the reception task and gradually disappeared in the vision of the football circle. “We were afraid to pick up the match again at that time because the conditions were too simple, worried that security is not guaranteed!” Fu Wenzhuo still remembers that in 2014, some sports media wrote an article about youth training, referring to major youth training bases such as Wuzhou and Yingde, referring to such training conditions, how can China cultivate its own “Macy”? Fu Wenzhuo said: “As a practitioner, I agree with it in my heart, but the local financial resources are insufficient and there is no economic support. We really have limited ability.”
From 2016 to 2019, it was the blowout stage of the development of campus football. There was a lot of demand for the venue, but the British and German base fell into silence and missed the best development period.
Integrating sports and tourism resources
Over the past ten years, Fu Wenzhuo has been looking forward to the reconstruction of the base all the time. The local government has also thought of throwing out the base and introducing capital to carry out reconstruction and construction, but contract negotiations have been very difficult.
Until 2018, it was confirmed that the 16th Provincial Games would be settled in Qingyuan, and the base would undertake three competition tasks. Taking this east wind, the base applied for a bond fund of 80 million yuan and promoted the reconstruction project in 202020.
In the past three years, Fu Wenzhuo has been busy and fulfilling every day. The base was re-leveled, six courses were planned, and a 11000-square-meter complex building rose from the ground. Up to now, the base has received more than 2,000 provincial sports teams and baseball and softball projects, and the three groups of women’s football competitions have been completed.
The reconstruction work is in an orderly way, but Fu Wenzhuo is also constantly thinking about how to develop with high quality in the future. As a small and medium-sized training base, it is still within the scope of ability to host domestic and provincial youth-level competitions, but at present, the conditions for undertaking national team-level training and competitions are not met. “So we are not in a hurry to introduce high-level games, but first re-operate the base and try to return to the football circle”.
In the past, the project of the base was single, mainly to undertake training and competitions. Fu Wenzhuo plans to diversify future projects. In addition to outdoor football, indoor five-person football, basketball court, badminton court, baseball and softball fields are all operated, and the types of business are no longer limited to training and competitions for sports teams. “We hope to integrate the English and German football section into economic and cultural life. In the future, we should not just pick up events, we should combine sports and tourism resources well. For example, there are 100 to 120 days for a year’s sports events or training. In the remaining half a year, hundreds of beds, restaurants, and conference rooms cannot be idle. You can take some expansion, research and Training Programs “.
They consciously keep and collect some old objects, such as one or two old buildings in the 1970 s and 1980 s, trophy, Pennant, lawn mower, books, pictures and videos in the age of women’s football, etc, the old base gate is going to be a display area at that time. In the future, it is also planned to invite women’s football players to play performance matches. Fu Wenzhuo said: “We need to explore the culture of women’s football, as well as the history of British and German football, tell good stories and attract traveling people. History must not be forgotten.”
80 million yuan bond fund is only the beginning, and how to generate benefits in the future is the key. Fu Wenzhuo calculated a bill. In addition to the previous hardware investment and equipment, he also needed to raise 4 million to 5 million yuan. In the future, the state-owned finance will take the lead, and the sports bureau or the base will divest a company to operate the docking market; Or the overall outsourcing will introduce the operating company to transfer the management rights.
In fact, Yingde training base is just a microcosm. Taking advantage of the opportunity of undertaking large-scale events, it is a real development path to revitalize sports resources with historical and cultural accumulation and realize the high-quality development of Guangdong Sports. The provincial games not only brought the opportunity for the renovation and transformation of hardware facilities to Yingde, but also left valuable experience in running the games, trained a group of talents to run the events, and pushed up a platform for the next stage of development. “In the future, our confidence will definitely be more sufficient. The provincial sports meeting has left us a good inspiration and experience, which is worth thinking well by our sports people.” Fu Wenzhuo said.
Yangcheng Evening News, March 16, 2023, A11 edition
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