Brantford Bisons football to run Super Complex

The Brantford and District Football Club and the Brantford City Soccer Club have formed a partnership to construct, administer and maintain a football and soccer complex in the City of Brantford, Ontario.

The Brantford and District Football Club operates the minor tackle football program in Brantford while the Brantford City Soccer Club runs the largest minor soccer program in the city. All told, nearly 3,500 children registered in both programs will directly benefit from the use of this complex while hundreds more in hockey, baseball and other minor sports will also benefit from the use of this complex.

The complex will consist of two artificial turf football only fields, a premium natural grass soccer field, an artificial turf multi-purpose field and a sports dome. It is anticipated that there will also be room to expand the complex by two more multi-purpose fields as they become needed in the future.

This complex will be unique for Ontario and even Canada. No community has a complex that consists of three artificial turf fields, a premium soccer field, a sports dome and is administered and maintained by a non-profit corporation through the BDFC/BCSC partnership.

Once the complex is built, it will be a model for other sports groups and communities to follow. In fact, many communities from across Canada will visit Brantford to see how we did it.

The complex will be located on 172 acres of City owned land off of Shellard’s Lane near Conklin Road. The complex will be part of a broader sports area which will also contain baseball diamonds along with a community centre. A consultant has been hired by the City of Brantford to incorporate this complex into the overall neighbourhood design that is being developed for the 172 acres. The BDFC and the BCSC will administer and maintain the complex through a non-profit corporation under a long term lease agreement with the City of Brantford which will own the complex. The completion of this complex is targeted for 2013-2014.

The football fields and multi-purpose field will be CFL in size and will use FieldTurf instead of natural grass along with single goal posts. The premium soccer field will consist of natural grass and meet the size requirements of Soccer Canada. All fields will run North/South, have a time clock, lights provided by Musco Sports Lighting, a P.A. system and players’ benches. The premium soccer field and the main football field will seat 1,000 people, while the second football field and multi-purpose field will seat 500. The multi-purpose field will have room to add at a future date, a track and other amenities that will be required to show case our track and field athletes. The fields will be fenced by four foot chain link fencing with access for the players, emergency vehicles and equipment. The stands will be made of metal, not wood.

The sports dome will be available all year round but will be used mostly over the winter months for football, rugby, soccer, baseball, hockey or any other sports group that would like to have the use of an in-door facility. The dome will have an attached building to provide space for the complex administration staff, concessions, public access, public washrooms, 2,000 square feet for specialized athletic training and an office for the BDFC and the BCSC. The dome will be full field in size and will be built by The Farley Group from Guelph, Ontario.

The main building will be located near the front entrance. The building will contain four change rooms with showers for players, a change room with showers for game officials, a concession and fund-raising booth, public washrooms, two rooms for storage space: one for soccer equipment and one for football equipment and a room for team meetings.

One media booth will be located between the premium soccer field and the multi-purpose field while the other media booth will be between the two football fields. Both will be two stories. The first floor will contain space for equipment needed for games. The second floor will have two P.A. systems (one for each field) and room for reporters.

The pre-fabricated steel building will be located at the far end of the complex and will contain equipment needed to maintain the fields along with any other outside equipment that requires winter storage.

The entire complex will be enclosed with a six foot fence that will be secure from vandalism with a state of the art security system.