England hope their Australian journey will end with a first World Cup trophy, but this adventure began with a decidedly more unglamorous road trip.
Back in May 2022, Kay Cossington and Anja van Ginhoven, the FA’s women’s technical director and general manager respectively, hopped into a hire car and began to snake their way up Australia’s coastline. Tasked with scoping out England’s World Cup training base, discussions with FIFA had already begun six months previously.
It was a gruelling schedule. Their remit? The entire east coast of Australia. Such is life when you work under the obsessive detail of England head coach Sarina Wiegman. Cossington and Van Ginhoven were asked to analyse aspects such as nearby training facilities, the distance to the airport and stadiums, and even the professionalism of hotel staff.
Though unable to visit sites in New Zealand due to Covid-19 restrictions, their itinerary still included 23 hotels, 18 training venues and, they joked, at least 37 coffee shops.
It is obvious why they paused in Terrigal, 90 minutes north of Sydney. Restaurants crowd the boardwalk of this picturesque town named for its birdsong. The swell in the northern part of the bay attracts surfers globally.
The stunning surroundings of Terrigal beach
After arriving on July 23, England will be based here for the remainder of the tournament, only flying out to the third group game in Adelaide overnight. They will do the same if they win their group and need to play their round-of-16 match in Brisbane.
The FA has spoken of wanting to have a “home away from home”, of the importance of familiarity during a tournament taking place on the other side of the world.
Murals inside proclaim Terrigal’s Crowne Plaza as “the Lionesses’ den”. On Wednesday afternoon, a group of media were invited inside — something never offered previously by either the men’s or women’s side.
As with so many aspects, Wiegman had the final call. Cossington and Van Ginhoven visited again in October 2022, one month before the FA had to submit their top five preferences to FIFA. There were moments of nerves before their selection was confirmed — Terrigal was their No 1 choice if selected in Group D — but in the end, 31 of 32 teams received their first choice.
Cossington (left) and Van Ginhoven guiding The Athletic around England’s base
Location secured, the Dutch head coach visited herself in January 2023, accompanied by a small team from the FA. But why here?
England saw their base at south west London’s Lensbury Hotel as one of the secrets behind their European Championship success last summer. It was a blueprint they wanted to mirror 17,000km across the world.
“We took away that feeling, that home-from-home feel,” Cossington says.
In broad strokes, these requirements were relatively simple. They wanted to avoid total remoteness; be close to a host city but still be in an area where players felt like they could relax. After all, the FA have learned these lessons before. On the men’s side, there was the party-fuelled environs of Baden-Baden in 2006, with the response in 2010 (the isolation of Rustenburg) an overcorrection the other way.
The private entrance to the Crowne Plaza Terrigal
Here, England players can walk along the beach or visit a nearby coffee shop without being surrounded. A lagoon gives the town of 10,000 a secluded feel, but it is still less than 20 minutes away from their training centre in the regional hub of Gosford.
“We wanted them to feel Australia,” says Cossington. “That’s important. They need that outside opportunity.”
Inside, several posters acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land, with Karen Menzies, the first Indigenous player to represent the Matildas, briefing the squad over Zoom earlier in the tournament.
“We want to give them cultural awareness from the places we go,” adds Van Ginhoven, a former international team-mate of Wiegman, who followed the coach to the FA in 2021. “Yes, we have a job to do, but it’s enriching and a life experience to learn about the area.”
They are keen to leave their mark on the local area, extending to the local training base, the Industree Group Stadium. Initially, a different training pitch was ‘paired’ with Terrigal’s Crowne Plaza by FIFA, but this was not deemed up to standard.
Instead, Cossington and Van Ginhoven spotted the waterfront stadium as they drove past and began to make enquiries. Capable of holding 20,000 fans, it is home to the A-League side Central Coast Mariners — known for being the club Usain Bolt played for back in 2018, as well as the home of Newcastle United starlet Garang Kuol. Around 2,500 fans watched the Lionesses train in a session open to the community on Tuesday.
The Mariners are in the process of launching a women’s team, who will play their first matches in September. With England needing an on-site gym, they agreed to split the cost of buying equipment with the local side.
Another decision England faced was whether to find a base at all — or hop between bases as FIFA guidelines recommend.
The FA, mindful of the logistical challenge of lifting their kit every four to five days, was keen to keep the squad in one place. The decision came with a financial cost — by staying in their own hotel, they would have to bear some of the cost of the hotels FIFA had earmarked for the knockout matches.
“We wanted to make the tournament as small as we could in terms of scope and scale in terms of loading,” says Cossington. With the Central Coast Mariners also staying here before matches, they describe the space as “best in class”.
There was also another factor — the ability to make the base a home. As players come through their private entrance to the hotel, they are greeted by a cavalcade of red and white balloons, as well as a St George’s Cross.
“We wanted it to be like a funnel,” Van Ginhoven said of the branding, describing the desire to start low-key at St George’s Park in England before growing into the tournament via stops on the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane.
Though planning had been months in the making, FA staff only had three days to actually install everything before the players arrived on June 23.
Slogans, created by the team, adorn the walls of a large atrium space nicknamed “the hub”. Two art and crafts tables sit centrally, where players have attached their own colouring to a dividing wall. Right-back Lucy Bronze is in charge of updating the World Cup wall chart, which sits by the entrance to the dining room.
“We saw this empty space, saw what it might be, and made this,” adds Cossington. “We wanted it to feel like home, feel like Lionesses, feel like us.”
Just three players in the squad have been to Australia before — Bronze, Rachel Daly and Jordan Nobbs. The need to have a link back to England was vital — and by far the most touching symbol of home is a painting that sits in the corner of the hub, created by Bolton-born artist Harry Ward.
Commissioned by England Football, it shows every member of the Lionesses squad — but not as you know them now. Instead, every player is depicted as a small child, just as they began their footballing journey, having been asked by Ward to submit pictures of their grassroots side.
“We wanted to show where they started,” says Cossington. “Just that little girl who loved the game.”
It is not the only small, artistic touch — the coffee machine is capable of producing a latte art portrait of every player in the squad.
Each room is named after a legendary Lioness. For example, the relaxation area has been named “The Scott Room” after Jill Scott, the midfielder who retired last year and is currently with the squad presenting the Lionesses: Down Under show on YouTube.
“Last year I walked into the Scott room at the Euros, thinking it was named after me,” remembers Scott. “But then they were like, ‘Yeah, it’s actually named after Alex (Scott). It better be named after me this time!”
Nike has produced many of the items for the relaxation room through their partnership with the FA, which runs until 2030. Last week, the company was criticised by starting goalkeeper Mary Earps for not manufacturing women’s goalkeeper’s shirts for public sale.
They also chose the books for a small library in the corner — which includes every Harry Potter book, as well as a selection of fiction and sporting autobiographies of figures like Kobe Bryant, Andre Agassi and Serena Williams. There is also that of Welsh rugby legend Alun Wyn Jones — a player who has been at the forefront of commercial battles with his own governing bodies in recent years — useful reading for the Lionesses’ current dispute.
Elsewhere, traditional arcade games include Simpsons Hit & Run, with two separate televisions also in the room — one for PlayStation, the other for watching World Cup matches. Along with the more traditional sport camp pastimes, such as table tennis and darts, there are also virtual reality headsets available for players.
“What does Sarina do here?” is the subsequent question, summoning the image of Wiegman donning the VR goggles between games.
“Work hard!” comes the instant reply from Van Ginhoven.
The dining room is named after Lily Parr, who scored around 1,000 goals in a 30-year career despite the FA ban of 1921. It contains more tastes of home — such as homemade flapjacks.
Chef Gareth Cole was busy cooking as The Athletic visited — on the menu was pasta (available every day), as well as chicken schnitzel and seared tuna. He does take requests from players — though within nutritional reason. A request to know who pushes that line furthest is met with a laugh, but no answer.
Peppermints and pen pots dot the back of the analysis room. The emphasis here is on short, sharp sessions — not wanting to overload players but rather seeing key messaging as more effective. Ellen White — England’s record goalscorer, known for her on-pitch wiles — is the figure this room is named after.
Having retired after the Euros last summer, White is now present in name only as Alessia Russo, Rachel Daly and Bethany England take on her mantle.
The set for Lionesses: Down Under, hosted by Jill Scott
It is natural when surrounded by facilities such as these, named as they are, to think of past Lionesses and some of the bases they experienced during previous tournaments. Cossington arrived at the FA 18 years ago, ahead of the home Euros in 2005.
There, she describes staff printing and pinning up A4 posters themselves as decoration. The size of the staff accompanying the team has doubled.
“It’s night and day,” she says. “It’s gone another step, another mile — and that’s testament to how the game is evolving.”
This is England Women’s most advanced training base ever. But with the Lionesses looking to go further in the World Cup than they ever have before, this is what is needed.
(All photos: Jacob Whitehead)
