GRADING CRITERIA IS SO MUCH MORE THAN JUST A FEW UNHINGED SEATS

TUESDAY morning, a little before 9.30am and a corner kick away from Wembley Stadium, Hanwell Town are opening up their ground for assessment.

- MATT BADCOCK

It’s part of the intensive drive to look in depth at all Step 3-6 grounds in the National League System by the end of October, with National League clubs to get the same treatment later in the season.

The NLP has been invited along to see what we’d traditionally know as a ground grading in action.

Launched at the end of July, the FA and Premier League have joined forces to launch the Stadium Accreditation Programme.

For the first time since ground grading was introduced over 15 years ago, the process has been digitalised with a new tool called StadiumPower.

Think of this process as a giant audit of Non-League grounds to essentially answer the questions: What have we got? Where are the challenges and areas of need? And, crucially, how can funding be best utilised?

“Up until now, although many will be surprised at this, there has been no central database capturing not just facility information but also the nuances around it,” Mark Harris, chairman of The FA’s Stadium Accreditation sub-committee, tells The NLP.

“Let’s say a club has three stands. That’s only part of the story. What is the quality of those stands? What is the quality of the seats? Do some need replacing?

“A lot was picked up previously, but digitalisation brings everything into one place.

“It’s also there to bring some transparency. When the information is brought together into the app, it will be visible by clubs. Some, although not all for obvious reasons, will be visible to fans.

“So digitalisation will give us a central database of facilities. It will allow us to identify areas of non-compliance but, more importantly, look at common areas of non-compliance.