A new indoor football arena and gym is being built in a 17,500 square foot warehouse in Norfolk.
The Arena in Norwich’s Avian Road will be home to four indoor pitches as well as a boxing gym and spectators’ area.
The sporting hub is the passion project of a group of Norfolk entrepreneurs, comprising of Bobby Harrison who runs the Hustle Boxing gym, Dan Goffin and Louie Blake of Future Football Elite and Remy Coghiel and Dan Durrell of Durrell & Wolf property development.
MORE: Vattenfall questions ‘reality’ of Prime Minister’s wind power promiseThe group have all invested in the initiative – with the renovations expected to reach six figures.
Mr Goffin said: “I’ve been running Future Football Elite for about three years. We work with about 400 players across Norfolk a week across a lot of different venues.
“There isn’t really an indoor commercial pitch which suits our needs so when the idea was floated to us by Bobby and Remy it seemed like a brilliant opportunity. We’ll move the majority of our sessions to the arena when it opens.”
The site is currently on track to open in December.
“The space I’m currently in we can do about two classes of ten a night,” said Mr Harrison. “In the new site we’ll be able to 20 with social distancing as well.
“We’re still selling out classes – and about 70pc of them are women which is unusual. I think it’s worked so well because there’s nowhere else in Norwich that is a welcoming for women where they feel like – quite frankly, they won’t get punched in the face.”
As well as being used for fitness the Arena will also act as a networking hub.
“We came into this as a group of young entrepreneurs who all shared similar values and want to bring something to the community,” said Mr Coghiel.
He added: “We met through variously working and training with each other and we think other people in Norfolk could benefit from that too. So we’ll be holding events in the future where you join us for a pre-work workout and then grab a business breakfast and chat to other like-minded people. I’d also like to do more with Bro Society, which is a men’s talking club which aims to create a relaxed environment where men can talk about their mental health.”
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