St Johnstone have been given an award from the Scottish Football Partnership to assist with the cost of creating a new training facility within the footprint of McDiarmid Park.
Saints’ head of football administration, Paul Smith, explained: “The creation of a training and match facility with a natural grass surface will provide many benefits to the football club and the wider community.
“This facility will allow us to do a great deal more of our first team training in Perth and will make it easier for us to achieve a key element of our plans for the future of the club the involvement of the first team squad in the local community in Perth and Kinross.
“We are keen to capture the next generation of St Johnstone players and supporters and one of the key strands of this objective is to have the players very visible and involved in schools across the area.
“Boys and girls from across Perth and Kinross will be able to come to McDiarmid Park to view the stadium and take part in fun football coaching with our players.
“This facility will compliment our existing 3G surface which is used by the club’s youth academy teams for training and matches.
“We wish to extend what we do with our younger players and increase the number of teams available to them and this new training facility has provided us with an invaluable additional training space.”