Goals Soccer Centres sales hit by bad weather, to spend £3m on estate upgrade

Five-a-side football operator Goals Soccer Centres reported a drop in sales on Thursday as it took a hit from the Beast from the East, and announced plans to splash the cash on an upgrade of its estate.

In the first 18 weeks of the year, underlying like-for-like sales excluding the impact of snow were up 2.3%. However, the bad weather in March reduced sales by £500,000, resulting in an overall like-for-like sales drop of 1.9% for the period.

Goals said it plans to invest a further £3m to refurbish 90 pitches at the 18 clubs that have four or fewer upgraded arenas, to reverse the sales decline. Following the refurbishment, 73% of the estate will have been upgraded, reducing the average pitch age to 3.2 years.

Interim chairman Michael Bolingbroke said: "2017 was an important year for rebuilding and refocusing the company, following the strategy put in place in mid-2016. Our arena modernisation programme is well advanced with 53% of our estate now upgraded reducing our average pitch age from 7 years before the upgrade works commenced to a current average age of 4.1 years and we continue to develop our business in the US.

"This investment strategy remains focused around delivering better performance with a clear recent positive trend established in football sales."

The company said it continues to make strategic progress in the US in conjunction with its JV partner City Football Group, with a strong pipeline of potential future sites.

At 1315 BST, the shares were down 3.1% to 86p.