Coronavirus: Sheffield water polo club plays in lake as pool stays closed

A prestigious water polo club has been forced to take its practice outdoors to a lake as the swimming pool it uses for training remains closed.

City of Sheffield Water Polo Club usually trains at Ponds Forge but has recently been using Manvers Lake near Wath instead.

Despite many pools recently reopening, Sheffield City Council said it was "unaffordable" to reopen Ponds Forge.

Head coach Chris Motley said the future of the club was being put at risk.

More stories from around Yorkshire

"Without Ponds Forge, I can see us not existing in the next 12 months," he said.

"Swimming through duck poo at seven or eight in the morning isn't really what the players want to be doing.

"It has given them a chance to meet up with team-mates and get used to throwing a ball around again, but it's certainly not sustainable if we're looking at what we have been doing over the last few years and producing so many top-class athletes."

The pool is also a training base for Sheffield Diving and City of Sheffield Swimming Club.

Ponds Forge is operated by Sheffield City Trust, which said it had been working closely with the city council to reopen as many leisure facilities as possible following the coronavirus outbreak.

It said: "We have no plans to close down Ponds Forge permanently and will continue to closely monitor the situation regarding large-scale events and look to reopen as soon as is practical and reasonable to do so."

Councillor Mary Lea said the council could not support the opening of the pool as it would be "unaffordable".

She said: "We hope to reopen the centre as soon as regulations allow commercial activity to resume, alongside general public use. We do not yet know when this will be.

"We understand the impact that the continued closure of these facilities has on the clubs and athletes who train here and we recognise their importance to the city."

Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] or send video here.