Five-a-side soccer operator Fives has unveiled its inaugural Pinnacle Gym and announced the roll-out of its digital football concept, as part of the brand’s drive to bring an ethos of personal development into its centres.

Located on-site at its centre in Hamilton, Scotland, and created in partnership with Physical Company, the new 200sq m gym has been set up for functional training predominantly, with equipment including a wide range of free weights, select pieces of CV equipment and a Pinnacle-branded turf area.

On-site are personal trainers, physiotherapists, sports injury professionals and other experts, all of whom work one-to-one with customers “to support them in their personal journeys and help them become the best version of themselves”, says Fives CEO and founder Scott Penman.

He adds: “The joy of our model – with our experts paying rent or working on a profit share basis – is that we can bring together a really diverse range of skillsets, including some that might be too niche were we having to employ people ourselves. It allows us to match customers with the perfect expert to help them on their personal journey.”

“Scott approached us with an inspirational vision and it’s been a real pleasure helping him and his team bring it to life,” says Paul Farrell, account manager at Physical Company. “With such a customer-centric mindset, we have no doubt that Pinnacle will be a great success and we look forward to collaborating on future projects.”

More gyms are certainly on the radar, confirms Penman: “We’ll be doing six more football centres over the next three years, of which two will definitely have gyms on-site, and possibly a further two. We also have a few locations in our existing portfolio that we may look to retrofit.”

This focus on personal development is also being applied to the football offering, where a new digital concept involves every game being recorded on camera: players’ movement around the pitch is tracked and their performance data logged. After the game, they have the option of reviewing this – seeing how far they ran, what they contributed to the game and so on – as well as watching the video back to see how and where they might improve.

Currently being tested in two locations, the digital concept will go fully live at Fives’ new facility in Manchester’s Trafford Park when it opens in the spring. “This will be our sixth centre and the first digitally connected football centre in the UK,” confirms Penman. The concept will then be rolled out across the estate.