Build it and they will come. That was the classic line from Kevin Costner's baseball movie Field of Dreams.And while many sports clubs have had to scale back their own building plans amid the recession, the Bermuda Gymnastics Association (BGA) have been busy quietly revamping their training centre in St. David's on a shoe-string budget.When head coach Duke Nelligan arrived on the Island one-and-a-half years ago the training base was decrepit and decaying. Hardly an environment conducive to attracting youngsters to take up an already minority sport.But with the help of the local community, schools and parents, coupled with Nelligan's own impressive DIY ingenuity, the BGA now have a headquarters to be proud of.“When I first got here it was a dingy old building, there were no lights, no signs and most people thought it was a warehouse. Like many of the buildings around here it was in decay,” said Nelligan.“I kept stressing to the BGA committee that they had to make a stand. It may not have been the right time with the economy on the Island but you have to dig in and make changes.“I told our landlord, the Bermuda Land Development Corporation, that (the BGA) were prepared to develop the facility into a premier centre, but they had to do their part also.“They sealed the roof, began some construction work and while it impacted the terms of our lease you have to be prepared to invest in your future.”The equipment inside the bright pink BGA building on Southside Road isn't shiny and new. Much of it is assembled from old reusable materials probably twice the age of the gymnasts who use it to hone their routines. In Nelligan's own words, their recycled equipment is functional rather than pretty.There are spotting rigs put together from piping left behind from the US Navy who formerly occupied the building, balancing beams made out of broken pieces of wooden furniture and previously unused crash mats scavenged from local schools.“We really are the green programme,” Nelligan, a former head coach at the University of Maryland, said. “If I see something on the side of the road I'll ask for it if I think we can make use of it. The US Navy left a lot of pipes here, a lot of wood has been donated to us and we have people who drop off pieces of equipment at our doorstep thinking that perhaps we could use it. A lot of the schools don't have gymnastics teachers so we asked for their old equipment and re-conditioned it.“We built all of our spotting rigs by taking other pieces of equipment apart. That way you don't need to ask for $10,000 for a piece of equipment.“It doesn't have to be pretty, it has to be functional. If you go to the Ukraine or Russia it's the same, they don't waste time, energy, money or talent.”Nelligan, 60, said the training centre's facelift couldn't have been performed without financial aid from local companies, the BGA's fundraising efforts and unwavering support from the parents who he hails as the ‘backbone of our push'.“We do our own fundraising and reach out to a lot of companies that are required to do community service,” said the American, whose wife Chris also coaches at the centre. “We tell them that they're not putting their money into a select few athletes who travel around the world or a team of 12 boys.“The parents are also the backbone of our push, they want their children in a good facility. As the saying goes, ‘build it and they will come' and it's certainly a lot easier to attract youngsters now.”Currently the BGA have 22 competitive gymnasts from the ages of 6 to 15. They also run a Longtail group for youngsters who aren't ready for international competition as well as a weekly toddlers session.Nelligan said: “This building was previously never used for recreational children. It was only for the team gymnasts.“What was happening was those little children who had potential never had the chance to see our older gymnasts in action and go, I want to look like that, I want to do that'. Now we have a toddlers programme where 25 18-month-olds come with their parents.“We're also going into the schools and whenever we identify someone with talent we ask them to come to the base with us. We're infusing our programme at the bottom and the cream will rise to the top.”At the end of this year Nelligan believes their Southside centre will be ready to host an overseas competition similar to the Bermuda Triangle Challenge which was held annually at either Bermuda College or the Hamilton Princess around ten years ago.It would serve as a dress rehearsal ahead of the Island Games which Bermuda will host in 2013.“When I tell my former colleagues in the US that we're almost ready to host another event they say ‘well what have you done to your training centre?' I tell them that they won't be disappointed. We need a mock meet so we're primed for the Island Games as the gymnastics events .will be held here.”