Pre-Season Training Camp - Day 1 - Sunday 5^th July 2009

The clubs first team playing squad and staff assembled at Manchester Airports Terminal 1 at 4.45am early on Sunday morning in preparation for the third visit to Spain for a pre-season training camp in Spain.

The destination this year was Benhavis, which is just outside Marbella. Not surprisingly there were a few bleary eyes and quite a number were becoming aware that there are in fact two 4 o'clocks in a day.

The first job is always quite difficult as Dave (Flitcroft) and I try to sweet talk the check in clerk into allowing all our equipment through without any extra charges. We book in collectively and the players have previously been told to keep their personal suitcase to below 15kg in order that we can get the equipment through. We were again lucky today as a young lady called Katie on the Monarch desk was very helpful and got everything through for us.

Travelling with the first team squad was second year scholars Chris Brown and Callum Byrne, also travelling with us was young trialist Nathan Woolfe, who I understand has just been released by Bolton Wanderers. These young players looked a little nervous and I tried to comfort them by telling them that we were all seated at the back of the plane, which is the safest place to sit as I've never seen or heard of a plane reversing into a mountain - I'm not sure this worked.

We finally boarded in good time for our 6.55am take off but as usual we didn't take off for at least another 20 minutes. The captain informed us that the journey down to Malaga airport would take two hours 45 minutes, so this was a cue for most of the lads to try and catch up on some much needed sleep. There was one exception and that was Kallum Higginbotham who had adopted the fetus position the minute he sat down, and had to be woken by mother Stanton to put his seat belt on.

I had the pleasure of sitting with conditioning coach, Guy Proctor, and the silver tongued Dave Flitcroft. I think we proved that the art of conversation is far from dead with subjects such as why has no one ever managed to eat just one Pringle, and what a great invention the mini Pringles are. I won't bore you with the rest of the conversation as this was probably the highlight and it went downhill rapid from there.

If we thought getting the baggage checked in had gone well the pickup in Malaga was about to exact some revenge. First of all it was obvious that none of our cases, or that of any of the passengers' cases on our plane was circling belt 24. However, there was plenty of cases going round and round, and round and round. I'm not sure how long some other "Brits" had been stood at belt 23 but it suddenly dawned on a few of them that the bags from Bournemouth, which should be on 23 were in fact on 24, after that it wasn't long before the rest of the south coast passengers joined them.

Having seen off the Bournemouth bags our own started to do the circuit and we were almost ready to set off for the coach, but for one of the kit bags missing. It's still missing, but fortunately it was the bag with some of the drinks supplements in so we decided to set off without it.

After a fifty minute trip from the airport we arrived at our hotel in Benhavis. Room pairing's had previously been notified to the players and the reception staff were ready for us and this part of the operation went very well. Having chucked the cases in the room it was now past 2pm and all the players wanted to do was eat and sleep. After lunch the players got their wish as the Gaffer dismissed them with a few words of caution and the instruction to return for dinner at 7pm.

After lunch the staff set up the team medical room and goalkeeping coach, Ian Wilcox, and the man who needs no introduction, Jack Northover, inflated the 24 training balls that we had managed not to lose on the way. Assistant Physio John Lucas tried out the treatment bed but we weren't going to give him any peace and let him sleep there.

Rest and relaxation has another word in the coaching manual and in there it is described as "recovery". Joking apart recovery is a very important part of the training programme and bear in mind what these players will be doing over the coming, days, weeks and months. The day had been a long one, I only live 20 minutes from the airport and I had been up since 3.30am. I spoke to Ciaran Toner and he had been up since 2am, so it is important that he and the other players get prepared in the first instance for the week ahead.

After dinner, Dave took the lads through a few scenarios that he and the gaffer had discussed following Saturdays training session back in the UK and got some feedback from some of the players. Dave also outlined the general timetable for the week, he also reminded the players to look after themselves and make sure they visited the staff in the treatment room.

With a few new boys in the squad Dave nominated Jon Shaw as the first to sing a song or pay a fine. For those of you who are not aware the players have this tradition of when a new player joins the squad he has to do a speech or sing a song in front of the rest of the squad. It is a little initiation ceremony. Dave then conducted the draw as to who would follow Jon the following evening with the other new lads, Kenny Arthur, Matt Edwards, Jason Kennedy, Nathan Woolfe, Chris Brown and Callum Byrne all taking their turn later in the week. It was decided that speeches were out and songs must be sung and then this developed into it must be a Michael Jackson song.

The Michael Jackson selection was not met that favourably by young Chris Brown who is due on tomorrow night. While the deceased pop icon has been all over the news recently as you can imagine he doesn't feature on the play list on Chris's I-pod and I think he might be doing an impersonation of Robbie Williams pretending to be Michael Jackson doing a Robbie Williams song.

Before bedtime The Gaffer and Dave reminded the players of the importance of the players wearing their Polar belts at all the training sessions. The Polar belts are the straps that you may see the players wearing around their chest and these monitor their heart rates and their performances, you'll hear all about the red zone as the week goes on. Conditioning coach, Guy Proctor was keen that the players took a note of their rest rate and instructed the players to count their heart rate before the players got up in the morning. Guy demonstrated how to do the count on the neck or if they couldn't get a count to wear their belts in bed, the Gaffer stepped in and asked the players to wear their belts tonight in order that we get a reading for all the players.

The information that is collected on the belts is then downloaded on to the computer and we can see how the players are performing, how long they spend in the red zone and how they are recovering, its all very technical but it is very informative.

The rest of my evening was spent typing and trying to get connected to the wi-fi at the hotel and as I type this at 11.30pm I still haven't managed to do that, so if you do get to read this I have managed to overcome the technical difficulties and if you don't, well you'll never know. I'm going to sign out and turn to my I-pod and my Robert Ludlum novel. Hopefully you will hear from Spain tomorrow.