Pre-Season Training Camp - Day 2 - Monday 6^th July 2009

Breakfast was at 8am sharp and all the players arrived on time looking refreshed after a good night's sleep but apprehensive over what the Gaffer and Flicker might have in store for them for the rest of the day.

We knew that we were unable to have the training pitch as the LiverpoolSoccerSchool were holding their final session at the complex. This gave the Gaffer and Flicker the opportunity to come up with something a little different and this they did. At 9am the players were packed on to the coach for a short trip to Esteponia beach, I followed on in the car.

Now some of you may start to feel a little envious of a morning on the beach in Spain but let me assure you have nothing to be jealous of. First up to do some warming up of the players was John Lucas. The assistant physio had some new moves to get those joints and muscles moving, and when the players were doing it together it looked like the All Blacks doing the "hakka".

Next up was conditioning coach Guy Proctor and he brought a theme to the exercise that he was asking the players to perform. Bearing in mind this is a family site I need to be a little careful here, the theme was "you know what" through the decades. We started off in the sixties, progressing to the seventies where they were asked to be P*r*o stars. We touched on pillows and MP's in the 80's and 90's and that's probably as much as I can tell you. Some of the body movements are best left to your own imagination.

Fortunately I am the on- looking water boy and it strikes me that this is quite clever of the coaches because amongst the work that the players are doing they are also having a little fun when Guy refers to "Rocky" what's his name and Linda thingy me bob. It keeps them interested and I notice they are all working very hard without appearing to notice it, I'm sure they are and don't forget they are working on sand, which is a very difficult surface to work on.

This session went on for a while with the work expanding over a larger area but I sneaked off to the town to get some batteries adaptors and of course seek out some ice and water, I didn't call in at a bar and I didn't even stop off for a coffee. I had obviously been gone a little longer than we all expected as the coach passed me in the town and I realised that the players had been strutting their stuff on the beech for over two hours.

The previous evening some of the staff had gone on a little trip around the area with our host over here Gary Hobson. During the trip they had come across a fresh water rock pool that was quite picturesque with the pool dwarfed by some rock. Now Jack being Jack was goaded in to jumping in off the rocks, but what was really funny was that a dog jumped in after him and chased him to the side. Now I won't say that Jack is vain but he somehow managed to get this on video on his phone and I'm sure it won't be long before it's receiving record hits on Youtube. It is funny, particulary this little dog chasing Jack to dry land.

Anyway, back to today and this rock pool became the centre of attention on the way back from the beech as the Gaffer and Flicker thought it would be a good bonding session to have team Rochdale all jumping in to the pool from the dizzy height of the surrounding rocks.

By the time I arrived most of the players had taken their turn and had conquered their nerves and the challenge, only Adam Rundle was showing a few rock top nerves, I was standing up by the road taking some photos when the Gaffer noticed that I'd arrived and he led the chants to get me to take the plunge. With team Rochdale willing me on how could I refuse. I climbed up the rocks and passed my valuables to Gary Jones and as instructed I gave it an "Up The Dale" as I leapt off the rocks. I think most of the water left the rock pool as I landed and we later heard of a tsunami in Malaga at around 1pm!

Adam Rundle with the support of team Rochdale made the jump to ensure everyone in the team had completed the challenge. The lads were enjoying this now and the confidence had now grown in to a bit of a diving competition and Rory McArdle, Tom Kennedy and Kallum Higginbotham competing for the medals. For my money Kallum Higginbotham was the Greg Lugani of our squad.

The treatment room was busy before lunch with the lads touching up a few little wounds. Ian Wilcox was busy analysing the data from the Polar belts that the players had worn overnight to monitor the rest rates. Not surprisingly the recordings were all fairly similar between 40 and 50 with only a couple of exceptions. Gary Jones must have slept like a baby as his reading was the lowest, baby however was not how room mate Chris Dagnall described Jonahs slumber. He likened him to Darth Vader and this made Daggers' reading one of the highest.

Lunch was at 2.30pm and then it was recovery time for the players ahead of the evening session. I spent most of the afternoon getting stressed out with the hotel wi-fi, which was still leading me a merry dance. In the end I thought I showed great composure as I refrained from my overriding desire to chuck the computer through the window. I had to borrow a memory stick and copy the diary from my computer and then silver tongue my way round the hotel staff to allow me enough time to email the club with yesterday's happenings.

I was happy to leave the IT world behind at around 5.30pm and return to the less stressful life of a waterboy. The treatment room was already starting to fill up with players getting their rubs, tapings etc before the evening training session.

The session was due to commence at 7pm on the dot but to be fair to the players they were all down at the training ground well before 7pm and indeed the Gaffer was able to get under way fifteen minutes early.

Prior to the session I helped the Gaffer mark out the pitch with poles and cones. First off he wants me to take a tape and a pole and walk 50 meters along one side of the pitch, then he calls me back 10 meters and says put the pole there. We then go the other way and again he says go 50 meters and then he calls me back 10 meters and tells me to stick the pole in.

Now as stressed as I had been, I'm a bit "wified" up to here and the temperature is still in the mid thirties and I'm beginning to detect a bit of a pattern with the Gaffers instructions. I bite my tongue through this and even when we start to put the cones out at 5 meters north, south, east and west of each pole and then at the four corners. I even remained totally professional when the Gaffer said "make sure they're the same distance as mine, I'll be checking them in a minute" - (this isn't in the flipping water boy's job description)!

John Lucas again warmed the lads up with stretch work with balls, hoops, cones, poles and hurdles. The goalkeepers had disappeared off in to a quiet corner to do their own stuff and thankfully the physio was available for any injury problems that hopefully won't occur, in previous years he has been working separately with long term injured players.

I know that the Gaffer and Flicker have recently been on their Pro Licence and UEFA "A" courses respectively and I assume that the set up that I helped the Gaffer with had come from their recent educational exploits. Boy was this one hell of a course, I didn't get the exact instructions given out by the Gaffer but there were 5 players in each of the squares marked around the poles that are 40 meters apart with the poles also forming a square. The five players had to keep two balls moving in their squares while moving round the outer cones and then on the Gaffers instructions they had to set off and run round the other poles.

This was a sustained session and there were other variations from the Gaffer with players exchanging squares, please trust me when I say that I haven't done justice to the quality of the session but trust me also when I tell you that I saw the players working very hard and giving it there all. This will be of little comfort to them but I did feel a little sorry for them.

Waterboy had been busy filling the ice bath on the side of the pitch with water and ice and as the session finished at 8.45pm all the players were given four minutes in the ice bath.

Dinner was supposed to be at 9pm but as we had finished the session a little late and by the time we had put all the equipment away it was getting closer to 9.30. After dinner the first of the songs were due and young Chris Brown had the unenviable job of opening the show. Before singing his song Chris thanked the Gaffer and Flicker for giving him the experience of coming on the trip. Chris gave us his version of Rock DJ by Robbie Williams and he certainly rocked the room with everyone else joining in.

Next up was Jason Kennedy but he thought he wasn't due till tomorrow and asked for 24 hours to learn the rest of the words. The Gaffer asked if any of the other new players who were due to perform later in the week would volunteer to go early. Immediately Kenny Arthur stepped up to the mic and sang what was an unusual song that was only known by the older members of the group. That's me, Guy, Jack, Thorpey, Flicker and the Gaffer. The song was A Ship Called Destiny by a group called Deacon Blue. The older members sang along while the rest clapped and mimed like hell. Kenny did a great job and just like Chris got a rousing reception.

I think I retired to my room a couple of hours ago, which will only tell you how slow at typing I am. I am now going to retire with my book and see how this Molecular DNA computer is playing having with the might of the USA defence systems.