Pre-Season Training Camp - Day 5 - Thursday 9th July 2009
The morning of day 5 had been declared a free period for the players following the match the night before and the players needed little encouragement to use the morning for recovery purposes. In fact the dining room was like Dodge City at High Noon. A few players did make the dining room eventually, and only just before the 10.30 closing time. Will Buckley was not amongst them.
With our "morning off", Jack and I headed off to Estapona. I wanted to see if I could get some tobacco for Jack but after trawling the local traders I couldn't find any of them willing to do a swap.We did manage to find an English paper and noted the closing score from the first day of the test match with Kevin Pietersen getting a slating in the press for playing that shot.
It was a quiet morning all around the hotel and we did a little bit of work before lunch tidying up the kit and equipment in the treatment room. Lunch had been set for 2.30pm and all the players were under instructions to refuel as part of the recovery process.
Following lunch the Gaffer addressed the players and he was very happy with everyone's effort over the first half of the week and overall pleased with the way the session had gone against Peterborough. With the progress over the first full week of training and the efforts of the players the Gaffer allowed the players the rest of the day to recover, but with an emphasis on continuing to refuel at dinner and a bigger emphasis on the three sessions per day that would be taking place over Friday and Saturday.
I used some of the time in the afternoon to catch up with some of the back room staff for their thoughts on training so far and particularly the health of the players.
Club physiotherapist, Andy Thorpe reported two minor injuries. First of all Jon Shaw had picked up a dead leg in the Peterborough game but he should be OK. The other little niggle was to Ciaran Toner who has suffered previously from shin splints and was just starting to feel the same thing. Ciaran was actually on the treatment table and looked to be having some electrode treatment on his shins.
I had thought of having a blister contest given some of the hum dingers that I have witnessed in the last couple of years but it can become a little subjective and one player will always insist that his blisters are bigger than his team-mates, and then you get accused of favouritism. Blister size can be quite an emotive subject. Anyway the "fizz" (physio) had been busy with his needles and few ripe ones remained.
Seriously though, blisters can be a big problem for the players and I know it's even worse if they get infected. Andy told me that there were plenty of blisters on all the players and they treat them with surgical spirits to harden the skin and of course they dress them for all training sessions. Andy was thankful that none of the blisters on the players have got infected.
Goalkeeping Coach, Ian Wilcox has been quite involved with all the players as well as the keepers, and was busy with Flicker and Guy Proctor analysing the data from the belts following the Wednesday morning training session and the game in the evening. The information that is available to them also allows them to see how the players have progressed over a period of time.
Guy and Ian confirmed to me that they were pleased with all the players and none of the information that they had tracked was causing them any concern. They were really quite pleased with the player's progress confirming what the Gaffer had said.
Having finished my rounds I went off to the wi-fi zone around the reception to send in the daily diary. After that a quick check on the cricket score to see that the tail had wagged, but the Aussies had started their innings too well. Women's cricket boys, that's the stuff. We've been knocking seven shades out of the Aussies at that (without wishing to sound sexist though, it's not for real is it?).
Upon returning to my room I noticed that the air conditioning had been turned off yet again. Now I've been having a bit of a battle of wills with the house keeping department here at the hotel. When I go out I leave the air con on so that's its nice and cool when I come back. However the cheeky little chambermaid has other ideas and turns it off when she makes up my room. Now, II m getting a little tired of this so I've come up with this plan where I'm going to hide in the wardrobe tomorrow instead of going to training and when she comes in I'm going to jump out of the wardrobe and ask her to leave the air con on. Hopefully she will get the message.
Back on the wi-fi where I can access my work computer remotely and with my mobile phone at my side, occasionally waking to the Godfather theme, it started to dawn on me that I was actually doing some real work. I had checked the reserve and youth team fixtures, responded to a couple of the endless questionnaires from the footballing bodies and I'd even sorted out a couple of rental events for the Stadium Company. For a moment I dropped my guard and wondered if the Chairman would allow me to work this way all the time, then realism returned.
The afternoon wasn't totally quiet as I had to pay a little visit to the small room, and you know what happens when a body is submerged in water or you are the king on the throne, one of two things. Either the phone rings or there's a knock at the door. It was the latter for me and at first I thought I would just ignore it but then a familiar voice shouted "Col, it's me, I just wanted to check what time dinner is tonight". I thought 'it's great isn't it, you're a thousand miles from home and the office and you still can't go the karze in peace'.
Dinner (refuel) was at 8pm and it was a very quiet dining room this evening. Even Higgy and Flicker were quiet by their standards. After dinner I had a quiet drink of apple juice with Ian Wilcox, where he taught me how to spell his name correctly and hopefully I've got it right now.
I had planned to spend a little time with the goalkeepers who spend a significant amount of time training on their own, but I thought I would just check out how Ian was getting along with his new charges. Ian told me that he has worked with both players before. Kenny Arthur the year before last at Accrington Stanley, and Matt Edwards when he was a t Leeds United.
Ian likes both keepers and particularly the mix of youth and experience. While Ian has worked with the two keepers before it is a year or more since Kenny has had the structure to his training that he is enjoying now. It is obvious that Kenny has been brought in as the number one keeper but Ian believes young Matt is a good foil for his senior colleague, and both have got on very well together.
It has been a very quiet day, although I have managed to get quite a few things done on the remote computer that I didn't think I would have got done. I'm sorry there's not that much to report on, and I've already done ice cubes and mini Pringles to death. I guess I could talk about how many Ferrero Rochers you can eat in a minute but I'll leave that for another day.
One final thought for the day however. You might want to question the sanity of a man who could have gone and lay on a sun bed by the pool to read his book and drink cool beer while watching the pretty girls go by but instead opted to do some work for the b****y Stadium Company!
