The day was a little bit like after The Lord Mayor's Show following the exertions of the team building exercise 24 hours earlier.

The players and staff were all quite animated at breakfast talking of the previous days exploits while I sat there nodding along as if I too had gone through the rigours of the three hour endurance test.

Well I had, but from a very safe distance, just far enough not to be noticed by the instructors.

But whilst there must have been many tired and aching bones; it certainly wasn't apparent from what I saw, which is a measure of how far this squad of players has come in a short space of time.

In fact, in that respect, you may be interested by some stats collated by Head Of Conditioning Chris Haslam.

The last pre-season after two full weeks the players had undertaken eleven sessions totalling 920 minutes.

This pre-season in less than two weeks the players have had 18 sessions totalling a very impressive 1,420 minutes.

Believe me these boys are super fit or at least getting there.

The mid-morning section of the day was spent with gym sessions before it was all over to the beach volleyball area.

Now this was fun and brought out the best, and worst, in some folk.

Needless to say I'm not prepared to name him on the principle of what goes on tour, stays on tour.

But whoever it was, first and foremost he reduced the width of the court, then reduced the length of the court, and when play commenced he constantly (or should I say conveniently) forgot what the score was.

He was the only captain to decide on a system to which his team should play (he chose a diamond formation) and duly went on to be the only captain who failed to get even one win in a series of three matches.

He also blamed the British Sports Minister for his inability to teach the English the proper rules of beach volleyball.

Anyway, as I say I'm not prepared to name him (and it as nothing to do with the fear of losing my job).

Anyway a great time was had by all with the winning team, winning all their games, consisting of Martin Fillo, Sam Saunders, Jack Bonham and Adam Forshaw.

After lunch it was a chance for the players to attend the clinic and have some training preparation if they so desired or have a well-deserved rest.

Whist sitting in the reception area during the afternoon, the two instructors who had put the players and company through torture the previous day, arrived to meet Uwe and sat in reception.

On seeing me they recognised me from the day before and asked if my thighs and calves were ok.

I said yes but didn't let on that they should be having not taken part in the torturous activities they had been the architects of.

However to see the players faces as they walked through was an absolute picture, as If they had visions of a replay.

You could almost see the colour drain from their faces on first sight but this time, off duty; the bullies were pussycats.

Late afternoon, our owner Matthew Benham arrived having flown in via Erfurt; I walked over with him to the Training Pitches where the players had already started their warm up.

Whilst talking to him I was reminded that he's a great visionary; I've been in his presence on a number of occasions and have always been inspired not to say excited by his vision for the Club.

I have total faith in what he plans for the future and in the short time it took to walk to the pitches I received proof that his visions do manifest themselves.

In conversation, he said that he believed we had real problems with mosquitos this year when training, to which I replied no.

Well, within five minutes of watching training, the little beggars had bitten a number of the back room staff unmercifully, and we were plagued with mossies throughout the entire 90 minute plus training session, which brought back memories of Norway two years ago.

Then it was dinner at 7.30pm, and twenty minutes in came the recognisable sound of a metal spoon tinkling the side of a glass.

There was a training camp debutant in our midst and he had been outed.

Matthew rose, grabbed a chair, stepped on it and duly introduced himself with name, age and where he comes from.

Within seconds he had launched in to a more than passable version of "Strangers in the Night."

After dinner, Matthew took time out to talk to the players and staff regarding the season ahead and how he sees it playing out.

Based on the mossie vision, it's gonna happen.