Brentford’s First Team squad have travelled to Spain for a winter training camp during the Premier League’s break for the World Cup. As ever, Peter Gilham is documenting his time away with the staff and players.

Thursday was another bank holiday in Spain, the second of the week.

La Puríssima, as it is known, marks the Immaculate Conception story in the Bible.

Celebrations however tend to be somewhat muted, and there are contrasting stories as to the origins of the title ‘Immaculate Conception’.

All we do know is that it’s not about the virgin birth of Christ as Christmas would then fall in September. The many theories behind it are therefore best left to another day.

I have a funny feeling that the next paragraph will not elicit any sympathy whatsoever from those based in the UK.

Another day in Girona, and we woke up to cloudy skies and a forecast of scattered showers and a disappointing temperature of just 13 degrees. There was no blue sky to be seen. Upon arrival at Girona’s training ground, nature had even managed to photoshop out the surrounding mountains, such was the cloud cover. Having checked the weather forecasts in the UK, it’s probably best that we don’t linger on how cold it seems to be here.

Prior to arriving at the pitches, it had been breakfast as normal followed by the obligatory medical prep undertaken by our excellent staff of Messrs Greig, Stubbings, Thompson and Horgan. 

Then it was time to choose your preferred means of transportation for the journey to the ground, be it wheels (buggy or bike variety) or legs.

Almost every player chose the two-wheel variety while the media/content team chose the two-leg variety. In fact, I indicated my apologies to them as I ‘sped’ past them in the buggy I was sharing with the one player who chose the easier option. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I didn’t quite hear the response from Chris, Luke, Dan and Ciaran as we disappeared into the distance.

Thursday’s session, after Wednesday’s footgolf, was more standard in the build-up to Saturday’s behind-closed-doors friendly.

It started with gym prep before it was time to go out on to the pitch for the regular warm-up, then straight into the various coaching sessions. These comprised of different variations of small-sided games.

These training sessions lasted in total around two hours before it was time to make the return journey back to base for lunch.

The scattered showers made the return journey to the hotel rather less appealing.

Post lunch and after a period of downtime, the players were spilt into two groups. They were detailed to undertake a session in the gym and attend an analysis meeting. The two groups alternated.

The remainder of the late afternoon and evening panned out in similar fashion to previously, without the football.