We woke up to a glorious blue sky this morning, and that remained the order of the day.
Breakfast at 8.30 was followed by a punishing two and a quarter hour training schedule. Not for me I should hasten to add…I was just an innocent bystander!
It never ceases to amaze me though the ingenuity that goes into the sessions which always start with "superfit" Chris Haslam warming the players up in preparation for the coaches. This warming up included a brilliant version of Tag which involved almost all the players and a load of footballs. I won`t even start to tell you the rules, as in truth I didn`t understand them. I`m not too sure some of the players did either but it didn`t stop them giving 100% amid great hilarity.
On conclusion of the training it was back to the Centre for lunch and afterwards a period of individualized training.
Simon Royce, the goalkeeping coach, took the opportunity to take Richard Lee, Simon Moore and Antoine Gounet to the basketball court for an innovative session to further aid their agility whilst there were different programmes for others included active recovery, such as working on the upper body in the gym and a strength session. Then it was off to the Solarium for an ice bath and a rude awakening for the players!
Kevin O`Connor, Tony Craig and Harry Forrester were the first to sample the delights of the ice bath. But no sooner had they taken the breath stopping dip than a lady attendant appeared and told them in no uncertain terms that they must be naked in the Solarium. So off came their shorts followed by the shorts of all the remaining players. Now as is with life in general there are those who, whilst not being prudish, would rather not show their "ahem" manhood to one and all other than those closest to them, there are others though who couldn`t whip their shorts off quick enough. Anyway "what goes on in pre-season training camps stays in pre-season training camps". The players were also particularly amused when looking out of the window to see a jogger jog by similarly totally naked.
The players will be pleased to know that the intrepid Mark Fuller the Club`s photographer was not on hand to take any snaps although a female cleaner was seen to be taking an inordinately long time polishing her area of the floor in the Solarium.
After that it was Dinner and disappointingly no karaoke. There should have been as Mark Chapman and a few more players were lined up to "entertain". But you could see the colour return to their cheeks when dinner was over and they hadn`t received the call. But be assured their time will come.
Late on The Bees Sporting Director Mark Warburton arrived having flown in to Leipzig earlier in company with about twenty or so Bees fans who were once again in good voice on the flight over.
Let`s hope they are again on Tuesday night when we take on FC Erzgebirge Aue who themselves were here at Bad Blankenburg last week that culminated, last Saturday, in a friendly against FC Carl Zeiss Jena which Aue won 5-0.
Peter Gilham