The Brentford 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.
The World Cup in Qatar slicing our Premier League season in half means that we have another pre-season (which should read mid-season) training camp.
The party of players and staff departed early afternoon, after a training session, to head for Luton Airport for the charter flight to Girona.
Girona is some 62 miles north of Barcelona in the North Catalonia area of Spain.
This ancient city has an old quarter, which has been used as a location for shows such as Game of Thrones and Killing Eve. Just don’t expect too much espionage and intrigue from any psychopathic assassins over the next seven days, nor the appearances of any legendary and particularly odd-looking creatures (well at least I hope not).
It was a journey like no other, based on travelling to previous training camps, as no one had forgotten their passports, missed the coach or mislaid their luggage. We’ve made great strides over the years, not only on the pitch!
We arrived for dinner, where Thomas Frank welcomed us into the dining room with a handshake and a few words for each of us.
Following dinner, it was time for those who so wished to watch the final throes of South Korea’s valiant World Cup adventure, ended by Brazil, the team everyone appears to have fallen in love with, unless of course you’re English. We of course have our own heroes.
“It was a journey like no other; no one had forgotten their passports, missed the coach or mislaid their luggage. We’ve made great strides over the years, not only on the pitch!”
So, all in all, a fairly uneventful day during our travels, with yours truly unable to spill the beans on anything happening out of the blue. Not that I would, of course!
I’ll close this first blog with something totally, well almost, unconnected. I had the pleasure, at the invitation of fellow Bees fan John Edwards (Rhino of Status Quo fame), to go and see the legendary band live at Wembley Arena on Saturday night.
You’ll be pleased to hear that John didn’t let us down, and instead of him singing the line ‘Here we go, rockin' all over the world’ he sang the far more tuneful lyrics, ‘Ivan Toney and Bryan Mbeumo’ to the thousands singing along.
I’m sure the two of us weren’t the only ones in attendance to have paid homage to two of our heroes having seen a good few recognisable faces among the crowd.
And so to bed, or as the locals would say: 'Y asi a la cama!'