Thursday was competition day at the training camp in Germany. That meant competitive football, gruelling runs and endless drills. As ever this week, Peter Gilham was our man on the spot to let you behind the scenes of another day in Donaueschingen.
Once again, a beautiful morning was the prerequisite for the start of the day in this picturesque setting in Southern Germany. It turned out to be the hottest yet and it coincided with the sternest test for our Brentford heroes on the training pitch.
Each day following breakfast, the Medical team swing into action with all of the players having the opportunity for treatment, massage or just purely advice, as they prepare themselves as best they can for whatever may be lying in wait for them during the day ahead. Then everybody makes their way to the pitch, this week we are borrowing the home of SV Aasen 1928, for training.
Prior to the innovative training routines that the coaching staff have planned for them, the strength and conditioning staff put the players through their paces. On Tuesday, for the early evening session following a day of travel, it started with a session in the marquee next to the pitch, a session which is based on the players individual needs.
The group was split up with some doing stretching exercises whilst others took on band-assisted mobility exercises. This was to get any stiffness resulting from the travel out of the system. That was followed by a short warm up, then a passing drill before the players were handed over to the coaching staff.
Yesterday, Wednesday and day two of the blog, the strength and conditioning staff again initially used the marquee for individual work and then moved on to splitting the group into two with Chris Haslam taking one group and Tom Perryman the other, in which they focused on accelerations and finished with a “wicket running” drill (putting mini hurdles at set distances that players have to sprint over) which helps the players with their sprinting cadence (the number of steps taken per minute during a run) and body position. As it happens, the players did particularly well hitting some very fast top speeds.
It was then the turn of the coaches to lead the training and to be honest, I would rather not go into detail as to do so would be like forthcoming opponents hiding in the bushes at Jersey Road to try and gain an insight into our tactics (not that that would ever happen of course!).
Today followed a similar pattern in respect of the preparatory work, prior to the training session, which was, to say the very least, exhilarating. I have to say I am extremely privileged to be in the position of seeing our heroes show the effort and quality on a daily basis, that as fans, we would normally see for just 90 plus minutes maybe just once or twice a week.
Today’s session in blistering heat lasted in excess of two hours and was non-stop, pulsating and exciting, and I am in total awe of every one of them. They were split into four teams and were set a number of team-building, football-based challenges, all of which were based on speed of mind and body, not to mention precision. I have to say I was totally exhausted on completion, and I was just watching.
Each different set of challenges earned team points, and it became more and more competitive, with the winning team of Bryan Mbeumo, Vitaly Janelt, Shandon Baptiste, Halil Dervisoglu, Tristan Crama and Fin Stevens nudging ahead at the last knockings.
Given the efforts shown by all concerned, following lunch there was some down time until 5pm when a number of gym sessions at the hotel, and individual meetings were planned. Unfortunately, still no update re the plans for our newcomers to embarrass themselves in front of us. But I will keep you posted as it’s one of the lowlights of the pre-season Training Camps!
However, later in the evening I was given the undoubted pleasure of welcoming Thomas Strakosha to the Training Camp having flown in to join the group, along with Zanka.
This particular septuagenarian, yours truly, continues to live the dream.