Pre-Season
Predicaments,
Preparation and Promotion?
Historically speaking the return to pre-season training tends
to result in a few of the following scenarios. The majority of fans will speak
in quick, excitable witters to any other fan willing to listen about the latest
signing to their sides’ armoury, safe in the knowledge that this is the missing
piece to the puzzle. With the arrival of pretty much any signing there usually
comes the odd negative remark taken from the deepest depths of an internet
forum about ‘so and so’ having a ‘shocker’ away at Barnet in 2008. As a result then
he obviously cannot be as good as the club are making him out to be. Clubs in
order to presumably shift season tickets and at the same time to create a
positive buzz will spout their lofty ambitions, publically and fans will eagerly
lap it up in equal measures. Alongside this the club’s respective website will
be regularly updated with exciting developments such as how long the grass has
grown and that the toilets have been deep cleaned. Well maybe the second one
was unrealistic.
The days of the players returning to be met by running
trainers and little else, seem to be disappearing. The former Wolves manager
Mick McCarthy once revealed a flaw to the plan of sending players running for
huge distances at a time.
“We were doing a road run and we ran so far in
Barnsley that a few of us got lost. As we had fallen such a long way behind the
others, a small group of us decided to hitch a lift back to the ground. By the
time everyone else got back, me and three others were already in the
bath."
Clubs nowadays seem to pride themselves in the apparent
uptake in the pre-season revolution. The days of running till you drop have
been replaced by the much heralded ‘scientific approach’ which places more
emphasis on replicating match conditions. This is done through the use of a
football and short, sharp exercises designed to create levels of fatigue
similar to the end of a ninety minute match.
Certainly this is representative of the noise coming out of
Valley Parade at the moment as Phil Parkinson looks to turn around a sinking
ship and put it firmly back on course. The summer signings have arrived to much
hype and positivity. Well maybe not one signing, but we won’t go into that. The
signing of Andrew Davies remains and is likely to remain the standout signing in
the division so far with only possibly Jon Parkin at Fleetwood matching Davies
for both quality and pedigree. Trialists continue to come and go at all clubs
and many without the fans even knowing of their existence at the club. The
Bantams have their fair share but on the whole seem much less reliant on the
importance to find a select few to improve the first team than in previous years.
This is a welcome change as even early on the first eleven seems pretty much
set in stone. Any trialists that are awarded deals will be likely back up to
the eleven and not shoehorned in.
At the same time though, no news is good news. Everything
seems quiet down at Valley Parade with Phil Parkinson not one to spout his
mouth off with outlandish statements (Steve Evans take note) With Parkinson’s plans
starting to take shape and pre-season well underway, less than two weeks remain
until the cup game at Meadow lane. The pre-season matches that have occurred so
far are going well with all the strikers, barring not yet up to speed Alan Connell
scoring regularly and only 2 goals conceded so far. Although if you subscribe to
Bantams player and were hoping to see Nahki Wells’s goal from the other night,
the cameraman missed it so in honesty it could have an arthritic Grandma
sneaking onto the pitch and rounding the keeper for all we know. Maybe that
would have made pre-season more interesting?
Nothing to grumble about, not yet.
