Latest Apprentices

The troops walked wearily down to breakfast on their rest day following the disappointing result against PSV Eindhoven but our coaches made sure that there was no time to feel sorry for ourselves…

Our trip to Amsterdam took in a lot of things.

On arrival at the Amsterdam Arena we were given a tour around the stadium and got to look at the state-of-the-art facilities at first-hand. The ground really is different class with high tec features like a retractable roof which also has UV lights so that the grass can still get light if it is closed due to bad weather…

I’m pleased to say that off the pitch we’ve been on really good trip over to the Airborne war museum which was part educational, part enjoyable and something we all learnt a lot from. ..

Friday morning brought with it more fantastic weather, with the group walking out to train under the beaming sunshine as we finalised our preparations for our clash with Dutch giants PSV Eindhoven…

Day three started with us all going down to the training pitch to prepare for our game against NEC Nijmegen. We went through our usual pre match preparations of team selection and tactics with coach Lee Elam before heading back to the hotel to have some food and to relax before the game in the evening. ..

In preparation for our fixture against Villareal myself and 3 other players were up and out early to work with (coach) Ammy Ninje. ..

So our tour to Spain is at an end and we’re back in Blighty – so perhaps now is the best opportunity to reflect on a great trip to Valencia and a really positive 12 days. I can’t speak highly enough of the tour on so many fronts. ..

We had our first match of the tour today against the Under-19 side of top Eredivisie club FC Twente, so it was a quiet morning. We started the day by going for a walk through the woods to get our legs going after Tuesday’s double session. ..

Pre-season, a time that is seen from all to be a contrast between mental and physical breakdown as well as success and excitement. For my first blog of this football season, I am going to look at the different views of this important time and maybe give you readers a different way to look at things…

A light morning session was the first port of call on a sunny Wednesday morning…

Breakfast and all meals for that matter has been superb at the hotel over the last week and after we’d finished tucking in once again it was time for a recovery session with Mark (Pease), our sport scientist, which consisted of stretching and activation of muscles…

Yesterday was the first day on which we spent the whole of our time together as a group.

Once breakfast had been polished off it was straight into a team meeting with Travis (Binnion) to run through team selection and tactics for our game with NAC Breda. ..