The Inside Forward - It's Training Men

Love it or hate it most teams will offer something up at least once a week in the way of training. There’s none of that sports science stuff the pros use to gain a five percent advantage and no detailed analysis of what each player’s body needs and will respond to best. It’s more a case of avoiding clashes with Champions League, GAA training or Eastenders so that a few people might actually turn up. Then booking something that will keep the players interested enough to come back each week whilst simultaneously giving them something beneficial that might just possibly, with a bit of luck, add to the weekend’s performance.

As a veteran of many seasons and many incarnations of our team I’ve seen most options by now with varying degrees of success and enjoyment. For years we played a game of ball in a school gym, which was fantastic for those cold and wintry evenings but not so good in a thunderstorm. The leaky roof created lethally slippery patches on the wooden floor that accounted for more injuries than any league games. It also accounted for one curtailed session as some wayward shooting got our ball stuck in the roof supports. One genius duly fired our spare ball at it in an attempt to dislodge it but only succeeded in getting that one stuck alongside.

The benefits of that weekly run out were slowly eroded away after a couple of years anyway. With the same guys playing against the same guys simmering tensions gradually increased and at the end of it our two central midfielders were at each other’s throats each session and consequently at the weekend too.

As part of a younger and more serious side I’ve also experienced seemingly endless months of gym work. Never a fan of pushing myself through the pain barrier I was constantly put to shame by the GAA lads who came over during the break in their season. They seemed to like nothing more than killing themselves on shuttle runs, only stopping to knock out repeated bouts of sit ups and press ups. And they did their press ups properly too, not like mine with one eye on the manager to see if he was looking my way.

After slogging away in the gym all winter, when the days start to stretch longer in the evenings it’s a luxury to get back out on to the grass and play a bit of five-a-side football. Usually in a desperate bid to develop silky tiki-taka skills overnight, we’ll play the first half as three-touch football but as the kind of player whose second touch is normally a header, my third is usually a panicked hoof up field or over the hedge.

Whatever option the manager goes for if he can motivate ten or eleven players to turn up each week then he’s doing well. On match day he then has to decide whether to pick the superstar striker who prefers the pub to the pitch on a weeknight or the enthusiastic, but sadly useless, guy who always shows up and puts the work in. Thankfully that is a decision I don’t have to make each week.

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