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18 july 2001
Hello from Holland!

Hello everyone from the National Sports Centre Papendal in Holland. I've tracked down another CPU away from home and so can update you on happenings out here.

Sports wise, the facilities here are great - a superb gym, pool, tennis, track etc etc, but the best thing is the state of the pitches out here, they are immaculate.

The food's also been really healthy which you would expect and the staff have managed to give us variety so it's not just the same thing every night. Training has been hard, we've cut down to two sessions (three for some people but I'll get to that) a day but the sessions are longer and more specific.

Jon Goodman is here with us and we've been doing quite a lot of work with medicine balls as well as some speed endurance running to keep our fitness up. Jon's been spot on with his sessions and has also noticed when the lads are tired and stiff and need to stretch - we had one session in the pool giving our joints a rest.

The boys have been wearing heart rate monitors throughout the week and that tells Goody how hard each individual is actually working so there's no hiding from hard work. The three main coaches are here, Terry, Stuart and Ernie as well as Stuart Murdoch the goalkeepers coach, so the footballing sessions have been good with lots of one to one coaching.

The three main positions are splitting up at first def, mid, att and doing drills with one of the coaches and then towards the end of the day we have usually finished with a game either 11 vs 11 or some 6 a side games. I have to say that Lionel Morgan and Patrick have been on fire and hope they can keep this form up for the season.

Amongst the forwards David Connolly and Neil Shipperley have both been looking good. David being a sharp forward in the box especially and seems to be a lethal finisher, Neil is bigger and a target for us and has been sticking a few crosses away. There's gonna be some great competition for places up front this year. Another player in training that I think seems to have come on is young Des Byrne, being a left back I have come across him a few times this week and he has matured as a defender getting his positioning spot on and is composed on the ball with it. It's much tougher getting past him this year than previously.

The competition for central midfield places has hotted up too with young Alex Tapp impressing in training alongside Ards, Trond and Andy Roberts. I'm very impressed with the attitude of the young lads here and it can only be a good thing for the club.

Now, back to that third session I was talking about, on the first night we got here Goody had a meeting with the players and anyone with an overall body fat total over 30 has had to do a 30 minute run every morning at 8.00 am. There was a few moans the first morning believe me! Actually 30 isn't massive and most of the lads are out there! I think Trond and David Nielsen are the only ones over 24 who are allowed a lie in. The runs are not massively hard but fat burners so the heart rate is kept low at around 140 bpm, but it's a killer getting out of bed rooming with Trond knowing he's got two more hours kip!

I've been keeping my groin work going here every morning and Steve Allen has been going through a special program with me every day, John Clinkard usually does this with me but he's not here and taught Steve the things to do before we left so that's good and Steve can now help me out whenever needed.

The nights here have been pretty boring with most of the lads turning in quite early, we are not allowed off the complex so most nights I've spent getting my butt kicked on F1 2001 by Trond on his playstation 2. I'll have to brush up on my skills to compete with my new room mate during the season.

Well that's what the lads have been up to - I hope that gives you more of an insight into what's going on over here.

Cheers and see you all soon back in blighty!

Gareth.

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