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20 june 2001
Back in Blighty.

Back from my holiday now and back to reality.

First things first, about the eagerly awaited deep sea fishing trip, the carp record is still intact after about 2 hours of trawling the Caribbean Sea, my rod bent over and the reel started giving out line like a scene from 'Jaws', I thought 'this is it- a monster on the end of my line!'. After about 10 minutes of reeling in I realised there wasn't too much of a fight and as I looked over the back of the boat realised it was a 3-4 lb Barracuda. It was a bit of a disappointment on the weight side of things but it is my first sea fish and had some mean teeth on it, and after all I could have caught nothing!

The flight home was Sunday night and took off from Antigua at 10.00pm their time but with an 8 hour flight and 5 hours time difference we landed at 11.00am Monday morning GMT. I know there's worse flights but I still had a touch of jet-lag on Monday and Tuesday so watching T.V at 4.00am was on the agenda (not great believe me, I just stuck VH1 classic rock channel on).

Today (Wednesday) I went into the training ground early but no one was there till 12.00 so I got a rub off Darren Page the masseur and went to the David Lloyd gym for a work out. Plenty of groin stretches and a run with some groin weights to finish. I saw Adam Nowland who has come back early to get some fitness after breaking his foot at Blackpool last season. He's originally from about 10 miles away from where I grew up and says he's a North End fan and that he used to watch when I was playing. This is the first time this has happened and makes me fell pretty old. He seems like a good lad and has knuckled down training in the gym doing a few sessions with Daley. Hope to see him banging the goals in this season, but he's still young and learning.

I also bumped into Damian Francis and he's making fantastic progress. He is looking really good after what he's been through and says his knee feels great. I don't want to put a time limit on him but the feeling I got was that he'll be back before originally first thought. The only advice I could give him would be not to rush it because, being young, he's got plenty of time on his side and I would hate him to break down again. He's one of the nicest guys you could meet and is honest as the day is long.

I had messages on my phone from Trond and Willo and they are both on well deserved breaks and have been told they don't have to report back till a week later than us non-internationals. I'm sure Kenny and Hughesy will have been told the same but I reckon Ken will come in anyway, he's a great pro and personally don't think he could miss the first few days of banter!

Bobby Childs, one of the physios, came in at 12.00 and gave me a checking over before looking at Des Byrne who had a niggling groin injury at the start of summer- but says he feels fine now. Things are looking pretty good all round and I can't wait to get back into the swing of things.

I've been reading reports all day about the never ending new ground saga, it must be hard for all the fans to keep getting their hopes up then having a knockback, but believe me the players feel it too. It would be great if we got our own place and could build it into a fortress where other teams would hate coming. It's not an ideal situation playing in a ground which isn't our own but we have to be professional and get on with it. It must be twice as hard for you supporters to keep coming to support us in a ground that isn't ours and I have major respect for the hardcore fans who turn up every week. Hopefully if we can get promoted this season that will strengthen our cause tenfold so please keep the support up and believe me I'll be doing my bit in the dressing room and on the pitch, together hopefully we can all achieve our goal.

Gareth.