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27 july 2001
Season draws closer.

Two weeks left now and everyone's looking forward to the coming season.

Two good results at weekend and some good performances. I was at the Sutton game and Wu-Tang looked very sharp, Darlo fitted in well too and Ards looked composed in midfield. I'm relishing the chance of getting on the end of some of his long passes, if he is going to play in the middle this season. Shipps scored too which is great for him and us- it'll be interesting to see David Connolly this weekend.

A couple of knocks to report, young Adam Nowland seemed to tweak his hamstring after coming off the bench at Hampton, but after speaking to him he's positive he'll be back next week. A more serious issue is Lionel who has a problem with his knee. He's seeing a specialist about it today and I've heard he could be out for a month- hopefully nothing really serious and he'll be back as soon as poss. He's still only very young and should bounce back quickly from this. The older you get the harder it is to shake injuries off believe me.

On a positive note myself and Duncan Jupp have both been training the last couple of day. I'm over the worst of my ankle injury and although John Clinkard says I'll probably feel little twinges for a couple of weeks there's no lasting damage, just bad bruising to the bone. Duncan has been out for about 10 months and it's great to see him back. His enthusiasm is great and he's one of the fittest at the club, it'll just take time to get back in the swing of things but hopefully that'll be the end of his injury problems. We spent the early part of the week in the gym together and he showed me some great ankle exercises to do and they seem to have worked- a great one was balancing on one foot for 3 minutes then once you've mastered that, try doing it with your eyes closed, not easy but great for ankle ligaments and muscles.

Training this week has been a mixture with a couple of tough days involving speed endurance and runs in Richmond Park then a couple of total footballing days, 3 sessions concentrating on team pattern, closing down and penetration. Wayne Gray has been impressive this week out of the young lads and I think the goal he got at Sutton has done him the world of good. It's still too early to recognise a team that will start the season because training is still mixed up and there's plenty of competition for all places.

This week we've had a French player Laurant Casanova from Bastia training with us. I think he's a centre half, he's certainly big enough to be, he looks composed on the ball but hasn't really been tested in training yet. His English is very limited so Michael Hughes, who speaks fluent French from his time over there, has been translating for him. I've forgotten most of the French I learnt at school but can speak a few words in Norwegian that Trond has taught me but I can't repeat them on a family website :-).

I spotted Kenny, Blackers and Damian doing some hard running drills today so hopefully we'll be getting some of those back to full fitness soon. Peter Hawkins is not as close but not too far away from running- the same with Andreas but Kjetil has still been getting pain from his shin at the fracture site so he's waiting for news after a couple of scans.

Band practice was been postponed last night because Chris has been away and only just got back. On the band side of things I've signed up for piano/keyboard lessons and have my first one next week. I've wanted to do it for a while so finally I've got round to it, dunno how tough it is going to be but I know I'm not going to turn into Jerry Lee Lewis overnight!

Looking forward to the season and getting ready to roast some full backs.

Gareth.