First day of pre-season
The twenty-sixth of June 2017, the first day of pre-season for Stevenage Football Club under the new management of Graham Westley. It was hot day, with the sun shining down upon the freshly cut pitches at Stevenage’s training ground. It was today that it all begins.
First person to arrive was the man himself, Graham Westley. Stepping out of his matte black BMW, dressed head to toe in a black suit, with an open necked collar. Locking the door behind him, he headed into the training complex ahead of his first day with the squad.
With his plastic coffee cup in hand, he opened the door to his office and strode in. He placed his cup down on his desk before removing his suit jacket and hanging it on the back of his office door. He sat down at his desk and peered down to an enormous stack of papers sat waiting for him.
Ranging from copies of emails and faxes, to club forms, to training session plans, he rummaged through them before pulling out two sheets of paper that were attached via paper clip. He read the information presented on it in great detail before making minor adjustments with his black ball point pen.
He placed the pen back into a mug sat on his desk that was stashed with pens. The final adjustments to his first training session were made, lots of diagrams scattered over the page, that were surrounded by numerous squiggles written by that same black pen.
There was a knock at the door before it opened and walking through came Nicky Shorey and Chris Day, the first team coach and the goalkeeper coach. Westley handed Shorey the two pieces of paper into him hand before saying: “
There’s the set up for this morning’s session, can you go and set them up please”.
Nicky Shorey gave him a gentle nod, “
Of course gaffer”. Him and Day they stepped out of the room with notes in hands, heading down towards the training pitches. On their way down, they collected numerous stacks of cones all of different sizes, a large bag full of bibs and countless bags of footballs. With those in hand, they headed out through the back door towards the pitches.
Outside the front of the training complex, a collection of cars started pulling in, the players had arrived for their first training session. With this knowledge at his disposal, back in his office Westley looked towards coat hanger that was hung up on the wall – on it was his training gear.
He peered up and down, observing the Stevenage Football Club crest at the top, with the initals ‘GW’ printed onto the side of the shirt in bold white writing. He smiled, before getting changed into his gear. With all of it on, he finished off by putting on a pair of old, black Adidas football boots.
He departed his office, walked down the stairs and looked the sign on the wall, ‘pitches’ was written upon with an arrow pointing down the hallway. He followed it, striding down the corridor with a different set of notes in his hand rolled up. He pushed open the door to the pitches, and the sight ahead of him was of luscious grass pitches; and the players all kitted up walking out of another door towards the pitches.
After making that short walk from his office down to the training pitches, all of the player’s heads turned as Westley made those final few steps towards the group – he had the attention of all the players stood in front of him. With everyone’s eyes on him, he smiled before announcing: “
Welcome back everyone, the hard work starts now…”