Moors boss Graeme Lee returns with another update for supporters as the squad edge ever closer to their first friendly of pre-season ahead of the 2024/25 campaign.
Hello again, everyone and welcome to my latest update here on the Official Website.
We are three sessions in now. It was last Thursday night that we were back in, and we got the lads together on the grass. The balls were out but we did start with some running unfortunately! It was tough alternating between the ball work and running so it was tough but that is as pre-season should be. We’re trying to build that core fitness.
Saturday was a bit different. We took the lads down to Castle Eden Dene to complete quite a few different little runs – it’s the Triangle Run, we call it. It’s quite a famous one, which I have done in the past and hated it, so we definitely wanted to put that one in! Haha!
In fairness, as much as it is about building the fitness, it’s also the mentality of the players and bringing them together. They were all doing the same thing so they’re helping each other through every step of the way and drive each other on. We’ve got some new people coming into the squad, so we have to try and gel them as much as possible.
It was hard work and a few smiles disappeared during the course of it, is what I would say! Ha! Isaac Fletcher and Callum Ross have come back in real good shape and I noticed that when they came back down after some of the runs they were still talking to each other – so I was saying it was clear we hadn’t pushed them enough if they were still able to talk. We just kept going until we shut them two up really!
On Tuesday night we were back on the grass but there was a little more running for them to contend with too. Then tonight (Thursday), we will start to add a little bit more detail into the lads on how we play and the shape we’re going with. We’ll do some defensive work and build that into another training session on Saturday as we move towards our first friendly at Marske United on Tuesday night.
We’re looking forward to the games now. We’ve brought people into the squad that I want to have a look at so the friendlies will give us that insight on to what the players are like and how they will fit in. They have to understand the way we want the team to play and what their specific roles are within that, so it’s marrying those two aspects together and hopefully we can get everything right come August 10th.
Going back to Marske will be nice for us too. The people at the Club were brilliant with us when we were there, and it was a crying shame what happened there. Thankfully, with the work we did to raise some money before we left and the continued efforts afterwards means they have been able to go again this season and to get in Northern League Division One is even better. It will be fantastic to go back. The Chairman there and some of the staff have been to watch us play at The Brewery Field a few times because we had such a good relationship. It will be great to go back and be one of their first games back in action.
I am excited to see how the fixtures fall for us when they come out on Wednesday. All the other leagues seem to have had theirs already so it’s a bit of an anxious wait to find out how our season will shape up.
That will all help with our planning for the campaign but at the moment it’s all about preparing for everything that goes on during a season of football.
We’re bringing the team together, we’re pushing them on physically and we had a really good chat with them the other day to encourage them to keep pushing themselves by doing extra work at home. We’re up against full-time clubs at this level and we’re only training on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we have to make sure we are doing everything. I never had a reason to question any of the lads’ fitness last season, it was absolutely fantastic – we have to make sure we are at that level again.
Enjoy the weekend and we’ll see you at Marske on Tuesday.
Graeme.
