Cod Almighty | Diary

Fouling the Wolds

5 July 2018

The training camp is a chance for a squad of footballers not only to rebuild their fitness and stamina but to grow closer as a group. A manager is more likely to get that little bit extra out of a squad that bonds emotionally during a period of time spent together away from home, isolated from the distractions of the outside world. And let me tell you, as isolated locations go, Warwick University is roughly on a par with the South Pole.

Your original/regular Diary spent a year as a student at Warwick, so climb up on my knee and let me tell you a few things. First of all, the University of Warwick is in Warwick only in the sense that the football ground of Bolton Wanderers is in Bolton. That is to say: it's not. It's fucking miles away. Warwick University technically falls within the boundaries of Coventry but in practice it is nowhere near bastard anything. It took most of the day to get there and about a week to escape.

While this may have made for something of a distressing and dispiriting student experience, it reassures me immensely in the case of Town's training camp. The extreme desolation of their environment is certain both to focus the minds of our heroes on the training and fitness tasks at hand and to create a tighter-knit unit than supporters have ever seen. Psychologically demanding situations such as penalties, miraculous escapes from relegation and travelling away to Oldham on a Tuesday night in January will be a mere breeze after surviving a week at Warwick.

Vacancies remain for a goalkeeper (reserve) and a striker (prolific, experienced, big and strong, Leo, GSOH). There is no sign of the former, but GTFC are attempting to provide something approaching the latter in the shape of two rumoured trialists down in the wilderness between Kenilworth and Leamington Spa. One is Marc-Antoine Fortuné, ex West Brom, Celtic, Wigan, latterly of Southend, not scoring many but having celebrated his 37th birthday this week. The other is Nikolay Todorov of Hearts, who has neither scored many nor celebrated many birthdays but at least stands a relatively mighty 190cm.

Speaking of penalties, which everyone is, Mitch Rose was given leave of absence from Camp Warwick to fly over and see his brother play in the World Cup, which I'm sure was nice for everyone involved. It'll all be over by the time the Mariners line up against Cleethorpes Town this Saturday for their first fixture of the pre-season programme – tickets for which have sold out from Blundell Park but remain available from an estate agent and local boutique. Camp Warwick will be over, I mean, not England's participation in the World Cup. They've changed the kick-off time to accommodate that. T'ra for now!