Final 2 days of training

Yesterday was Thursday and we had most of the day to relax before training with Newcastle Town at night. We went for a couple mile run with the team before playing, and it was kind of disturbing how much trouble some of the guys on the team were having. I guess they ARE still part-timers (as opposed to "full-time professionals"). We were...disappointed to put it mildly. I think both of us finally showed, not really publicly, just how exhausted we were from these 2 weeks. We talked afterwards about the level of play and how it seemed to be glorified pick-up. not many people seemed to be in positions, except Steve, who again took pity on me and also hates losing, so he was playing defense (the only other defender on our team was the 49 year old assistant manager). Needless to say, without a proper warm-up, neither of us ever really got comfortable on the field. so, that being disappointing, we only had one more session left, with Crewe today. This also was less than satisfying for us. Again, its probably the fact that we've been going pretty hard for two weeks and the extent of what we'll need to do has become more obvious to us, we were both just ready to be done playing. Not that the trip has been disappointing, far from it...but after the session today we were both very relieved. Crewe has a big game tomorrow against Millwall, so it was a pretty lax day for them, which usually means, again, not much defense was played in the small sided and mid sized games.

However, at the end of the session, we talked to Glen, one of the head scouts at Crewe and talked about the best way to get trials. Unfortunately, its not easy, especially being America. And by that I mean that we're 21 and 22 and around most of the world, 21 and 22 year olds already have 3 or more years of professional experience. So, it will be hard to get clubs to try and let people of our age to trial with them when they've got no previous professional experience. But, it is what it is, and now we just have to go home and concentrate on finishing up senior requirements and then get back to work training and such. Tomorrow we're spending the day in Manchester before coming back and having dinner with Ken and his family. A little unwinding before flying home on Sunday. ah yes, we went to the local pub with our host family tonight, the Man in Space. Most places around here having something that they'll call "the mixed grill" or something of the sort. Its really a carnivore's delight. We both got that...for the 2nd time since we've been here. Anyway, we're looking forward to getting back to the states and being back at Whitman. We'll post about our trip tomorrow as well as some closing remarks about the trip in general, what we learned, where we'll go from here, etc...

S&B