We’ve won the dashes

Norwood keeping fit on cricket pitch

SHEFFIELD UNITED star Oliver Norwood is aiming to hit football for six with a Champions League and FA Cup double – after staying fit at his local cricket club.

The Blades and

Northern Ireland midfielder is ready to bowl opponents over as Chris Wilder’s stars prepare to continue their amazing top-four chase and battle for a place in the

FA Cup Final.

Norwood relieved the monotony of lockdown by gatecrashing his local cricket club near Bacup in East Lancashire.

And he’s raring to go, with big prizes awaiting

Wilder (right) and his men as the season gets set to restart on June 17.

“I’ve missed the football because the fitness work has been gruelling,” said Norwood, who is in the top10 for distance covered this season by Premier League stars. “We were doing a Wattbike session for an hour, early in the morning before breakfast.

“Then in the afternoon it was out for a run in a local park, pitch or, for me, the local cricket ground.

“It’s at the bottom of my lane. First time, I had to climb over the fence because it was shut!

“One day I went down and climbed over the fence. I thought, ‘There’s nobody here’. I set my markers out and ran

and ran round it.

Harder

“Next day I went back and thought the grass was a bit long. The groundsman was there and I just said, ‘You don’t mind me running round, do you?’.

“He said, ‘No, we’re nowhere near each other so crack on’. It’s only a small amateur cricket club. Climbing over fences to do my running – who’d have thought!

“Then it was back home for weights. We had weekends off – which was needed. It was much harder than the off-season

programmes we were given but it has shown. When we came back we did the same testing we do on the first day of pre-season and everybody has bettered their scores.

“That shows where we’re at, the hard work we’ve put in and how dedicated we are to finishing this season strongly.”

Norwood is glad the Blades now have the chance to battle rivals like Manchester United, Chelsea and Wolves for a place in Europe on the pitch rather than see the season decided by a computer.

He said: “We want to earn it on the grass, out there on a Saturday afternoon. We don’t want points per game and all that kind of thing.

“There’s a real excitement because we never expected to be in this position but we are on merit, and we want to finish off as we started.

“The manager is raring to go, too. He couldn’t wait to get us back in when the green light was given.

“In his words, ‘Let’s crack on!’. We’re a group with no airs and graces. That’s been evident the way we’ve gone about it. I think we’re everyone’s second-favourite team.

“They love the story of how we were predicted to be down by Christmas, we won’t win a game and all that nonsense.”