We ended up in some decent Kompany in Spain .. Strach even turned up to tell us to cut out all the noise
A familiar face walked towards me this week and said: “I wondered who was making all the noise.”
Yesterday we took on Vincent Kompany’s Anderlecht but earlier in the week Gordon Strachan turned up at our La Manga base to watch the likes of Bayer Leverkusen, Cologne, Utrecht and the German Under-17 national side training on the pitches next to us. The England women’s cricket team were also working on an area next to us.
Gordon claimed he had no idea we were here but the racket we were making caught his attention and his nose got the better of him.
All the teams are training at the same times and he said al l the loud voices, the fun and the camaraderie was coming from our boys.
He said the noisiest pitch was ours and that’s what dragged him to it. I just looked down the other side of the pitch during training and there was the former Scotland and Celtic manager standing there.
I’ve met him a few times and I told him if he wanted to join us at any time for lunch or dinner then he should give us a shout and he took us up on the offer.
It was great to get some time with him to talk football. A guy like him, with all his knowledge and experiences at all levels, it’s an education to listen to Gordon.
He provided a fascinating insight into some of the clubs he’s been at and the dressing rooms he’s been in.
Gordon talked about his belief that footbal l really hasn’t changed. With all the sports science and all the analysis and stats that seem to be everywhere in the game now, he said: “The one thing that never lies is your own eyes.”
Whether that’s looking at players and determining whether they need extra training or not, should I give them a morning off, who’s looking tired in a game, your eyes tell you everything.
He believes people have moved away from just seeing things for yourself as we are so driven by stats.
There is a danger we can become bogged down and sometimes even deceived by what some data and statistics tell you.
It was great to get his insight on so many things.
The aim is to make the six days here as fun as possible. It’s cool in the morning and cool at night but during the day it’s perfect training conditions.
There’s also lunch and dinner every day at Luigi’s.
We had a decent friendly draw last night against Anderlecht and Gordon came along to watch. There was also a game against Ajax Jong — the Amsterdam outfit’s B team, who play in the Dutch second tier. It’s all made this winter training camp so beneficial.
There’s an ongoing two-player challenge between Marvin ‘Bartman’ Bar t ley and Gary ’Stretch’ Maley.
Every day we have a sprint and shooting test and the final two in the race go against each other with the loser having to sing to the group.
It was a photo finish but I felt Gary just about edged it by a nose. So we decided to upload the race on to social media to see what others thought about this close-run contest.
Marvin launched a charm offensive by asking Hibs fans to back him and was putting green love hearts on his tweets. It was below-the-belt behaviour as he begged supporters for votes. He even dragged his pal Charlie Austin of West Brom into it and even he started a campaign to get Marvin over the line.
We had to feel sorry for big Gary. Bartley brought out all his big-hitters as our back-up keeper has little social media presence and truth be told, he has very few mates! Needless to say, he had to sing and Gordon Strachan was right, your eyes and ears don’t l ie. He wa s horrendous.
He said all the loud voices, the fun and the camaraderie came from our boys