Finished until September

When I arrived this morning at the backword game I had been given on Friday, I saw the nets weren't up and the home team, who are usually changed and warming up sometimes as early as 45 minutes before kick off, were standing about in the car park, still in their "day" clothes. When their manager gave me a "cutting the grass" signal, I didn't think he was suggesting anything about my gardening prowess and it was with dismay that I found out my season was finishing, as it had started back in January at the same ground, with a postponement.

I decide not to insist they collected up all their subs and paid me in 10p pieces, but reported the facts to the League Secretary when I got home. Well the truth is that I got halfway through the report when the phone rang. It was one of the senior players for another Premier Division team reporting that their referee hadn't turned up - where is the commitment of these match officials? - could I help?

I jumped back in the car and made my way to their ground and found their opponents were the team who had phoned on Tuesday night when their referee hadn't turned up! We kicked off in bright sunshine with blue skies overhead and the temperature around 23C and I had no sunscreen on my freshly shaved head.

The game went well with only a couple of disputed decisions, but we did have a player suffer an injury to his ankle. He tried to turn and move into space on 19 minutes to receive a pass from a team mate but his ankle cracked and he worried he had broken it. The away team manager was the first on the scene when I summoned help and he spent quite some time tending to the player once he had been removed from the field before the player gingerly moved around to what passed for his team's technical area (not marked out for Sunday League football).

The game finished 5-3 to the away team which allowed them to leapfrog the home team and move into 3rd place. Everyone went home friends and I went home fried! The afternoon was supposed to have been spent watching the League Two Play Off Final, but instead I ran around buying up supplies for my first outdoor cooking session of the close season. Needless to say I'm unlikely to start my pre-season training tomorrow as planned and it seems Wednesday will see me take an easy jog to break myself in gently.

So whatever you are getting up to in the close season and I know WRCFA School of Excellence has two trips planned (Lisboa Cup, Portugal and the Aarhus Cup, Denmark?), I hope your training goes well, those of you who have fitness tests pass them without any problems and we'll do it all again from August onwards.

See my cooking skills in action ...

Closing Dates and Changing Plans

Closed my dates with my old Supply league tonight as I'm expecting only to officiate as a referee for them next season. It didn't have seem strange as I used to close maybe 5 dates a season with them and tonight I closed 5 in one month!

Fat Lad rang lateish to say that he had a game booked for tomorrow night but it clashed with an appointment booked for his Level 4 development group. He offered it to me and I gratefully accepted it. It's a chance to try out some new man management stuff before the season starts!

Finally, Thursday night's training session is off as Chuckle Elder has to train earlier than usual because he has an end of term meal booked with colleagues. Fat Lad asked me if I fancied attending the School of Excellence, but I'd rather wait for an official invite then have the potential embarrassment of being turned away.

Training 2.12

Sometimes I dislike training, other times I enjoy it ... tonight I absolutely detested just about every single second!

We started with the usual lap around the field at a gentle pace. Fat Lad and Chuckle Elder, tired from their recent exertions in passing their respective fitness tests, took things a little slower but trotted in close behind me and Paulie. It was then that Chuckle unleashed his terrifying plan.

We were to run sideways (left leg leading) for 1/4 of the length of the touchline before turning and running sideways (right leg leading) to the half way line. Once there we ran backwards for another 1/4 of the length of the touchline before turning and jogging the remainder of the touchline.

We then walked 6 yards along the goal line before running at 3/4 pace to the opposite goal line. Another 6 yard walk along the goal line was followed by a light jog to the edge of the penalty area, lifting the pace to the halfway line and then lifting it again to the edge of the far penalty area before slowing it down to the goal line.

Again a slow walk 6 yards along the goal line was followed by another 3/4 pace run to the goal line at the opposite end of the field. We had the recovery of walking back to the start point before going through the whole routine again. We completed 4 repetitions before having a 5 minute rest. After the rest we did another 4 repetitions but on the second to last 3/4 paced run I felt a tweak behind my knee and pulled up short by about 8 yards.

I stretched my leg out, did the 3 pace jog/run and then ran in the last 3/4 pace run (but more at 65%) and that was the end. A light jog around the field just to loosen things up again and it was time to go home. Calories 878, average hr 78%, max hr 97%.

No training on Wednesday as we're doing something a little different on Thursday and then it's time for my course on Saturday!

Another busy day

Chuckle Elder passes his Football League fitness test (yay!), I start scouting for referees for a local tournament (bad move), receive some good advice (thanks David) and my pre-season friendly between Guiseley and Sunderland is moved back to August 11.

This last one means closing another date with my Supply League. My mail to close the date coincided with receiving some guidance notes from the League Chairman who also has the role of Referee's Officer. I hope he doesn't see this as some sort of knee-jerk reaction and that I really was only advised this evening of the change of date.

Training 2.11

There's no escaping it, this training lark has completely taken over my life. I have had a rotten week at work travelling to the far ends of the M62 on Monday, narrowly avoided another trip to the same destination on Wednesday and then made a 14 hour round trip to the end of the A1 and beyond!

Normally I'd start the weekend with a few cans after training, in fact my wife is polishing off a nice bottle of Colombard Chardonnay with her feet up (she's had a tough week too). Tonight my first thought after training this weekend was not the usual head to the off licence to dull the niggle of such a bad week, no I was wanting to get home so I could have an amazing salad. That was after narrowly avoiding a cardiac arrest as Fat Lad put me and Paulie through our paces.

He's started attending the County FA's School of Excellence for training sessions on Thursday nights and bringing their session to us on Friday. This seems fine except this week, because he is doing his fitness test on Sunday, he just gave us instructions and stepped back to shout encouragement. Not really much comfort when my chest feels like it has a pair of rib spreaders inserted in it and I am running in deep sea divers boots.

Tonight's session consisted of starting at the goal line and running

- to the edge of the goal area and back
- to the edge of the penalty area and back
- to the half way line and back
- to the edge of the far penalty area and back
- to the opposite goal line and back

When the SoE were doing this same exercise, they did it across the field with the gaps between turns spaced proportionally, they were doing it 1m20s but we had at least another 200m we had 2m30s. We got close on most of the runs but only completed 4 before I started feeling very, very ill.

We took a 5 minute rest and then did another 4 repetitions, this time across the field. Even so at the end of the 4th I collapsed with fatigue (long time since that happened!). This was one of the toughest sessions we have ever tried and it really hurt. After the warmdown, it was time to wish the Fat Lad good luck for Sunday and head home for a well earned bath. Calories 1053, average hr 78%, max hr 98%.

Training 2.10

A pleasant surprise on stepping on the bathroom scales this morning as they told me that I've lost 3Kg (1/2st) since coming back from my holiday in Crete just 9 days ago. This might not seem remarkable as everyone puts weight on while on holiday and loses it when they come home, but I have been the same weight (or within a couple of pounds) for around 18 months. So I'm going to press on with my no beer/no bread/loads of salad diet, even thought it's becoming more difficult to ignore my rumbling stomach!

Tonight's training had a good turn out with Mr H, Chuckle Elder, recently married Ricky, Fat Lad and Paulie all turning up for a session. The first four mentioned above decided they would do a sprint session and as regular readers will know, my hamstrings are like cheesestrings so I try to avoid sprint training, especially this close to the start of the season.

I asked Chuckle to give me a stamina building session and Paulie wanted to join in. He set us a target of running 30s on/30s off for 30 repetitions. He even set the pace for us on the first run and we did our best to keep to the same pace throughout. We had a 1 minute rest after 10 and 2 minutes rest after 20 and finished almost on our knees when we did the 30th.

On the 12th run, Paulie pointed out a dog "deposit" that we needed to avoid but I managed to trample straight through it three laps later, requiring me to spend 15 minutes trying to clean it when I got home! Our session was a hard one and at the end I was absolutely exhausted. Calories burnt 1076, max hr 108% and average 80% over 1h4m.

No training on Wednesday as I have a meeting at my son's new school where he will be starting in September. I'll be back at it on Friday when it will be just 2 days to Fat Lad's test!!! The Achilles pain has flared up again but not as badly this time and there's no swelling this time, so happy days.

Oh well ...

My pre-season friendly featuring the team I have supported since I was a boy has been cancelled.

Instead I have been retained for the replacement fixture featuring a Unibond side vs the only team from the North East of England who still play in the English Premier League. I have lost the opportunity of working with Chuckle Elder as the game is on a different day, but I am now out with Mr H ... that will be a treat! So I've lost my dream team and favourite colleague but I get a higher quality team and an established FL referee - happy days!

As for the Achilles injury incurred on Friday, it seems to have been eased. It flared up again this afternoon after taking the dog, boy and Mrs on a walk for an hour around a local park. I think it's the high heel support on the brand of trainers I wear that's causing the problem. I wear the same brand of boots during the season, which would explain the lump and swelling on both Achilles!

Ouch!

With no one to blame but myself as I organised training last night, I seem to have suffered the first injury of the close season.

After sitting watching an hour or so of TV last night after training, before heading for my bath, I felt a pain in my right Achilles tendon. I had felt it earlier in the day when I got up from my desk to go for lunch but it had gone away over the course of the evening. It was just a tightening but it made me walk with a limp (steady!!!).

By the time I'd watched an atrocious film on Sky Movies about an ancient temple covered in flesh eating vines, the pain had been joined by a swelling. The worrying thing was that when I tried to compare the size and shape of the swollen and painful tendon to the other one, I found a lump about the size of a garden pea under the skin on the non-painful tendon. Meanwhile back at swelling central, there was a large hard band developing around the tendon.

I had hoped a good night's sleep would cure my ills and while the swelling had subsided by the time I reached my bath this morning, the pain was still there. I've found that moving around and doing ankle circles relieves the tightness, pain and swelling, so I'm doing that to make things better.

I can't miss training on Monday as I already have Wednesday booked out for a Meet the Parents night at my son's school where he starts in September. We're not in their usual catchment area, but his friends will all go there. As we live across the border in the next Metropolitan Council area, it was no surprise when our application for a place for him was rejected.

We saw no point in making an appeal as the class was full. When we came back from holiday an unsolicited review had been completed by the Governors and he had a place, so he'll not be separated from his nursery classmates after all!

Training 2.9

A word to the wise, never take the mickey out of a bloke's fading suntan when

a) he's still coming to terms with having to go back to work after 2 weeks on the beach
b) he's about to set that night's training session
c) you haven't trained properly for a couple of weeks

My sunburn from my two weeks in Crete has now settled down completely, the peeling has set in and the tan has started to fade. I wasn't that bothered by the banter tonight as I had already decided on the session for tonight on Thursday. It was "envelope" time and the boys were going to work - HARD!

Warm up, especially elongated and messed up just to keep the Fat Lad, Paulie and Penfold on their toes and then into the work. Starting at the bottom left corner of the field, run to the centre mark, turn right to the corner on the same goal line, do 5 press ups. Run again from that corner to the centre mark, turn right and on to the corner on the same touchline, do 5 sit ups. Run back to the centre mark, turn right and on the the corner on the same goal line, do 5 star jumps. Finish by running back to the centre mark, turn right heading back to the corner we started from and on arrival do 5 squats. Rest ... for 90 seconds and repeat ... three times.

After a 6 minute rest at the end of the 4th set, we did another 4 sets. Fat Lad, having had a hard session at the County's School of Excellence last night, was doing some sprint work. He was doing 6x30m, 8x20m, 10x10m and 12x5m. Now Fat Lad finished before us and decided to run us around the last set but not do the exercises on each corner.

Penfold didn't manage to finish all of the first set of four. Paulie did the full set of four both times and on occasion I was glad of his company as I dragged myself around. We also had a few moments of giggles at his expense during the warm down. As we were completing our stretches, he complained of something brown and smelly on his knee. He thought he'd just kneeled in some dog "deposit" and then as he brushed the recently cut grass from his knee, smeared it across his leg! Fortunately for him, it was just some churned up dead grass!

It was a hard, hard work out in the heat tonight .. calories 1213, average he 82% and max hr 100%. The week's total calories 3672!

My whole lower body aches now though ... I'm sure it will be easier next week

Training 2.8

When a fat man with a new tattoo tells me that he's got an easy session planned for me, next time I won't believe him. This time, unfortunately, I did.

A nice early start saw me meeting a new training partner, Paulie. Paulie has never struck me as a Paul. At RA meetings, he seems to linger on the edge of conversations taking in information, offering an occasional comment but generally keeping his own counsel. He reminds me of Donnie Brasco who infiltrated the Mafia for some unknown reason (perhaps because I'm reading the book just now) and Mafia men are never just Paul, so he has the name Paulie or now!

He referees youth football but is looking to do some Open Age in the next few years as his son moves into that age group. For next season he'll be working with U15 and U16 youths and the pace of the game is a little faster than his current level of fitness allows him to feel comfortable with, so he's taken up our open offer to join in with our training.

Back to Fat Lad and his easy session ... It might be easy when the mercury's not shooting past 75f, it might be easy on a flat surface, it might be easy when you've put in 6 weeks more training than me BUT tonight in this heat, up hill and down dale AND still feeling the slight after effects of Crete ... I worked very,very hard.

15 minutes running, 10 minutes rest and 15 minutes running. Seems easy to say and almost as easy to type, but not quite as easy to achieve. I still managed it and finished the session with a very impressive work out. 1342 calories, which is more than I did in many games last season, but achieved in 1h15m. Av hr 84%, max 102% (naughty).

Crete - June 2009 4

Crete - June 2009 3

Crete - June 2009 2

Crete - June 2009

Training 2.7

So having enjoyed 2 weeks peace and quiet on holiday (with a 4 year old in tow ... you must be joking!), it was time to get back into training.

An assorted cast turned up tonight with Mr H, recently married Ricky, Titfer (welcome back James!), Fat Lad and Chuckle Elder. Usual warm up was completed with Mr H undertaking the shuttles, which always adds a bit of variety. They do seem to take longer when he's running them and we had a spot of confusion as our heart rate monitors all started cross talking. Mine hit 122% of maximum, as did Titfer's and Fat Lad's. they are supposed to be coded to prevent it happening but I guess that is still a work in progress!

Then it was time to get down to the hard work, a simple run of three minutes, followed by a two minute rest repeated 6 times. I did as well as could be expected after my break from training and even managed to catch Titfer once and get close to him a second time. By the time we'd finished the 6th lap of our extensive training area in downtown Ossett, Chuckle had burned 833 calories, I'd managed 894 and Mr H was on around 830.

We did a warm down lap and I did some stretches before calling it a day. Calories 1083, hr max (including cross talk) 122%, average 81% - a gentle wake up call for the muscles!

Back in harness

I will admit that I did try to train while on holiday in Crete however with evening temperatures reaching 27 Centigrade some evenings and hitting those heights before 10 on many mornings, it was a lost cause.

So it's back to training tomorrow night with Fat Lad who is 2 weeks away from being confirmed as a Supply League referee. I'm just 3 months from the County's filter test which separates those who will pass the test next year and those that won't.

Meanwhile I may throw up a few scenic pics from the holiday to show why little got done ...

Training 2.6

My legs were still sore from Wednesday's exertions and with training partners slightly low on number I decided on tonight's schedule.

Snails and Penfold turned up looking slightly less than chipper. Snails had trained with Bob on Wednesday and Penfold was still struggling from Wednesday as I was. So it was a gentle lap of the field before the usual shuttles. Penfold was already struggling and sat a couple out.

Then it was time for the real work. Never have I hated a squashed drinks bottle, a bottle of Scottish spring water and two small bananas as much. The squashed bottle went on the edge of the goal area, the spring water on the edge of the penalty area, the first banana on the halfway line and the second banana on the edge of the far penalty area.

So off we went ... goal line to the squashed bottle, back to the goal line, up to the spring water, back to the squashed bottle, up to the first banana, back to the spring water, up to the second banana. Easy to type but not so easy to run at an even pace. The first time we did it, I completed the set (probably around 165m) in 50s which might seem slower but there was a fair amount of time missed out in the 6 changes of direction, something I usually achieve with the poise and precision of an oil tanker!

The 2nd to 5th set were each completed in 1m and then we had a 5 minute rest. We repeated the 5 sets again and again the times followed a similar pattern. Poor old Penfold had suffered a bad reaction in his right knee and had taken a seat on the second of the first set of five. He had surgery on it last year and it still gives him a lot of pain if worked too much.

Just after Penfold headed home, I was on the 4th set of the 2nd five and Fat Lad turned up to do his warm down after a hard session at the County FA with the School of Excellence guys. He didn't let himself down and was well in with the mix of the other level 3s/4s. It shows he's ready for his test in 4 weeks! Mrs Fat Lad also looked ready for her Race for Life on Sunday.

Meanwhile my heart monitor had shown I had hit 119% of maximum on one of the last sets of the first set of 5. Now this comes hard on the back of Monday's little excess of 115% and I wondered if my heart problem was beginning to become a more serious issue. I had only just had a check up a few weeks ago so it seemed unlikely. This was supported by the monitor's reaction when I took my chest strap off ... it hit 113% as the strap laid on the mantelpiece!!!

So I'm not going to be concerned and I'm heading off on holiday in around 28 hours and I'm looking forward to 2 weeks on the beach, in the bar, in the pool, etc. I will admit that I've got training planned for Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday before breakfast. Just got to keep things interesting!

Try not to miss me too much.

P.S. calories 885, av hr 78%, max 119% (must be a fault)

Sad Sight

It's certainly the close season when you see the local councils taking down the goal posts for maintenance. Here's some sets of crossbars on their way to the shop for a lick of paint.

FAMOA 2

Even though it was 9:30 at night, it seems the nice people who administer the FAMOA Incentive Scheme are still hard at work (or maybe they used a time released e-mail).

Either way my logbook has been validated and I have the maximum number of earnable points (1500) available to spend. I'm thinking that a nice Umbro Wembley tracksuit would be good and would look smart fro delivery of training (see left).

That leaves me with quite a few points left over, so I picked out a few other knick knacks, such as a mug, pin badge, lanyard for my whistle and a coin for my 4 year old son, so he stops pinching mine. I'm sure he'll like it. I'm just a little concerned that he has already stated he wants to be either a goalkeeper or a referee when he grows up!

Training 2.5

Always looking for new venues for training and tonight we broke new ground as we headed out for Pugneys Country Park just off Jcn 39 of the M1.

The premise was simple, run as fast as we could on a single lap of the lake there. I've been told in the past, by more than one person, that a single lap is a round 2700m. We therefore worked out that by taking out the length of the car park. the distance around was probably 2500m.

We didn't bother with a warm-up as we were fed up getting wet from the heavy rain beating down. Fat Lad, Penfold (Chris' new name) and I set off at a decent pace but we couldn't keep up with Fat Lad and after about 4 minutes he started easing away from us. Penfold began to move away from me around 5 minutes in and I thought it looked a long way around the lake. Suddenly at 6 minutes and with my heart rate hitting 90%, Penfold stopped.

He hadn't seemed to be struggling and as I passed him I gave him a couple of words of encouragement. He picked his feet up again and then after another couple of minutes he stopped again and the same thing happened after another minute or so, then after another couple of minutes. I knew how he was feeling as it's just how I felt this time last year.

This time around I felt ok and despite having heavy legs, breathing hard, soaked to the skin and having to dig deep up the last couple of little hills, I still had a little left on the run in to the end. Fat Lad had just about completed the distance we had gauged at 2500m in 12 minutes. I took an extra 2 1/2 minutes which probably means that I'm around 400m short. It's not a surprise as I still feel like I am blowing away the cobwebs from not training for 3-4 months.

We had a 10 minute rest then ran the same distance again. This time we dropped the pace and kept Penfold running all the way around. I felt very comfortable and Fat Lad told me off twice for going too fast, but to be totally honest I couldn't help it. I felt I could have run at the same pace for a very, very long time. It took us all 18 1/2 minutes to run the 2500m.

We didn't bother with much of a warmdown either, just a few stretches. I burned 780 calories, with an average hr of 79% and a max of 95%. I've already planned Friday's session and it's going to be hard and as it's my last proper session for 2 weeks, I'll work as hard as I can ... no slacking!

A quick mention for the absentees Andy, not sure where he was - probably cooking up more evil training for Fat Lad when he trains with the School of Excellence gang tomorrow night - soemthing I've done in the past and it is very, very hard. Bobby and Snails were training in Halifax. Zico is injured with a strained back. Titfer, nearly made it but got held up at work.

I expect to see them all back in the next few weeks!!!