A Sunday game means Saturday training, so I drove down to the Riverside. I arrived to find people standing outside the clubhouse instead of leaning on the fence the other side so I joined them. There was some kind of kickabout going on with Shearer, Lee, Barton, Speed and a few others in teams with a number of bairns and playing a 6-a-side game under the watchful eye of Bobby. Maybe he wants to keep them on their toes by pointing out that there are plenty of youngsters coming through! ;-)

After that finished we were asked to move round to our usual place propping up the fence. Most of the team stayed on the far side of the pitch but there was some keeper training going on in front of us with our 2 top keepers plus Karelse ("Big John" as everybody kept calling him!) and the Mackem reject. They took turns shooting and saving while we had fun ducking the balls that came flying over the top. Meanwhile the rest of the team were doing a lot of running around and knocking balls short to each other. No sign of big Dunc which was worrying but the rest of the regulars appeared to be there. They started a practice game with the added novelty of two sets of goals! They were playing across the pitch with the goals at either side with Bobby yelling instructions. Maric scored (the resorves seem to be doing him some good!) and Bobby immediately stopped the game to give the defence a bollocking for allowing him to sneak in behind them. Shearer got something wrong and shouted out "f***ing b****rd". He then turned round and grinned rather sheepishly at the crowd and apologised. Cue one 5 year old: "what did Alan Shearer say mummy?" "Er, he said that was very nasty, pet!" I was then relieved to see Dunc jog onto the pitch and start practising shooting with the goalkeeping coach. He was out for a time but didn't do anything else and went back in while the rest of them were still playing. Hopefully it's nothing serious and Bobby is just protecting him. (Anybody now rushing to change their team-pick??!)

The game finished and most of the team went over to the far side of the pitch, apart from Shearer, Lee, Speed and Gallacher who came across to the main goal to practise shooting with Given and Harper taking turns to try and stop them. Among the crowd were a couple of sad bairns in disgusting red and white tops bearing the name of a used car salesman. They had obviously sneaked in to see a REAL team! More ducking of balls as they flew in from all angles. One of them hit the Mackem lass! Steve Harper turned round and said "I was going to ask if you were OK but as you're a Mackem I'm not going to!" The idea seemed to be to keep the ball on the ground and Rob Lee scored a couple of crackers - any chance he could do that in the game tomorrow? Shearer whacked one through the net and it rebounded off the high fence behind us. I put up my hand to catch it which was a dumb thing to do as it still had so much pace it nearly took my arm off! Meanwhile the rest of the team were still working on the other side of the pitch. Nobby had taken the opportunity to get in goal where Kets was whacking balls at him. A lot of shouting and laughter on the pitch - they really seemed to be enjoying themselves. It was probably the longest training session I've seen. No chance for photos or autographs as they were getting on the bus to Everton immediately after lunch, a very enjoyable morning however!

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2000

Answers

Thanks for that Steph! It's been too long without a training ground report. Well, I guess Harper's not as sick as the Ronnie would have us believe. And I guess his comment puts paid to that rumour of him being a Mackem sympathizer ;-)) I was actually just wondering if Nobby's still keeping pressure on our keepers with his efforts in goal as I read the Ronnie(which has a photo of Dunc and Nobby sharing a laugh). Let's hope all the stuff about Dunc is just mind games. Well, I'm hoping so anyway.

-- Anonymous, March 18, 2000

just as well they went straight on the team bus--it stopped a certain person from having her photo taken with anyone and jinxing them!

-- Anonymous, March 19, 2000

Rubbish! Rob Lee and Bartinho have IMPROVED since I had my photo taken with them. Mind you, I also had my photo taken with Ruud.....

-- Anonymous, March 19, 2000