Galaxy and Yelli got caught up in the Tyne Tunnel traffic so we didn’t get to the Riverside until around 9.45. Quite a few of the players had already gone in but we spoke to the rest of them. LKD arrived in a taxi, looking pretty fed up. Nobby seems to have given up driving – he arrived with Bassedas. I asked Shola how to pronounce his surname – it’s Am-ee-O-bi. Our friends from the South were amazed how nice the players were and most of them so much better looking close up!

We made out way round to the training pitch where the 3 keepers were playing keepy-uppy with coach Simon Smith and a young ginger lad I hadn’t seen before. A good bit of banter going on with Steve Harper saying how a ball had hit him in the b****x! I’ll leave the rest of the conversation to your imagination!

The first team came out and jogged past us round the field to the far pitch where they went through the running and stretching routines. They came back and went over to the main pitch inside the running track. The gates over there were still locked so Simon Smith kindly let us follow him through the other gate. The team were going straight into a practice game. Marcelino was back playing a full part, but no sigh of Carl Cort (who apparently wasn’t in today) or Andys Griffin and O’Brien, although I heard that they were both there. Steve Caldwell and Jamie McClen were with the first team, Diego Gavilan with the resorves.

A fairly average game, nobody particularly stood out. Bobby was back and watching from the side. After the game a number of them lined up for shooting practice. Bobby took more of a part in this, particularly demonstrating to Shola and Lua2 how they should be hitting the ball. A wayward kick from Harper caught Bobby on the head – he won’t be in the team tomorrow! ;-)

It was starting to rain so we made our way back for mugs of hot chocolate before braving the weather to catch the lads leaving. We saw most of them and Yelli had her photo taken with Gary Speed. Rob Lee was one of the last out. I asked him how his knee was. He said it was fine and he’d had it done on Monday.

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001

Answers

Cheers as always Steph! :))

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001

Thanks for the report, Steph! :-)

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001

These reports are really great! Keep em coming!

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001

Many thanks, again, you deadhead you!!

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001

Thanks Steph.

-- Anonymous, April 30, 2001

Tx, Steph. Great stuff,

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2001