River-rafting, sing-songs, dodgy texts, it's been a busy 48 hours in Obertraun for Billy Barr and the rest of the PNE squad.
Tuesday saw an early morning treat for the lads with no river run, the first session was 9.30am but everyone had to be up for breakfast just to ensure we could do the headcount and make sure they had something inside them for the training session.
We had a good footballing session, the lads have been working really hard, they are taking a little bit more warming up due to the fatigue and the stiffness. Matt Radcliffe is doing his work with the circuits and the plyometric drills for the lads.
The afternoon saw us go river rafting for the second year in succession. There wasn't as much excitement this year, we didn't have as many people jumping off the bridge into the river, however one of the funniest sights was Danny Mayor giving in to peer pressure, being forced to do a jump from the diving board and he attempted to pull off a double somersault from the springboard and came down face first. We thought he'd broken his nose, when he came up, a few expletives came out, 'I'm finished, I'm done' he screamed and that was the last we saw of Danny that day.
Billy Jones got thrown out of the boat on the first real set of rapids and then right at the end the staff boat hit rocks, all of a sudden we came to a grinding halt in the rapids. John Sumner went flying over Andy Rhodes' head and banged his own head and face on the rock, Rhodesy was in a stunned state of shock, it's not often that Rhodesy is lost for words but he showed all the signs of a man in shock. We thought he'd broken his fingers but they are just badly bruised, Robert Kelly and I were fortunate that we had our feet strapped in otherwise we would have been in the water as well. It was a worrying moment but Johnny Sumner escaped unscathed. Man of the match on the rafting has to be Trotman who despite limited swimming experience got involved in everything and was soon jumping off the bridges into the river. At the other end of the scale was Neil Mellor who didn't seem too keen to get involved in too much.
Tuesday night saw us go out for a meal to break the monotony. It was a barbeque and was very nice food, the players and the staff stayed at the place well into the early hours and had a fantastic sing-song. It was a sing-song which was surprisingly started by Simon Whaley when he sung 'I Know An Old Lady…'. Performance of the night has to go to our Media Manager Matt Morris in his figure-hugging shirt, he stood on his chair and gave us a belting rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody. Accolades also go to Trots and Browny, neither of them started a song but thanks to a little red wine they joined in every song. Simon Whaley informed me that he had a banging head when he awoke on Wednesday, but he puts that down to him banging his head when he went to bed.
Another incident from Tuesday night also involved Matt Morris when he committed a schoolboy error and left his phone unattended. Matt will have a lot of explaining to do after some unnamed individuals sent a string of controversial messages from his phone. One of the messages was sent to his mother telling her that he had proposed, other messages were sent to a list of former Preston players including Graham Alexander who was told he was too old to play in the Premier League and strangely enough they sent texts to Everton's Yakubu of all people!
Wednesday saw the players given the day off and they all took advantage of that by taking part in a range of activities. Some went up the mountain to visit the ice caves and the five fingers at the 2000 metre point. I don't think Jon Parkin expected to be in the ice caves for so long, he thought the tour would take ten minutes and was still in there an hour and a half later. Robert Kelly and I went into Hallstatt and had a coffee at the most picturesque place, halfway up the Alps and overlooking the lake and Obertraun. I can't recommend this place highly enough, it is so tranquil, breathtaking.
BB
