We do not have a 7-a-side League match this coming Monday night (8th July) due to a team dropping out, but the Southgate Hockey Centre are allowing us to use the pitch for a training session instead, albeit at 7.00.p.m. (because there are matches taking place from 8.00.p.m. onwards).

I know that some players will probably say they are 'working late'...i.e. they want to go home straight from work first and have something to eat !?...so 7.00.p.m. is 'too early', but we will not be charging players subs for this session as the S.H.C. are allowing us to use the pitch free of charge. Hopefully that will encourage players to make an effort to attend.

Ideally we need around 14 players there so that we can have a 7-a-side practice match at some stage. Hopefully that will include some prospective new players who are interested in joining us.

Further details of this training session are now on the Forthcoming Fixtures page

Please use this thread to inform us of your availability...or just text or e-mail me.

Just 6 players have used Teamer, Facebook and/or have texted or e-mailed me so far to say that they will be there for training tonight, but as usual there are loads (at least 14 !!!) who are not saying anything at the moment...almost certainly because they won't know how tired they will be and how hot it will be at 6.30.p.m.'ish this evening.
I know that some of those were in the squad for our 7-a-side match last week and they said 'see you at training next week' when they went home, but I would still appreciate some sort of confirmation from them today that they will be there tonight. I will be texting these players at some stage this morning.

We need more of an effort. I have been reading loads of 'tweets' from clubs (and their players) in the last few days saying they had excellent turnouts for Pre-Season Training and they all really put an effort in, doing 5-mile runs, etc. and are 'buzzing/can't wait for the start of the season'.
Why can't we do the same ?

We only had 7 players at training last night.
Several players texted, e-mailed or used Teamer to say they were dropping out at the 'last minute' for various reasons, while others (e.g. George) just relied on what they told me last week that they 'probably' wouldn't make it, while Hagan, Cascoe, Raf & Krishan just didn't bother turning up at all...with no reply to my text asking them if they were coming or not.

I am not too bothered though because we did not have to pay for the pitch and the 7 who turned up all trained and will have improved their fitness as a result. That includes John Scouller, who put a lot of effort in and will have shamed a lot of his absent team-mates for sure.
I am not stupid. I know that the reason for the poor turnout was because most players looked at Teamer when they got the reminder, then saw loads had not responded or had indicated that they would not be attending, so they then decided not to attend themselves because they 'knew' it would be a poor turnout and therefore a 'boring' session. The hot weather and the temptation to eat, drink and chill out after work was also clearly a major factor. Some players texted me (or put on Teamer) the usual 'working late' excuses, others just didn't bother saying anything and simply didn't turn up at all.
This is exactly why I did not enter two teams in the 7-a-side League this year. Even if we had played a match with a 9.00.p.m. kick-off last night, we would have still only had a bare seven players there, mainly because of the weather and players getting lazy at this time of year.

Some of the 'working late' excuses may have been genuine where it was a case of them not being able to get there until just after we had started, and that they might have come along if we had not been finishing at 8.00.p.m. Two of the 7 in attendance were Lexton & Ivan, who both turned up at 7.40.p.m. though !!! They both appeared to think we would be training on the grass until it got dark, so it therefore didn't matter what time they turned up !

The others there were Terry, Barney, Garry & Jack (apart from myself, Trevor and TJ, who came along to sign up but couldn't train because he is observing Ramadan).
Obviously we discussed as to how to get players attending training. When we told Lex & Ivan that we couldn't use the grass at the SHC because of the molehills, foxholes and rabbit burrows and we would have had to pay to use it anyway, Jack said the Cypriot (KOPA) League team he used to play for used one of these blow-up goals and just put it up over Enfield Playing Fields...so they could do Pre-Season Training for free between the ideal times of 7.30-9.00.p.m. However, it costs £380, so we certainly cannot afford that !
The reason we train on the Astroturf at the SHC is because there is a full-size goal for shooting practice.

The other way we could have got players to training would have been for me to falsely put on Teamer and the Forum that everybody had confirmed they were attending, thereby brainwashing our players that it was going to be a good session. However, what if good new players had then turned up to find only 7 there ? They probably would have said 'bollocks to this' straight away. We were lucky there were none there last night.

We have training sessions booked at the SHC at 7.00.p.m. for Thursday 25th July and Thursday 1st August, but we are clearly going to have to discuss that at the AGM as to whether we cancel them or not and just have Pre-Season Friendlies on Sundays in August and our remaining Monday Night 7-a-side League matches instead. I have a feeling that Pre-Season Training is now going to be a waste of time after this.