Argyle in the Alps | Austria Blog 2
In Rob McNichol's second update from Argyle's Austrian pre-season camp, it sound like it is all going swimmingly...
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I am perfectly aware that I started the first blog of this tour by giving you a self-indulgent story about not being able to ride a bike, but here comes another less-than-manly revelation. Stick with it, there is a point to it all.
I’m a pretty poor swimmer. Well, I’m not terrible, but I had a bad experience last year. I went to Adrenaline Quarry near Menheniot, as part of a stag do, and while everyone else climbed walled and scaled inflatables like they were auditioning for Total Wipeout, I hit the cold water, got suddenly rather out of breath, and I struggled to pull myself up onto a platform to get out. I wasn’t expecting to feel that way, and it was a little frightening for a minute or two.
(I’m painting a great picture of myself, aren’t I? 41 and single, ladies. Form a queue.)
Everyone else had a fun hour. I gave up after five minutes and trudged back to the changing rooms, my wetsuit squelching under me, groaning in apparent sympathy. There was a particular low point where a couple of young, enthusiastic employees chased after me, thinking I was in a bit of trouble. “Is everything ok, sir?”
The word ‘sir’ went down about as well as my backside in the chilly quarry water, but fair play to them, they were doing their job well. I’m at a point in my life where I don’t get hugely embarrassed by things like that, and even the other lads on the stag were dead sound, and no-one really took the mick in a nasty way.
That was May last year; actually, I think it was the day Wayne Rooney was appointed, because it was cup final day, and I remember watching the game in the pub and seeing him on the half-time panel.
Anyway, I haven’t been swimming since. That is more lack of opportunity than anything else, but here I now was, 10 July, about 14 months later, standing on the edge of a lake in Austria, pondering whether to go in, and thinking about my last experience.
This is how I got there. Thursday saw our players training in the morning, but for the first time we had a bit of a free afternoon, and so Kitman Dave put together a little party, intending to set off for the mountains to explore.
To begin with, it was going to be a cycle ride; if you read Blog One, you’ll know why I initially said a prompt ‘no’. However, this turned into the idea of a walk and a swim in a nearby lake. I was on the fence but decided I would go for the walk. Others can have the swim, I’ll perambulate on the shore. Sounds good.
Changes of plans (€7.50 to get into a lake? Nein, danke) led to our party of 13 thinning to six, as some didn’t fancy the journey to our new destination, about an hour away. It was a lake by the name of Achensee. Clearly, now the rain has gone, this was the place to head.
Our intrepid sextet arrived at Achensee just after 4pm, and our breath being taken from us was not because of the fact that we were now at 3,000ft above sea level. The lake, the largest in the Tyrol region of Austria, with the mountains rising up aside it, is one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. I think my top three are now, in no particular order: A view I once saw at sunset in the Yorkshire Dales, Achensee, and Graham Carey’s goal against Yeovil in 2016.
The other five people in our group were very keen to get in and have a swim. My reluctance, though, was coming to the fore. Let’s be clear. I didn’t think I was going to get into difficulties in the lake. I can swim, just not confidently. And confidence was the big thing here. Not just with the swimming, but there’s a body confidence thing too. I’m a big lad, embarrassed by my belly – the shirt doesn’t come off very often.
However, I did it. I swam. And I absolutely loved it. I now have a photo of me swimming in a big, blue, clear, Alpine lake with mountains as far as the eye can see. I did not think that would be happening this week.
The point – and there is a point – to all this is about comfort zones. Everyone has them, everyone’s are different. And so are everyone’s skillsets.
It took a genuine effort on my part to get in that lake. However, give me a microphone and stick me in front of hundreds of people and I’m totally comfortable, in my element.
We don’t embrace these differences between us enough. It’s too easy to make fun of a perceived weakness. You should be allowed to like that ‘uncool’ band that you listen to; you can have jam first on your scone; and you are welcome to pop that pineapple on your pizza. It’s up to you.
For our players this week, don’t underestimate that some of them would have felt some trepidation. Some would be anxious about making sure they impress on the training field and in Friday’s game, but I mean more about the social element. How will you fit in? Will the group accept you?
I have previously said that I don’t like to let in too much daylight upon magic when it comes to the staff and players’ singing initiations, and I stand by that. But I have to say that in all the years of seeing the ritual of standing on the chair and singing for the room, this week one player – and not necessarily a senior one – did the best performance I’ve ever seen. And it wasn’t just about the singing; he did something creative that took a lot of bottle. And it was tremendous. That person earned my respect, and I’m sure that of the rest of the lads.
Players feel pressure in different ways, just as we all do. One of the most frustrating, specious hypotheses that I know of in football is: ‘he should have scored that, he is paid X thousand pounds a week.’ No-one is denying footballers are paid very well for what they do, on the whole, but there is not an automatic correlation between bank balance and poise in front of goal, or a wage packet and an ability to tackle.
Indeed, are there times where perhaps money, especially a price tag, brings pressure. ‘This is how I am rated, so I need to perform’. Just hit the target. Just mark the man at the corner. Just get in the lake.
And then there are crowds. To be honest, I think most footballers thrive in front of people, no matter the size. The adrenaline rush of 16,000 people roaring you on must be intoxicating, but even in training on Thursday here in Austria, with 15 or 20 members of the Green Army present, I noticed a little bit of an upping of the stakes, especially when it came to a finishing drill.
It is competitiveness in its best form. ‘There are eyes on me, I’ll step it up.’ But what if you miss? How do you feel then? Have you let people down?
The short answer to that last, partially rhetorical, question (has there been too many of them in this piece?) is ‘no’, you haven’t’ - but you need people to tell you that.
I’m seeing really good signs here, of a group of players with a degree of empathy, and plenty of comradeship. It is not just the coaches who sound their approval at particularly good pieces of play, of which I have seen plenty this week.
Think of whatever you do, for a living, or at school, or wherever it may be. It feels good when a boss, a teacher or a client praises you; but it’s even better when it’s a co-worker, a peer, a mate.
This part of the season is the easy bit, really. We want to win pre-season games, but there are no points for it, and it is barely remembered come May. If you went around the fans of every club in Sky Bet League One, you would get about half thinking they can go up, about 75% saying they’ll be pushing for the play-offs, and pretty much all of them thinking top half is easily attainable.
The bonds built in a week like this, where waking hours are spent, if not training, then eating together, playing table tennis together, popping to the shop together, having a coffee together. Ultimately, we demand that players play for the shirt, for the fans, for themselves. But I think the most powerful motivation is not letting your mate down.
At some point, we’ll be a goal down at half-time away at Lincoln or something, and that’s when the crunch comes. How do you react? How do you renew belief? And how do you not only do that for yourself, but turn to your oppo sitting next to you and say ‘hey – we can ******* do this’?
If we are sitting here this time next year, and the fixture list ingrained in our brains says ‘Championship’ and not ‘League One’, we will rightly laud good acquisitions and strong tactical decisions for why we got there. We probably won’t put it down to a game of Uno and someone passing the pepper in Austria, but it plays its part. It’s a building block.
Actually, no, it’s the foundations that allow the building blocks to be constructed. I’m privileged; I’m witnessing the construction first-hand, and I trust our new architect and his foremen even more having watched their studious, detailed methods. I don’t believe this to be a sticks-or-straw edifice. Tom Cleverley knows his blueprint, is close to assembling his materials. Nearly time to move in.
A final word to our supporters who are out here. It is not easy to get to where we are this week. It takes time, money, effort, logistical headaches, conversations with employers, partners, etc. But here they are, and there will be even more at the game on Friday, I’m sure. You have to admire that desire, to come and see your team play wherever they are.
But the effort made by the fans mirrors everything we have been discussing about the players. For the supporters, most I would assume are travelling with others, who may or may not share their passion for the Greens, it too is about forging a bond.
When they tell the story in years to come about heading to Austria, it won’t be: ‘yeah, we played Eintracht Braunschweig, and we won/lost/drew, and X or Y scored…’. It will be the great bar visited in Innsbruck, or the funny mix-up with the bookings, and ‘oh, do you remember what you said to this player, and he took the mickey out of you? That was class.’
That’s what football is. It’s a million miles away from being purely a solo initiative. It’s about you and your mates. Sometimes that is one pal you’ve travelled to Austria with. Sometimes it’s 10 comrades crossing the white line in that all-important game to clinch promotion. Sometimes it’s being with 1,500 mates in an away end, or 16,000 bosom buddies filling Home Park.
But sometimes it is all about you, too. Making sure you make the best memories for yourself, whether that is shaking hands with your favourite player or bagging a last-minute winner.
Or, yes, swimming in a lovely lake. The people I was with encouraged me, didn’t pressure me, and their support made me overcome what may seem a trivial little fear, but they likely won’t know, unless they read this, what it meant to me. Actually, I’m going to make sure I tell them.
Making memories happens in so many ways. Here’s to ten months of footballing joy.
