³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

When I used to play rugby (a while back now, and before my body became all mangled and twisted from being bashed about) I hated pre-season training, even at the lowly-level I played at. There was a very long, steep hill near the club that was known locally as Killer Hill. We had to run up it three times pre-season, every session, before the actual fitness work started. I still have nightmares about it now. And if we'd have had a Fat Club then I think everybody in the team would have been a member!!!

Interesting read though, cheers.

I used to despise pre-season conditioning work for my athletics because every Sunday we'd be up at a part of Cannock Chase which was filled with little running routes and many, many hills. I never used to look forward to those Sunday sessions but thankfully the small group I used to train with were a fantastic bunch of people and some great friends of mine now. We get each other through the sessions and without them I most definitely wouldn't have managed. You should never underestimate training with other determined people - it's the sole reason I stuck with it for 5 or so years.

I find it quite interesting reading alot of this pre-season stuff recently, that many people are referring to the 'running up the steepest hill' theory as dated and perhaps old school.

Just 6 weeks ago Wolfsburg won the Bundesliga for the first time under Felix Magath, who had a custom built running hill created at their training ground for this exact purpose. Magath attributed VFL's late season surge to their superior fitness levels, aided in no small part by his preseason schedule and his now famous hill.

Using science to get players fit is all well and good, but perhaps the discipline and mental strength garnered from gruelling pre season schedules has a greater impact on performance.

the Football league season actually starts on the 7th August, Middlesbrough vs Sheffield Utd match was moved to friday 8PM for sky sports coverage

My pre-season 'starts' next Thursday. I play Rugby League but have been training in the gym for the past 7 weeks to bulk up. I was 10 stone 5 when I started but have managed to hit 11 stone 2 now. My target was 11 stone so I am pretty happy with the progress.

I must be one of very few people who look forward to pre-season, getting back to seeing your team mates on a more regular basis and the banter you miss in the off-season is unrivalled. Here's hoping I score a few more tries this season, I only got one last year but at least I didn't have to do the naked run!!

Let's hope QPR spend some of the TV income on players becuase Ecclestone and Briatore certainly aren't!!!
For all the billions they have between them, they're certaqinly not eager to get into the premierhship. As a life-long QPR fan I think the only reason there at Loftus Road is to bolster their ego's, espeacially if it's true that Briatore wants a say on the weekly team sheet! I know families who have been buying season tickets for years who have now cancelled their subscription due to the way the club is now being run. So, as I said, I hope the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ income will go towards players and not un-used 'confernece' rooms!

Our individual club pages are being redesigned to showcase the additional video content and there will be plenty of news, match reports and blogs to really bring the competition to life.
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No doubt with loads of mistakes.
I have lost count of the number of times we have had an article about the Daggers with wrong information on it.
It's about time the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ started taking the lower leagues seriously instead of a bad copy and paste exercise from other sources.

How many live games have the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ got? And what time will the highlights show be on, will it clash with Match of the Day?

I'm a coach at a step 5 semi pro club and our boys were back on 22nd June, did the first 2 nights last week without seeing a ball - but equally it was not over exerting. There was no hill running or cart pulling of years gone by (there were when I played!!) just stamina building. Some ball drills were introduced in the third session last week and then on monday there was some actuall football for the first time. We've got a mix of ball drills and football planned tonight and Friday - and then the two sessions next week (which build up to our first friendly) will be pattern of play, team structure etc. Probably leave set pieces until we've played one or two freindlies and have a better idea of our starting XI

Is the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ going to do a hightlights show like they did with Match Of The dAy on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳2 on sunday, or is that dead in the water.

11. At 1:40pm on 01 Jul 2009, Paul Fletcher - ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sport wrote:
Dagger83 - I'm very sorry to hear that. I actually went to watch one of your fixtures last season and did a piece on the back of it.

/blogs/paulfletcher/2008/10/finding_footballs_soul_at_dage.html

Hopefully you will be more impressed with what we do this season
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I did read that blog, it was very well written; its not often we get a mention.

Its the articles that annoy me. Match articles have players names wrong, we had a piece about Glen Southam moving to Hereford last week and said that he came from Rushden and Diamonds and there was also another article about our 3 players going to Brentford who described Saunders as a striker (presumably because he scored so many goals).

I don't know who writes these but it's clear they have no knowledge of the situation. I hope now that the Beeb has a few more rights in the Football League that this will improve the reporting.

I must also say, very good blog (sorry for the rant, pass it on to the editor of the League 2 football page :-))

Paul. A bit of a geeky question, but one I want to ask. Who is handling the actual filming of each individual Football League match for the highlights show? When it was on the ITV, each match would be filmed by the ITV Regions team and that footage would be shown on Sky as well.

Problem was, that footage was often always awful. Jerky camera work, goals missed, cameras sited nowhere near their intended gantry (some were sited pitchside!) and altogether amateurish.

Will the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ be delegating the coverage to the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ regions, and will it be of the quality we expect of the Beeb?

Will the bbc now be putting more focus on leagues 1 and 2 aswell as the championship and prem as frankly up to now its been quite poor imo, there are many fans of football league clubs who i feel are neglected, will there be video content of matches from league 1 and 2?

How much did the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ pay for the rights to show these games? Will they be shown on national ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ or England only? Is there any hint of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ going to spend money showing Scottish football?

I can sympathise with Dagger on this one. As a Rugby League fan, we are often subjected to poor media attention because we are classed as a minority sport. I suppose the same attention is cast over the lower leagues which is a shame. The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ are not the worst though, the papers are terrible for it. It is a shame they cannot give column inches to lower league football and Rugby League instead of telling us which shoes Paris Hilton is wearing or which member of girls aloud fell out of a taxi the previous night.

For the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ pundits who do take an interest, we readers do appreciate the efforts you put in.

Cheers fletch, its supposed to Say "Bees" but for some reason it comes out as that gobbledegook

as a blades fan, i cant WAIT to see the 10 newcastle games to be on bbc this year! instant classics one and all!

Fletch, will you have rights to a match on the last day of the season, at the same time as one on Sky? That would be great viewing.

Paul,

First of all great blog! Just reading about the steep hill running etc reminds me of my time in the Army and all the "conditioning" we did pretty much non-stop. My main point, or question i suppose is more accurate, is whether the Beeb are planning on utilizing the HD service to show the football next season? Obviously Sky do at present and i think that "the other terrestrial channel" offer the service to their freeview viewers (although no to those of us that pay the best part of £50 quid a month for Sky, but that's a different rant altogether) so is there any chance of watching MOTD, or the Championship games you mentioned in your blog, in HD over the next 12 months?

Cheers mate.

It's rare that I don't envy professional sportspeople for their jobs. Pre season, I feel very lucky to work in an office.

Gary Johnson is a really top manager so I hope he does well again.

What matters most, as always, is Southend United.

Top article

Hi Paul, I read all your RL work and am glad I have RL-related stuff to read during these dreary working days. I've mentioned several times on 606 how great it is to see George Riley and yourself covering the sport. I hope you don't think it was a dig because it certainly wasn't, it was a generalisation of the media as a whole which I believe is rightfully placed. George, yourself and The Times online site are up great for our game, so thanks very much mate!

Really looking forward to August 8th already (as long as our opponents, Stockport, survive that far), and delighted that I'll be watching live football on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ again.

At first I was slightly concerned that your first 2 live games will involve Newcastle, but that opening day fixture is a no-brainer choice, and I expect that with just 10 matches to play with, you'll be looking to cover as many of the 24 teams as possible over the season.

Do you think Football League goals will be elegible for Match of the Day Goal of the Month, in the same way FA Cup goals were when ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ had the rights? And do you think also that MotD might dip into some League footage if it's sufficiently notable?

Thanks!

If you've only got 10 games how will they be spread out through the season? One game a month?

Hello Mr Fletcher

Do you know who is going to present the championship show i hope it is not Gabby Logan

Also why has the sport editors blog not been updated in ages? will there be championship show blog on there soon?

They should have

Newcastle v Boro
United v Wednesday
Forest v Derby
Leicester v Coventry
Cardiff v Swansea
Preston v Blackpool
First day big game not involving the above
Important game involving say West Brom or Reading
Relegation scrap
Last day big game

Why not show live League 1 matches?
The Championship is handed enough money as it is.

I think the way the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ cover the lower leagues is disgraceful.

Regards,
Yourblogsarerubbish

#32 - Because their contract only covers live Championship games.

#33 - A bit harsh considering the season hasn't started yet and they
didn't have the rights until now, why not wait and see?

Paul, when the Football League right were won by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, your fomer Boss Roger Mosey said that not one team would be on twice.
So why have your lot gone back on that promise and put Newcastle on twice for?
Thats not denying 21 clubs their chance to be on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, shame on you all.

I hope the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ will be showing a weekly highlights package, with all the goals from the League in the same way that ITV's 'Championship' did.

#3 dcrulesok

Assisted or resisted running will often be used by coaches and sports science to improve running speed or perhaps in an attempt to alter running biomechanics. Hill running is an example of resisted speed training as obviously it is harder to run up hill than on the flat. It is a way of building overload into a training programme aiming to improve speed.

I would imagine Magath was using hill running with a specific component of fitness targeted (relating to speed) rather than the traditional or out-dated pre-season training schedules of hammering players until they are sick and voer worked.

Do you have a link to a relevant article about Wolfsburg and their use of hill-running. Having studied sports science at Uni and having worked with some professional sports teams I would be interested in whatit says.

Really hope you revisit this thread.

It should be one game a month I imagine and hopefully a couple of months nailed down at a time, so that the interesting matches are shown.

What would be truly brilliant, would be ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ getting similar rights to lower league games and possibly the Premiership - but I suppose there would have to be some legal work to make it all happen (since ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳/other free to view channels) couldn't possibly pay what the leagues demand.

One can dream...

Are these rights being shared by Sky? If not that's a lot less football league games on tv.

enjoyable read, i like Johnson, proper English manager.

Hya Fletch! Interesting read! This might explain why I don't play football :)
I have a question, will the highlights you mention also be available to viewers outside the UK? Hope so, I have hardly any access to Championship football. Despite begin an Arsenal fan, I do love the passion and excitement of the second/third/fourth tier!
Cheers

I didn't play at a high level but I used to really enjoy pre-season traning. After the footy season finished I'd be playing tennis a lot over the summer, so kept fit. I used to enjoy getting the fitness levels up and then playing friendlies in places you don't visit during the regular season.

All this changed when I got injured and affectively ended my career.

I am glad ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has rights over CC highlights as the ITV show was pretty poor. What annoyed me most was their focus on teams with recent premiership pasts - Southampton, Norwich, Charlton- not because they were struggling but because they had some sort of link with the Premiership - i.e past history. It was like they thought anything that whiffed of the Premiership smelled like roses and the rest was garbage. It reminded me of some sad old groupie hanging around an old 70s band like Status Quo.
It really was sick making the way they ignored up and coming teams who were playing really good football such as Doncaster and teams with no 'history' like Plymouth. If Bristol City had not made an impact on the top half of the table 1st season and made the play-off final I believe we would have also been ignored. I think they completely misrepresented what was a very competitive and enjoyable league to watch by their constant focus on the 'famous'. Quotes describing players at the end of their carreers as 'bringing a bit of premiership class to the Championship' were common and focus on young up and coming players was non-existent unless they played for an ex-prem side. The whole thing smacked of ITV being desperate to have the premiership - and having missed out would try and extract as much Premiership from the CCC as they possibly could at the expense of balanced and accurate coverage.

moulinred - I agree regarding ITV's focus on "fallen" teams. Everybody has been saying what a delight it was to watch Swansea play last year, yet the ITV highlights show very rarely featured them in anything more than the "just the goals" round-up.

I play football at vets level and my team does no training at all. In fact, most of the players would not be included in the "fat" club as the word fat does not do justice to their ridiculous rotund physiques.
If I had my way, the hill running would be a most welcome way to get some of these chain smoking beer bellies into shape to save my embarassment at haing to play with them.
Also, I get married on Aug 08, how daft am I missing the start of the season!!
ps I ran the london marathon this year so I feel I have earned the right to laugh at my fat waster team mates!!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

lost another link: it's about fixtures

I think everybody who has done pre-season for amateur sport has done hill training. I think every town has a killer/cardiac hill. I can guess exactly why Wolfsburg have installed a hill and I doubt it is to work on a specific area of fitness. It was probably the same reason we did it: for mental toughness and to garner team moral. There is nothing better to bring a bunch of men close than a bit of suffering. It's either that or a night on the tiles and that would be even more contraversial.

I'm really happy the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ got the rights for highlights to the "lower leagues".

ITV did a really BAD job and at times looked as if they just didn't care towards the end of their time with the tc package.

I can remember the ITV highlights programme not even bothering to show goals from Leagues 1 & 2 on many weekend !!

I would ban pre season training and make all players return the night before their first game and see how many have beer guts and reek of ale. It might level things up a bit!

Let's hope QPR spend some of the TV income on players becuase Ecclestone and Briatore certainly aren't!!!
For all the billions they have between them, they're certaqinly not eager to get into the premierhship.

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QPR is a business, most businesses wouldnt expect their owners to dig into their personal fortunes just to give them a cash injection unless there were severe problems. Briatore is trying to improve the club as a commercial entity, improving facilities and the fanbase to generate more income, this in turn will be used to finance the playing staff. It is how ALL clubs should be run.

Good Blog Paul....although you comment about hills - a good run up a hill supported by a good montage song never hurt anybody look at Rocky!!!!

Seriously, will the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ coverage on the web just be for the UK? or can it be accessed overseas?????

I think it is great that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ are showing Championship games, it's about time.

When was this decided, seems to have come completely out of the blue.

Somebody enlighten me!!

Very informative Fletch, cheers.

Forgive me if I appear to have my heads in the clouds a tad here but how did the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ come across the rights to 10 Championship games? Is it of the same irk as how Setanta (R.I.P) took Premiership games away from Sky?

I can help Fletch by answering some of the comments here.

Hello everyone, my name is Lewis Wiltshire, and I am the Live Sports Editor for ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sport Interactive. This means I am responsible for all of the coverage of sport on this website, and our other platforms. I am responsible for the coverage of the Football League on this site, and have been involved in setting up what our coverage will be since we got the rights in 2007.

RichMase (comment 15) - all geeky comments welcome! The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s coverage will be produced in association with an independent media company. I obviously wouldn't want to comment on ITV's coverage last season, but I am very confident that the company we are working with will enforce the strictest standards of quality. I am responsible only for the website, not the TV output, but I can answer that one, because the video shot will be used on the website too, in our highlights packages.

Glasgow1968 (comment 18) - we do of course also have the SPL highlights on this site. We had those way before the Football League!

MikeMartin (comment 24) - as Fletch says, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ will have 10 live Championship games next season. Four of them have been announced, and it has yet to be agreed what the remaining six will be, so we couldn't say yet whether one will be on the last day of the season, or not.

Professor Techno (comment 30) - I do know who the presenter is likely to be, but the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is not in a position to announce it yet. Watch this space. As for the Sport Editors Blog, you're right to point out that it hasn't been updated in a while. Sorry. To be honest, we found that the entries were a little dry (Fletch and our star writers have much more interesting jobs than us management types who sit in meeting rooms and decide stuff that is quite dull to read about!) and we also found that our sister site, News Online, covered most of the issues for us in their Editors Blog, because we and they share a publishing system and most issues affect us both. There's always the actual content, which is clearly different for us and News, but I actually think this is better, for me to answer questions here for the people most interested in the subject. Interesting that you noted it had gone quiet though - is it worth reviving, do you think?

Martinsmith100 (comment 37) - we will be, don't worry. There will be a TV highlights show, as Fletch has already said, and this very website will have highlights from every game in the Football League, Carling Cup and Johnstone's Paint Trophy.

BellionWonderland (comment 40) - yes, Sky are the primary rights holder for the Football League. The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is the secondary rights holder. So Sky will have lots of games to show live.

And a couple of people asked about whether the highlights on the website will be available for UK users only. Yes, this is the case. Contractually, we cannot show these clips outside the UK, so they are blocked in other countries. This is generally the case for virtually all of our video rights.

Hope that helps - if I can answer any more, I'll try ...

Best regards to all,

Lewis.

Post 8 Dagger83 wrote - "It's about time the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ started taking the lower leagues seriously instead of a bad copy and paste exercise from other sources."

Dagger, well said! I support Port Vale and would struggle to count the number of times I've contacted the Beeb regarding errors as basic as player names.

On the highlights show, will the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ be showing every goal?
The ITV show gradually got worse for L1 and L2, often only showing one or two goals from a 5 goal match.
Also, the highlights that they filmed, for official websites and certain other media outlets, came with commentary by one person which was obviously tacked on afterwards, got names wrong, often sounded bored, etc. Will the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ at least make an effort to make the overdub sound interested and get the facts right, or even be able to use the club's official commentary?
I would also like to echo the sentiments above; please, no Gabby Logan. I would prefer someone who's actually got extensive experience of the lower leagues and knows what they're on about.
Other than those questions, I always enjoy your blog, Paul.

Two out of the first four games include Newcastle. Why? You're only showing 10 games a season, which means a max. of 20 out of 24 teams can be shown. Now that number is 19. Are you saying that Newcastle is more important than all of the other Championship clubs?

Oh, and for the commentary on the highlights, are you going to use local ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio commentary, or have a reporter?

Lewis Wiltshire - ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sport thanks for the reply

Yes i do think the Sport Editors Blog should be revived,the last blog on the Sport Editors Blog features comments from people wanting more updates /blogs/sporteditors/2009/05/world_cup_a_showcase_for_paral.html we maybe in a minority but i thought they were definetly not "dry"

Roger Moseys blogs were intresting but he has quit

Pre season starts tonight for me! Preparing for vomitting around 9.30pm tonight! Come on Blackberry Jack FC!

Im looking forward to it,cant wait for the bbc experience with the championship;its going to better ITV,undoubtedly

This deal was announced shortly after the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and Sky lost the FA contract to ITV/Setanta a couple of years ago.

In addition to 10 live Championship games, starting with Newcastle's opening day trip to West Brom (which will be shown on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One), there will also be delayed highlights of every single game available to UK users on the website.

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Sounds promising, but any chance we could get this extended to users located outside of the UK?

wibble

Post 8 + Post 57.

I wish to echo these sentiments. I support Leyton Orient and the number of times I have read articles or match reports with errors within it is countless! This should really be addressed, because, if nothing else, it just makes it look amateurish.

I would do all Leyton Orient articles!!

Again, Fletch, we realise this isn't your fault - but you must be able to get this point through to whom it concerns?

I have always thought football was way behind other sports in their training methodology watching various clips of clubs and internationals training.

Watching premiership football players perform static stretches as part of their warm up always filled me with further conviction that the trainers clearly have no idea what is going on. The worst thing though was watching a documentary on getting Michael Owen back to fitness after his first major injury...quite simply astounding how bad his physio was...it was so stone age I though they were going to finish the session with some trepanation to remove evil spirits! If you want to see why Michael Owen is always injured you just need to see his training methods.

It also surprises me how little appreciation there is for endurance in football, anyone who watched USA's performance against Spain and Brazil will hopefully not be so blind as to release the huge advantage of being fitter (and using it to work harder) than your opponent.

There is amazing research on endurance and training methods, some of the best stuff coming from American football and Olympic athletes, where as football training seems to be a cross between Arnie's Pumping Iron and Stalone's Rocky. Perhaps that is why so many footballers sport mullets, its all down to the 80s training methods!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Hello Lewis,

Any news on whether the Sport Editors Blog will be revived? The latest comments on this blog /blogs/sporteditors/2009/05/world_cup_a_showcase_for_paral.html suggest you are making a BIG mistake in getting rid of the Sport Editors Blog

Regards
Techno

Fletch, I live in Scotland but am a Coventry City fan. Will the live games be on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Scotland (I suspect not) and, if not, will they be live on the website?

Hill running and cart pulling of old are not as stupid as a lot of people seem to making out. They both work the muscles of a persons core. This is basically the area of the stomach known as the 6 pack, the hips, the rear and the lower back. The point of it is, that with a healthy strong core, anyone can run swim bike or jump, faster better and longer.
All those guys berrating the hills should be running them every day.