It was always going to be a real struggle to cement my place in the team but I wanted to give myself the best possible opportunity. On our last day of training the previous season we had completed a set of fitness tests and knew we would be doing the same tests on our first day back. We did, and I flew through them. I have never had any pace but have always been near the front in any type of endurance activity. Gary’s recruitment strategy, in the main, had been to bring in young, hungry players who had been released from higher-ranked clubs. This made it even more satisfying to beat the majority of them in testing. Pre-season, in general, went well. The most important thing is to be in the team for the first game of the season and that only happens if you do well in the weeks leading up to it. I remember performing well against a strong Stoke City team in our first friendly and scoring against Telford United in the Shropshire Senior Cup.
