Striker relishing return to pre-season with Town
Striker Jamie Proctor spoke to the Club website about how he has been enjoying the off-season as well as discussing the challenges the Town squad will face this year.Proctor put pen to paper on a deal with Town last summer from Crawley, and netted eight times in the Cod Army’s first season in League One.
He admits the Club’s second season at this level will be different, with a new look squad being put together by manager Graham Alexander.
However he feels Town are more than capable of challenging at the higher echelons of the division, and is hoping they improve next term.
Discussing his off-season, he said: “It has been going well for me. Obviously I had a couple of weeks right at the very start where I let myself go a little bit as we need to do.
“It’s important we let our bodies recover from the long season we’ve just had, but I’ve kept myself ticking over and made sure I haven’t gone out of shape.
“I’ve had a little bit of a break with my fiance, but I’ve come back now and am hitting the gym hard as well as getting a few runs in.
“After the long nine months or so that we’ve had, if we were to go straight into the off-season and continue what we’ve been doing then we’ll blow up by Christmas time.
“It’s a long season as we know from last year, so we’ve got to have at least two to three weeks of basically doing nothing and let your whole body recover.”
Alexander will take his troops on a pre-season tour of Germany this summer, a change from Austria where they have visited for the past few campaigns.
“I think all the lads will be looking forward to going to Germany this summer, and like the gaffer has said it’s a change from going to Austria.
“Germany will be a change and something new for all of us as we won’t know what to expect, but we’ve got friendlies lined up there which will be exciting.
“It’s always good to get away and it’s good for the new lads as well to bond with the squad, so it should be a good trip.
“We’ll be trained hard before we go to Germany by the gaffer but it’s going to be even harder when we get out there.
“It’s a new trip for the lads as it’s not something we’ve done in the past, but one thing it will be is very tough just like every year has been.”
Proctor hailed the winning mentality amongst the Town squad, and stressed that it will be an important factor leading up to the new season.
“There’s been a lot of changes to the squad this summer and I’m sure there will be more players coming in, so we’ll have a completely new squad.
“Teams won’t know what to expect from us because we’re going to be a lot different from last year.
“We’ve got that on our side and have the belief in the squad that we can go and beat teams because we had a great season last year.
“There’s a winning mentality in and around the squad which starts from the chairman and the success he’s had, and it stems down to the gaffer and all of the lads.”