Betfred Championship: Barrow Raiders squad set for varied pre-season

Paul Crarey’s side head to Barrow ABC’s Brook Street gym tonight to be put through their paces by Jeff Moses as part of their fitness work and to help them prepare for the club’s boxing night on December 22.

Then the players will return to the familiar venue of Roanhead for some old-school pounding the sand dunes on Saturday, and Raiders head coach Crarey is delighted with how team members new and old have been working in the opening two weeks of pre-season.

“They’ve come in with a great attitude, we’ve had nobody moan and we’ve gone really hard early on,” said Crarey.

“We had a couple of light sessions and then we’ve just gone hard, and the attitude from everyone has been outstanding. The new boys have slotted in and gone hard, and we’re just going to get our heads down like we did last year.

“Boxing gets our aerobic capacity up and we’re looking forward to that, and then it’s the dunes on Saturday for first time, which is an absolute killer.”

Crarey is keen to prevent the pre-season training regime from becoming monotonous, so has a variety of venues lined up for training to take place at.

One of those is Park Leisure Centre, who have given the club access to their facilities as part of a sponsorship deal, along with other places to train to ensure the Raiders are ready for the first pre-season game at home to Oldham on January 13.

“We’ve got our own programme and we go up the cenotaph and the park as well, and we’ve got different venues which freshen us up,” said Crarey.

“We’ve got the 3G [pitch] at the college and we’re over at the leisure centre now, who have come forward and give us use of their 4G on a Saturday and gym facilities as part of a sponsorship deal, which is outstanding.

“We can mix and match, and mix up our training, and the pre-season games will be on us just after Christmas, so we need to be ready for all of that. We’ve got our programme sorted out and we’re working really hard.”