Tenerife Diary: Day Six

Sunday, July 23rd 2017

It’s matchday in Tenerife and it may just be a training game against modest opponents, but the preparation is no different.

For the first time on tour there’s the chance to enjoy a lie-in, with breakfast not served until 9.30am.

From there the players go for a walk and do some stretching just to relieve any tightness ahead of the game.

The hours leading up to kick-off are always about rest, so I’m sorry to say there’s not much to report!

Being the model professionals that we are (now and then), myself and Adam Baker take the opportunity to upload more videos to BCTV and continue planning for the 2017/18 matchday programme.

With kick-off at 6pm, pre-match food is dished up at 2.30pm and we reconvene two hours later to make our way over to the pitch – the same venue where City have trained all week.

Our media coverage begins with a pre-match Facebook Live chat with Lee Johnson, who picks a strong side to take on Spanish third tier side Atlético Unión Güimar.

I’ll spare you too much detail about the match itself, with everything you need to know already available at your leisure on bcfc.co.uk, but City look good and dominate their opponents.

Bobby Reid, not for the first this summer, is the star of the show – scoring twice and assisting Famara Diédhiou’s first goal in City colours.

Eros Pisano, Bailey Wright and Freddie Hinds are also on target. It’s good to see Freddie take his prolific goalscoring form from training into a competitive game.

Suddenly, from spending much of the day counting down the hours, we’ve got quite a rush on our hands, as by now it’s 8pm and we’ve only got an hour and 15 minutes before the coach leaves from the hotel to Playa de las Américas for our staff and players team bonding night out.

Somehow, and I’m not sure how, we plough through quick chats with Johnson, Reid and Diédhiou, upload the match report, interviews, gallery and highlights, run back to the hotel, demolish half a dozen slices of pizza, shower, change and get ourselves on the coach before 9.15pm.

As you can imagine, the evening is a lot of fun. Pisano and Diédhiou are joined by youngsters and first time City tourists Hinds and Joe Morrell in singing their initiation songs, and everybody behaves themselves without failing to have a good time.

It’s a very early start on Monday for the flight home and it’s certainly for the best that we have an extra day in between – with some needing more time to recover than others!