What happens behind the scenes as pre-season gets back up and running again

STOKE City reported back for pre-season duty with tests before training steps up again this week.

- Peter Smith

Tests probably doesn’t do it justice. Wouter Burger explained when he was grabbed after walking off the first session back on the grass on Friday: “We've (just had a 1km time trial) so of course it’s challenging yourself and a really hard run, but a good start at the beginning of pre-season.”

Players had been given seven-and-a-half weeks off since a final day draw at Derby County made sure of Stoke’s status in the Championship, although they are all still monitored through that time and have programmes to follow to make sure they come back ready to be put through their paces.

Dave Carolan, the former Stoke fitness coach who left Derby earlier this month, has overseen his fair share of pre-seasons in a career spanning almost three decades.

He was able to explain this week what happens when players check in for duty at Clayton Wood.

“The first couple of days are normally spent around baselining and benchmarking all of the players - fitness testing,” he said.

“One day you may be doing all your routine screening from your medical point of view.

“Things like concussion testing, when players have knocks throughout the season they need to have some reference values for them in terms of cognition and concussion.

“We use a SCAT (Sport Competition Anxiety Test) which normally takes about 30 minutes for the players sat in front of a computer. There will be tests with the doctor as well where they will go through a series of questions which will determine their level of cognition.

“Those tests will then be referenced to if the player is on the pitch with some kind of incident.

“The doctors will normally do some cardiac testing to make sure everything is healthy. Players are routinely tested every year or two years.”