The only way was UP!

Liam Lawrence recalls how Stoke went from running up mountains in Austria to winning promotion to the Premier League

- Peter Smith

STOKE City's road to promotion started with sickness and ended in tears.

Liam Lawrence, one of the stars of that Stoke team in 2007/08 who won a place in the Premier League, has looked back on a dramatic and transformative season from a hellish pre-season to finally ending 23 years of top flight exile.

He had joined Stoke from Sunderland part-way through the previous campaign, describing the squad that Tony Pulis was putting together as a “group of blokes who had a burning desire and talent - and men who wanted to compete whether it was training or games”.

They narrowly missed out on a place in the play-off shake-up in 2007 and there was a determination to make sure they threw everything at it the following term.

So their bodies and character were put to the test in Irdning, Austria, when Pulis even roped in the Sentinel reporter and photographer to ferry players back down mountains so they could be ordered to run up them again.

"It is absolutely horrific and I mean horrific," said Lawrence.

"We went to Austria and he had us biking up the Alps at six in the morning, then he’d have us back for breakfast, then we'd do a gym session at 10am and then we'd go out and run just before lunch. Then we would finally get the balls out in the afternoon.