Football: Short-sighted clubs unfit to progress

IT MUST have been galling for Joe Royle to hear the Manchester City fans deriding his players as not fit to wear the shirt at Elm Park on Wednesday night, particularly since "fit" could have been meant in more ways than one. One of Royle's first observations on filling the Maine Road hot seat was that the players were unfit, which makes you wonder about the remit of Frank Clark's fitness coach.

Mind you, "fitness coach" is something of an arbitrary term in English football, since it can refer to anyone from Arnaldo Longaretti, the Italian who Blackburn Rovers players claim has made all the difference to their staying power, to the wily ex-pros who make the lower league lads sweat a bit the morning after the heavy night before.

If you think I'm being flippant, bear in mind roughly 12 per cent of a rugby union club's annual playing budget is allocated to equipment, sports science and medical support, while the same figure at a typical Premiership club is often as low as 0.5 per cent - so just imagine what the clubs in Divisions Two and Three cough up.

In mitigation they can ill afford it, which is not an argument Premiership clubs can use. And that just makes research published as little as two years ago, which found no discernible difference between the fitness levels of teams from the Premiership, the Third Division and non-League, all the more surprising.

Also, leading football fitness expert Professor Tom Reilly examined data obtained from footballers of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and could hardly tell the difference. This despite the fact that the pace of the game has changed so radically over the last 25 years that "the playmaker who stands on the ball and sprays it everywhere after five pints and a cigar in the pub simply doesn't exist anymore". Who says so? Joe Royle.

It seems short-sighted of clubs that spend millions of pounds on players (who they pay almost as much in a week as the average fitness coach earns in a year) to invest so sparingly in facilities to ensure their prize assets remain in peak condition. Christian Gross is reputed to have laughed when he first clapped eyes on Spurs' gymnasium, while the gym facilities at another top London club are so poor its star players are forced to train at a municipal gym.

But at least the Continent has caused a change in the last few years. Experts like Arsenal's fitness coach, Boro Primorac, who arrived via Grampus Eight and Cannes, have set about conditioning British players to European standards. And they should know. As Mike Walker once said: "You don't see an unfit European side. They're all gaunt and look like athletes."

Of course Walker's side, Norwich, have their very own nutritional expert, aka Britain's favourite foodie Delia Smith, who has apparently convinced the likes of Darren Eadie that three bean and pasta medley is infinitely preferable to fish and chips if you are an athlete - which professional footballers are supposed to be.

But then dieticians, and even masseurs and reflexologists, are far more commonplace at clubs than full-time fitness experts. It would be wrong to suggest there are no Brits around who could do the job. Chelsea still employ former Olympic sprinter Ade Mafe, brought in by Ruud Gullit to address the "cardiovascular element" of their game (which sounds like another Italian import), while Alan Sugar has allegedly been whispering sweet nothings in the ear of decathlete Daley Thompson, currently training the Wimbledon reserves, in the hope of persuading him to fill the role originally created for Swiss fitness expert Fritz Schmidt. Obviously what's good enough for Wimbledon's reserves is good enough for Spurs.

Less well-known is George McNeill, a man who could have surpassed the combined achievements of Thompson and Mafe had he not been so fleet of foot in an era when athletics was bound by the amateur code. McNeill won the New Year Sprint in 1970, then clocked a world record time of 11.14sec over 120 yards. As a professional footballer, however, he was boycotted by athletics, and now puts his skills to good use as fitness coach to Scottish Second Division side Livingston.

It would be unfair, too, to suggest players don't appreciate the importance of fitness; in a survey published last year players agreed it was the key component of training. It's just that old habits die hard; hence the reason why the notion of a faith healer, as vaunted by Glenn Hoddle, has been so cautiously received. Hoddle would no doubt claim physical and mental fitness have a symbiotic relationship, which is true of players like Kenny Dalglish who, according to Bob Paisley, ran the first five yards in his head anyway.

Of course, the team who have lasted the pace the best is Manchester United, whose assistant manager, Brian Kidd, is a fitness expert. Kidd has the best of both worlds. Respected by the players for his achievements in the game, he has meticulously studied training methods at clubs like Ajax, Bayern Munich, Auxerre, Milan and Internazionale and Panathinaikos, and built them into his teachings at The Cliff. It's just one more example of how far ahead of the game Manchester United are, which must make Joe Royle green.