WHUIA National Camp 2011 - Rome, GA - Camp 2 Final Day

Final Day of the second WHUIA National Camp in Rome, Georgia at the fantastic Darlington School. Magic week - lots of great soccer - lots of great kids - best coaching staff in North America and lots of funnies during the week too.

Best collection of coaching staff in North America

Now, take a look at the highlights. Just click here to see the Camp Video. Nice one Garrett. And, just for a giggle here are three quick impersonations:    

Smouldering Jose Mourinho, a worried Bob Bradley and a totally absent Avram Grant. Nice.

Now, we had a little trouble at lunch and dinner because of this lot - the cookie thieves. Pic taken after the '2 cookie per person' law had been imposed. Luckily the players did not use smart phone technology to create social unrest and start a peoples' uprising. Mostly because any players seen talking in groups of larger than 2 were arrested. 10 year sentence forced to watch Grimsby Town. Shirtless. Below is the famous tunnel we walked through everyday. Yes, Darlington has it's own tunnel access under the street to the athletic fields. Smashing. They probably have an underground mono-rail that the head

huncho rides enabling access to the entire underground lair. I was impressed with the care and attention the 'football' (egg n' helmet version) field was being given. Shame as the players are going to hack it up in the first 5 minutes - but everything at Darlington was pretty impressive - and the cleaning and kitchen staff were magic. On it everyday - got the job done and put up with a bunch of lads who need a big stick to use their manners. We reminded them most days that expectations are very high at the Academy at West Ham on and off the field. Young professionals also means young gentlemen.

Here are a couple of shots of my fantastic group on the last day. West Ham v Barca penalty shootouts on the left and team cool down on the right. I'll miss them I would love have this lot as one squad and see what we could achieve with them.

Over the coming weeks I'll be putting some more pics and videos together and posting more moments from the week at Camp. This blog goes out everyday while on camps, but once a week the rest of the time. Keeping following along, we've had nearly 2,000 page views in the last 16 days and this is amazing - the countries checking in on the players exploits include:

USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Cayman Is, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, Philippines, Malaysia, Reunion Is, Russia, India, UK, Ireland, France Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Bulgaria, Eqypt.... that list blows me away.

OK, wouldn't be the same without a little silly here and there. This is how we eat in England - even at breakfast. Splendid...

So - homeward bound. It's been a pleasure to work with the coaches, staff and Darlinton and all the players. We hope, and expect the experience of the camp to provide players with tools to take their game to the next level. We hope to see some in London in the Spring of 2012 and many of them back next year at the 2012 National Camp.

Too many people to thank - always great to see my good friends Paul & Rae Heffer. The twins will be happy tomorrow when they return! Thanks to Mike Kelleher for putting all this together - thanks to everyone else and keep reading for lively and often controverisal soccer commentary. Big Sam is in the hot seat - let's see what happens...