Elgin City manager Gavin Price said time on the training ground is precious ahead of the new League Two campaign.
City return to training at Elgin High School tonight for the first time since March, with last season having been cut short due to coronavirus.
Although Price’s squad is predominantly north based, he has a number of players from the central belt and Tayside, creating a challenge for the Elgin boss to assemble his full pool for training sessions throughout the campaign.
Price is confident the fitness levels accrued by his players during lockdown will allow them to waste no time in getting the footballs out.
Price said: “They have all been doing their work. They have training programmes to do, and modern technology allows me to keep a track of what they are doing.
“They have been on a six-week programme before coming back.
“We normally do that anyway, we have a pre pre-season before going back. I think that’s the modern way you have to look at things.
“I can see through Strava (an app) they are all hitting great times.
“At Elgin we have always got our work cut out because of where we are, we have to make the most of the times we are training together.
“It doesn’t make any sense for me watching them run around a track for two hours. I would rather see them with a football.
“We will do work, and they will have fitness tests on the first day back but from tracking what they have been doing over the last six weeks they should all come back in top condition.
“It’s a short pre-season, and time is precious when we’ve got training sessions together. I need to use it for things that are going to benefit the team through the season.
“We will be looking at things tactically, and the football will be out straight away.”
Price is pleased his club will not have to undergo testing in order to hold training sessions, adding: “It’s massive, given the practicalities of it.
“The cost was one part, but for part-time footballers the time it takes to do that would have been really prohibitive with the distances players have to travel.
“With the jobs they have during the week it would have made it really difficult.
“That’s a big boost, as well as the fact it’s looking like we can get crowds in as well.
“For our level of football it’s so important, because long-term without crowds it just wouldn’t happen, in my opinion.”