Editor's blog...

26 February, 2008 | 13:02

Big day for Andy and his hair, so I appreciate 99.9% of you will scroll down to the pictures at the bottom first.

Feel free to come back and read the serious hard work part of the day here later on…

Andy arrived at around 10:30am today, heading straight to the physio room for a bit of treatment with Andy Ireland. Both guys were pretty pumped because a new piece of physio equipment had turned up. Won’t go into too much detail but if Apple computers did physio machines, this would be it…

From the physio room down to the court for tennis/football….

Treacle and Miles were on the losing side yesterday, and there’s always a forfeit for the losers…

 

 

 

They weren’t massively keen to have their picture taken wearing them, surprisingly.

Similar situation to yesterday, with Andy and Miles spending a long stretch on court going through a variety of drills. Forehand looking quite nice on film today I think…

 

 

Miles isn’t massively happy with how he’s been looking in pictures recently, but I think this one demonstrates his technique on the volley nicely…

 

 

Sadly, whatever photographic talent he has only lasts a short while…

 

 

The 1940’s costume store called for his wig at around 2:30pm I think; Treacle contemplating a career as a nightclub bouncer by the looks of it.

Going to stick in a random picture here…

 

 

…Andy swatting a ball at me. 

Anyway, AI wandered down a little later to chat through times to to catch up with Andy on Wednesday morning…

 

 

AI is an utter legend, but he literally has a coffee cup glued to his right hand 24/7. A renowned healthy eater, he usually has a chocolate cookie in his left hand.

People coming and going throughout the morning is pretty much standard and helps break up the intense periods of hard graft.

Someone will wander across for a bit of banter, others will simply watch from the balcony, and if neither of those is happening, Andy will start playing keepy-uppy with a ball in between drills…

 

 

…As you know by now, he’s quite handy at this one…

 

 

With Hot Bikram Yoga on the agenda for the afternoon, the guys broke for a pretty long lunch at around 2pm.

Most people work in offices where taking an hour for lunch is seen as pretty full-on; for these guys taking a proper break is a necessity.

Aside from getting some fuel back in the body, it’s also an opportunity for something approaching socialising.

Wandering past today was Roberto, who also works a fair amount with West Ham football club. He found some stuff on his laptop that the guys had a look at.

 

 

Some Zamora goals I think…

Bikram wasn’t until 6pm, so plenty of time to head back to Andy’s place for some hair maintenance.

What the woman in the salon must have been thinking when we turned up, I really don’t know.

One minute their flicking through the latest copy of Heat and wondering where the next customer is, and the next Andy’s kissing goodbye to his hair…

 

 

…Carlos was waiting to get his chopped off too, and this is about the only picture that he didn’t spoil by hiding behind something.

 

 

Carlos was actually pretty tight about his hair and went to considerable lengths to make sure everything was just right. He’ll have to tell you all about it in his next blog; if I told you, I don’t think he’d ever speak to me again. All I’ll say is A4 paper, with pictures on.

Meanwhile, Andy’s hair is losing KG’s in weight by the minute….

 

 

Considered bagging this up and selling it on Ebay, but didn’t know how I’d explain it to my girlfriend…

 

 

…also figured that by the time I’d got a plastic bag Carlos’ hair would be on the floor too and that would have crashed the value.

Anyway, about 20 minutes in and it’s all coming together nicely….

 

 

He seemed pretty happy with the result. At this point Carlos was sitting down in the chair hoping he’d come out looking decent himself.

 

 

The finished article: short and scruffy….

 

 

Kept Carlos company for a while (he said he needed some moral support), then headed off to get some water for Bikram.

Bikram was pretty full on as per usual: 90 minutes of various poses in 40 degree heat. Add that to three hours of court time and it adds up to another big training day.

More tomorrow.