As I waved goodbye to my long-suffering wife and sobbing two-year-old son standing in our doorway, I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. But thankfully the giddy excitement of my first ever foreign training camp with Armagh meant those feelings had vanished as the car pulled out of my driveway.
I was 32 years old and after a long career I felt I was owed this trip to La Manga as a belated thank you for all my efforts after 13-odd years on county duty.
And although I wasn’t exactly sure what the itinerary was for the five days, I had made my mind made up that it was to be embraced
and enjoyed.
I suppose as we drove past the beautiful Spanish villas and impeccably manicured golf courses, my mind meandered away from the upcoming Championship.
I wished for some much sought after R&R and possibly a few lagers to counteract the heat for an ageing and over-worked goalkeeper.
The Armagh management had taken a huge risk on this venture, not just on the cost, but we were also one of the first counties to embark on this now frequently used form of training camp.
The one thing that struck me after about 10 years of cost-cutting and penny-pinching was that absolutely no expense was being spared on this trip.
There was gear set out for each training session on a perfect playing surface which was adapted into a gaelic pitch.
We had up to three training sessions a day which quickly ruled out my previous deluded fantasies of golf and lager. Yet for some reason I didn’t care, such was the quality of all that we were doing.
The accommodation was probably better than I had ever experienced. The food was simply superb. More importantly, it was plentiful – even if Big Joe was a little disappointed that I was the only player who had gained a few pounds after the five-day extensive training camp in severe heat. But I’m not still sure he fully understands my slow metabolism and big mouth.
The schedule, although hugely demanding, was broken up to allow sufficient time for rest. Our evenings were filled with short meetings and some down-time which previously would have been a signal for some form of elaborate escape route to the local nightlife. Not this time.
It didn’t seem a lifetime away that on one of our previous training camps we stayed in a monastery and trained on Thurles racecourse at 6.30am.
And although it served a purpose it will always be a memory more suited to the army rather than a county team.
The fact that I think PSV Eindhoven had been there the week before us and Inter Milan were coming shortly afterwards (La Manga rather than Thurles racecourse) resonated with me.
While many people will point to the lavish lifestyle of the elite footballer, and even though our bank balances would not change because of this trip, we were being treated with the same respect.
It was probably why we as a panel totally bought into the demands and the ethos of the trip.
Many teams will currently be planning or are already on their training camp.
It is the norm now with most county boards forking out a small fortune to find the magic answer. But I can assure you that there is an old saying that you only get what you put in.
And should they adapt my pre-La Manga attitude, it will prove to be the biggest and most expensive waste of time.
After La Manga, our Championship match was against Tyrone in Clones. I can remember warming up on the bottom fields below the Clones pitch and a few Tyronians with ample amount of libation already consumed started shouting at me: “Heh Tierney, it’s not La Manga yis should have been at, but Lourdes!”
I nervously laughed as I knew that we would have been severely ridiculed for our training junket had the result gone the wrong way.
However, the result was a good one and the year turned out to be our most successful ever. Although it wasn’t the only reason we did so well, it certainly had a massive impact.
