How do Prem teams travel to fixtures

[Thankyou4calling]

It should've said PREM TEAMS.

Does anybody know the facts?

Do they all meet at a central point then go together? Do they make their own way to a match?

How far would they travel by any mode of transport coach, train or plane?

Take Man United for instance, if they had a game at Crystal Palace or Southampton? Or yesterday when Newcastle played Bournemouth.

I wonder what the routine is.

Does anybody know?

Edited by Thankyou4calling on Sunday 8th November 11:58

[London424]

I'm pretty sure that they'll stay in a hotel the night before a game (I think a lot of clubs even if playing at home).

Travel I've seen coach, plane and train. Depends on distance needed to travel.

[Thankyou4calling]

London424 said:

I'm pretty sure that they'll stay in a hotel the night before a game (I think a lot of clubs even if playing at home).

Travel I've seen coach, plane and train. Depends on distance needed to travel.

Thanks.

What makes you pretty sure they stay in a hotel the night before?

Take a team like Tottenham, in fact any team. If they are playing a home game at 3pm on a Saturday or 7.30pm on a Monday why would the players stay in a hotel the night before?

I can't imagine many would live more than an hour from The home ground?

Forgive me if you do know though :-)

[London424]

Thankyou4calling said:

London424 said:

I'm pretty sure that they'll stay in a hotel the night before a game (I think a lot of clubs even if playing at home).

Travel I've seen coach, plane and train. Depends on distance needed to travel.

Thanks.

What makes you pretty sure they stay in a hotel the night before?

Take a team like Tottenham, in fact any team. If they are playing a home game at 3pm on a Saturday or 7.30pm on a Monday why would the players stay in a hotel the night before?

I can't imagine many would live more than an hour from The home ground?

Forgive me if you do know though :-)

Just from reading papers and Twitter. I think the clubs like to keep them together overnight so they have an element of control. Don't want them staying up late out and about.

I have no insider knowledge, just a guess from what I've seen

[AJB88]

Home games they tend to make their own way there, away games they all travel together.

[JuniorD]

Some players live quite a distance away from their home stadiums, even for home matches I can see that it would make sense to have the team together form the night before. Also, some of these guys have less sense than school kids - I certainly wouldn't trust every player to get to a match on time under their own steam.

[Cheib]

AJB88 said:

Home games they tend to make their own way there, away games they all travel together.

Certainly at Arsenal the players make their own way to home games.

Away games can be fly/coach/train.

[13m]

Thankyou4calling said:

Thanks.

What makes you pretty sure they stay in a hotel the night before?

Take a team like Tottenham, in fact any team. If they are playing a home game at 3pm on a Saturday or 7.30pm on a Monday why would the players stay in a hotel the night before?

I can't imagine many would live more than an hour from The home ground?

Forgive me if you do know though :-)

I was staying in a Hotel in Chelsea a couple of years ago and the Chelsea team was staying there also. They were playing at home.

[V8FGO]

I thought the form was for players to report to the training ground
then travel together either to the ground or to airport, station etc

[stuartmmcfc]

City spend the night before home games at the hotel at the training complex.

[MonkeyBusiness]

I am sure the teams such as Manchester City/United, Arsenal, also charter their own plane to long distance away games (like Champions league).
Seats are removed and the teams own configuration is installed.

[Thankyou4calling]

stuartmmcfc said:

City spend the night before home games at the hotel at the training complex.

So if the have a home match on Wednesday that kicks off at 7.45 pm they stay in a hotel the night before? And then they'll do the same again on the Friday before a 3pm kick off on Saturday?

Where do you get host from, it just sounds a bit odd to me.

Does anyone have the facts ( of which this may be one) or is it all "I understand" type stuff.

How far would a fixture need to be before a plane is involved for instance.

[SpeckledJim]

Most PL clubs will have the players together in a hotel close to the ground the night before the match. Home or Away.

This is to make sure they eat what they're supposed to, forge esprit de corps, have a proper pre-match briefing and routine, and go to bed early.

Professionalism now is such that clubs aren't really worried about players drinking the night before a game, but the hotel is to ensure they aren't rowing with their missus or kept up all night by screaming babies or poorly children, accidentally eating 2-week old chicken, etc.

Travel is by coach to the stadium, to keep the lads in one group, and to prevent cock-ups like crashes, breakdowns, pranks, opposition supporter sabotage etc. Modern players have a very tightly specific group of skills. Behaving like responsible adults is not in that group.

If a PL player is given the possibility of accidentally fking something up, he will demonstrate rare skill in finding a way. So the clubs all have a team of 30k-a-year chaperones making sure the £3m a year players don't stick forks in their eyes for a dare or post their passports to refugee princes in Timbuktu.

The vast majority of lads in the Premier League have had the benefit of this treatment constantly since their early teenage years. Mainly, they are totally bereft of clue. This isn't true of lower-league players who can generally be trusted to drive a car or go on summer tour without leaving their front door wide open, car idling in the stadium car park with wallet on the roof, child crying uncollected at nursey, etc, etc. (etc, etc, etc, etc....)

Travel of any real distance is often by chartered plane.

ETA: One of the best things that can happen to young talent at PL clubs is being sent out on loan. Partly to give them game time, yes, but also to give them chance to see what the real world is like.

Spending a year or two on loan at a small club, being trusted to do stuff for themselves (by necessity - there's nobody else to do it for them) and understanding just how well looked-after they are by their big clubs is really enlightening.

"What! No heated indoor training dome and mandatory post-training massage!?"

"No, sunshine, now flick that hailstone out of your ear before your brain drowns."

Edited by SpeckledJim on Monday 9th November 14:57

[GloverMart]

SpeckledJim said:

Most PL clubs will have the players together in a hotel close to the ground the night before the match. Home or Away.

This is to make sure they eat what they're supposed to, forge esprit de corps, have a proper pre-match briefing and routine, and go to bed early.

Professionalism now is such that clubs aren't really worried about players drinking the night before a game, but the hotel is to ensure they aren't rowing with their missus or kept up all night by screaming babies or poorly children, accidentally eating 2-week old chicken, etc.

Travel is by coach to the stadium, to keep the lads in one group, and to prevent cock-ups like crashes, breakdowns, pranks, opposition supporter sabotage etc. Modern players have a very tightly specific group of skills. Behaving like responsible adults is not in that group.

If a PL player is given the possibility of accidentally fking something up, he will demonstrate rare skill in finding a way. So the clubs all have a team of 30k-a-year chaperones making sure the £3m a year players don't stick forks in their eyes for a dare or post their passports to refugee princes in Timbuktu.

The vast majority of lads in the Premier League have had the benefit of this treatment constantly since their early teenage years. Mainly, they are totally bereft of clue. This isn't true of lower-league players who can generally be trusted to drive a car or go on summer tour without leaving their front door wide open, car idling in the stadium car park with wallet on the roof, child crying uncollected at nursey, etc, etc. (etc, etc, etc, etc....)

Travel of any real distance is often by chartered plane.

ETA: One of the best things that can happen to young talent at PL clubs is being sent out on loan. Partly to give them game time, yes, but also to give them chance to see what the real world is like.

Spending a year or two on loan at a small club, being trusted to do stuff for themselves (by necessity - there's nobody else to do it for them) and understanding just how well looked-after they are by their big clubs is really enlightening.

"What! No heated indoor training dome and mandatory post-training massage!?"

"No, sunshine, now flick that hailstone out of your ear before your brain drowns."

Edited by SpeckledJim on Monday 9th November 14:57

One of the best posts I've seen on here for many months and pretty accurate too.

We've had a few Premier League stars loaned to us (Yeovil Town) over the years, particularly from Tottenham and Swansea. As Jim says, the Prem clubs get to see their players outside a cocoon, playing in genuinely competitive football and living on their won or more likely in twos and threes.

Currently Alex McCarthy (QPR), Wayne Hennessey (Palace), Asmir Begovic (Chelsea), Andros Townsend and Ryan Mason (Tottenham), Shaun MacDonald (Bournemouth) and Steven Caulker (Southampton) have all spent loan spells at YTFC and will all testify as to how it helped their career on and off the pitch.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Cheib said:

Certainly at Arsenal the players make their own way to home games.

Away games can be fly/coach/train.

Ray Parlour said differently on the radio the other day, that they still meet at a hotel (was Hilton Docklands in his day) the day before the game and travel by coach to the match.

[Timbo_S2]

Can only comment on Norwich;

Players have a light training session the day before, then an afternoon team briefing. Afterwards, they go home, for a 3pm kick off they have to be at the ground by 11.45. Travel arrangements are upto them (most drive themselves, some get dropped off or share exec. transport). Norwich, being a small city, means that all players live within 1/2 hour of the ground anyway.

Away games, team meets at training ground and travel together the day before. Anything more than about 3-4 hours on a coach means they fly.

[Thankyou4calling]

Timbo_S2 said:

Can only comment on Norwich;

Players have a light training session the day before, then an afternoon team briefing. Afterwards, they go home, for a 3pm kick off they have to be at the ground by 11.45. Travel arrangements are upto them (most drive themselves, some get dropped off or share exec. transport). Norwich, being a small city, means that all players live within 1/2 hour of the ground anyway.

Away games, team meets at training ground and travel together the day before. Anything more than about 3-4 hours on a coach means they fly.

I don't know where your info comes from but it sounds the most likely of all the posts.

Those who say players stay at a hotel the night before a home game I think are misinformed. Many teams have two home games a week and if one of those kicks off at 7.45 that's way too long to be away from home in my opinion.

I'm sure there's no hard and fast rule and travelling to away games will have its own issues but for home I don't think they'd generally stay the night before.

[Rosscow]

It was well documented the other week how Spurs flew to their away match at Bournemouth. 20 minute flight instead of a 2.5 hour coach trip.

[stuartmmcfc]

Here you go. It took 1 minute to look on Google

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-...
Read the whole article and you'll see its normal for Premiership teams to spend the night together before a match, regardless of its location.
They're highly paid sportsmen in a multi million pound industry and any risk is minimised.
The days off going out on the lash the night before and then catching the bus to the game are long gone.
In another shock, City take the players by coach to the ground, all of a couple of hundred metres.

[Bradders901]

A friend of mine used to play for Wimbledon back in their premier league days and he definitely used to drive to Selhurst Park and Plough Lane (home games), I know because I used to travel with him.