Harrogate Town's annual quest to become fittest team in their division as important as ever to Simon Weaver

The League Two Sulphurites reported back for pre-season training last week and played their first friendly of the summer on Saturday, defeating Championship outfit Huddersfield’s ‘B’ team 1-0 away from home.

And Simon Weaver’s men have subsequently headed up to Scotland where they are being put through their paces during a four-day stay in St Andrews.

Town have earned a reputation in recent years for the intensity and energy with which they go about their business on the pitch, and boss Weaver is determined that his new-look squad heads into the upcoming 2023/24 campaign in tip-top condition.

Each day up in St Andrews will consist of three separate training sessions, starting with a spinning or gym class before breakfast which will be followed by stints focusing on both fitness and ball-work.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s trip to National League North Darlington, Weaver insisted that pushing his charges as hard as he can during the close season to try and ensure that they are in the best-possible physical condition is crucial in terms of the way he wants them to play.

"The lads returned to us looking fit and strong and they were straight into some serious work. There was no need to ease them back in, they reported back in good condition," he told the Harrogate Advertiser.

“Ben Rome, our strength and conditioning coach, set them an off-season program to follow in the weeks before they came back, which enables us to give them an extra week away from the club. A lot of clubs come back a week earlier, but we prefer to trust the lads to do the work and they always prove us right.

“The summer for footballers is no longer a full month off. It's a few weeks of rest and switching off from football and then it’s building back up to pre-season. We want to be the fittest team in our league and I think it is so important, I always have.

“I want opponents to be concerned about playing us because of our energy and willingness to run and run and press. I want us to be hard to live with and to be able to create chances and goals from causing mistakes.

"You don’t want your team to tire after 70 minutes. We want to be able to come out of the blocks fast and sustain that for 96-97 minutes because so many points are won and lost late on in games. Hopefully we have a bit more know-how through working with Ben and this season we can be the fittest and also one of the most robust sides as well.”

On exactly what his players will be doing in St Andrews, Weaver added: “There will be three sessions a day with spinning classes before breakfast, then football sessions and running sessions.

"We’ll be going to use an athletics track at some point and working them really hard.

"Some teams like to do a lot of their pre-season work just with the ball, but I still think that there's a place for a side exploding onto the scene at the start of the season with the energy and the level of fitness that we are looking for, having gone through those physical barriers.

"I think there’s as much in that from a psychological point of view as there is if you are looking at the sports science side.”

​Town tackle Darlington at Blackwell Meadows this Saturday, then visit South Shields a week later on July 22.

July 25 sees them visit Gateshead before they round-off their pre-season fixture list with another away game, this time at Hartlepool United on July 28.

The Sulphurites’ opening League Two match takes place on August 5 away at Doncaster Rovers.