Shropshire Star

Wolves in Alicante: Nathan Judah's tour diary - Day 1

It's been three years since Shanghai 2019, but a global pandemic, a European tour and a new manager later - we're back baby!

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Who needs Premier League Champions Manchester City in the Asia Trophy when you've got relegated Spanish outfit Alaves in Benidorm?!

All joking aside, I've really missed following Wolves in pre-season – and we're very fortunate the club continue to give us great access to the squad.

For the next ten days, expect a plethora of player interviews, video updates, podcasts, detailed match coverage and hopefully a little bit of transfer news.

It's been a frustrating summer on the recruitment front and fans are understandably a bit anxious with the new season only three weeks away.

Boarding the plane with some interesting characters!

But the £20.5m signing of Nathan Collins earlier this week came at a perfect time before the squad jetted off for their warm weather training camp.

Collins has all the attributes to be a star this season and we'll be speaking to the Republic of Ireland international early next week.

LK: For my money, the signing of Collins is a very shrewd deal from Wolves. He's already shown quality and has a high ceiling to improve in a position Wolves needed to make additions in.

Express and Star expenses didn't quite stretch to a private jet from Birmingham, but a Ryanair flight with partner-in-crime Mr Liam Keen was a pretty close second.

Aside from my luggage being overweight, boarding card not working, carry-on bag pulled by security and leaving £22.50 worth of snacks at the gate – check in went pretty smoothly.

LK: Of course, the reason Judah's luggage was overweight was because he believed, and told me, we had 22kg to take when in fact we had 20kg! He's very lucky that I only packed around 16kg and he was able to move some of his Speedos into my case...

A business flight with extra leg-room, champagne on tap and 1000's of movies at the touch of a button this was not.

Instead picture a 'Club 18-30' type flight consisting of questionable fancy dress, a mixed variety of stag and hen parties, four vomiting lads two rows in front and two very concerned stewardesses.

LK: The phrase liquid lunch has never been more appropriate, to be honest we were very lucky to set off and make it on time as those lads came very close to getting thrown off the plane. Judah was not impressed!

Thankfully we arrived in one piece and picked up our lovely rental car that we've named Baloo after my favourite Pomeranian.

'Baloo' as we've nicknamed our little car

LK: Judah named the car, obviously. But after the shambles at the start we got out luggage and got the car remarkably quickly. He even, somehow, got us there in one piece.

A few of you may remember I had a few issues the last time I drove during pre-season in Switzerland. Eleven speeding fines (1124 euro) can definitely not happened this time!

It was a relatively smooth 40 minute journey although we're going to have a few issues with music choices – less Tupac and more Britney please.

Where's my Britney Spears album Keeno?

LK: I was on tune duty for the drive and have to say, I did pretty well. An eclectic mix of Tupac, 50 Cent, Justin Bieber, Foals and finishing with some Oasis.

We arrived at our base camp and I've got to say, this is easily the nicest place we've stayed in!

Obviously I had to take the double bed – Keeno reminds me all too often about my age so I'm using seniority to my advantage here.

Chez Keen & Judah

So here we are, I'm tapping these words out on the balcony as the sun is setting.

We'll grab a local meal tonight, get a good night's sleep and be ready for the real stuff that begins tomorrow!

LK: We've already had an interesting start with the luggage and passenger antics, but as Judah says the hard work begins tomorrow. It'll be a first pre-season tour for me covering any club, let alone Wolves, and I'm thoroughly looking forward to bringing as much in-depth coverage as possible.