Thomas Devon (Aged 11) spends a morning at London Colney
I was really excited when I found out I was going to be playing at the training ground after having my name pulled out of the hat in a Junior Hornets competition. I’ve never been to the training ground before so this was going to be a really good experience.
When we got there we got to meet Ann Swanson. I went to school with her grandson so it was nice to finally meet her.
We went inside the dome and had a training session with some of the coaches. The dome is very big and seems even larger when you are inside it. The pitch is a very high-quality 4G astro pitch which was so nice to play on.
We had a tour around the facilities and we saw Ben Foster and Cucho Hernández in the gym. We spoke to both of them and I asked Ben if he had any ketchup on him. He said he keeps spares in every room. Cucho is recovering from his injury and we spoke to him about that and I had a great photo taken with him. The facilities are amazing. They have a swimming pool that has an underwater treadmill in it. There is also a freezing-cold room that the players have to spend 30 seconds in to help them recover after games. You can tell when a player is in there as they said you can hear them screaming and banging on the door to be let out!
Then we went outside to watch the first team train. We watched them play a game for about ten minutes, it was great to watch them so close up. After it had finished they came over to meet us and sign our stuff. Moussa Sissoko signed my football boots! They are all very friendly and I enjoyed meeting them.
After that we had lunch cooked for us by the Watford chef. We had pasta bolognese which tasted great.
Then we went back into the dome to have a kick about before our parents picked us up. I spent quite a bit of time chatting to Danny Rose, he was really nice and friendly and gave me a signed shirt.
Overall it was a fantastic day, I was buzzing with excitement when I came out. Thank you to the Junior Hornets for arranging it for us.