Pre-season training isn't what it used to be. Players have programmes to follow during the summer and return four-six weeks later close to the peak condition they were in when they departed for the sun-kissed beaches.
Yesteryear, alcohol dwarfed sun lotion on footballers' holidays in the flowing scales. It was time to indulge and enjoy after slugging away on cabbage patch pitches and sharing the claustrophobic dressing rooms which reaked of liniment with colleagues for nine months.
And then they returned to reality. Not like now, Britain once enjoyed balmy summers and the hosepipe would be banned with credence, and whereas the public bathed in paradise, footballers returned to hell.
Running hell. Tales of cross-country circuits to run players back into shape are ubiquitous on the after-dinner circuit with old pros, which makes you wonder what the banal personalities of 21st century football will have to offer decades from now. Not that they'll need to grab a microphone and regale their audience...
So in tribute to those heroes who would run miles and then neck blackcurrent and lemonade to raise their glucose levels at the pub, here are some wonderful pre-season snapshots from the archives...
