While the Oxford United first team were away in Portugal last week the youth team were also on a team bonding pre-season trip.
Leon Blackmore-Such and Andy Whing took an 18 man squad to North Wales for a training camp, as Leon explained to us:
“We have eight new first first years in the group this year and wanted to get away and get everyone working hard and training together with no distractions. Bala Town were fantastic hosts and we’d like to thank them.
"We travelled up and trained there and also had a friendly against them. We had some great training sessions and were also able to do a couple of hill runs and a spot of white water rafting, which was great fun.
“We also did a couple of natural recovery sessions in a lake but most of the time was about training with the ball and getting ourselves prepared for the season ahead. We ended the week with an excellent 3-1 win against Wrexham and then came back to Oxford.
“We continued the Welsh theme though with a 0-0 draw against Swansea on Tuesday so things are going OK and it has been a very encouraging start for us.”