Petre Cech Takes us Down Memory Lane in Interview...Read and Learn

Disclaimer: As one of the principles of OSSYsport, I don't fell to give honour and credit to whom it is due. This interview was done by and with Chelsea official website: www.chelseafc.com .So they are the copyright owners of what you about to read. OSSY just brought is closer to you...enjoy!

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It was 10 years ago this week just completed that one of Chelsea Football Club's most significant behind-the-scenes shifts was made.
Farewell was bid to the wind-swept, Heathrow-flight-path-located, glorified student sports ground that was Harlington where we had based our training as tenants since 1980, and it was time to say a warm welcome to our very own, fast-becoming purpose-built location in the Surrey countryside just outside of Cobham.
Chelsea were a season and a half into Roman Abramovich's ownership and for the likes of Jose Mourinho, Petr Cech, Didier Drogbaand others, they were midway through their first campaign with the club.
Cech had experienced more than one European league before moving to London and arrived just in time to sample the sparse offerings of Harlington. Since then Cobham has been a second home and intense workplace for him while achieving success unprecedented by a Chelsea goalkeeper.
It means he is ideally placed to talk about how fundamental the training facility has been to the team's triumphs and consistency over the past decade. He does so in conversation with the official Chelsea website, starting back at the beginning in 2004.

'When I arrived at Chelsea we were still in Harlington but everyone was saying in a few months we may move to Cobham, so that is why even back then I chose to live closer to this area,' says Cech, shortly before departing for home after another training day spent out on the pitches and inside the brass-clad first-team building.
'I remember the date we arrived well. We played a game against Arsenal and it was the last game we trained for at Harlington,' he adds with characteristic accuracy.
'We drew 2-2 at Highbury and then the week after was the first time we trained here, but they were in the process of building. The pitches were ready but there was a temporary building for the first team so it looked different from now.'
The pitches had been key to when the move could be made. Investment had gone into the surfaces at Harlington since the change in ownership of Chelsea, improving them significantly from the days when goalkeeping coaches would complain during dry spells it was like training players on concrete.

"The training ground and building are a very important part of the club structure."

However the green, green grass of Cobham was a much bigger step forward, prompting Mourinhoto say at the time of the move: 'The conditions are great, the environment is beautiful, it smells well and there are no planes over our heads, just quiet. The pitches are great, the facilities and the dressing rooms, everything is magnificent and we feel better now.'
The inside facilities may have been housed in temporary buildings for the first two and a half years, but they were quality ones.
'If you took someone inside at that time with their eyes closed and then said open them, they couldn't say whether you were in a normal building or a temporary building,' claims Cech.

'Once you came in, you wouldn't see a difference between the dressing room we have now and the one then. When you were inside it was hard to believe it was cabins put together.
'Before we moved to Cobham, the first time I came to Harlington and saw what it was like I have to say I was surprised, but I had come when that training ground was rebuilt a little. The manager had asked to change the dressing room and the pitch, so when I came the pitch was good and the dressing room was small but okay.

'But when I saw the old pictures and the guys explained how it was before I came there, it looked completely different, and that meant when the club moved to a facility that has all the requirements then you appreciate it even more.'

During those early Cobham months, the players were able to watch what is now the first-team building steadily take shape close to where they were training, changing, eating and parking. It opened for the 2007 pre-season and again Cech recalls the day clearly.

'I suddenly realised how many doors you have here! Suddenly you are having to think should I go right, should I go left, and I think it took me about a week to really feel okay, I am here and I go there.'
A three-floor construction with the lowest below ground level, it accommodates a range of departments serving the first team operation directly, but the players tend to be concentrated in certain areas, helping to maintain a sense of a group all together.
'For the players we have only the canteen on the upper floor and then everything else is happening on the ground floor, where you have the dressing room and the treatment rooms,' explains Cech, 'or in the downstairs where you have the gym, the pool and the facilities to relax. We have all we need.
'If you come to a place where you want to work then you don't want to travel to different locations to do your recovery process from where you do injury prevention or gym work. I think the whole concept of having a training ground is you don't have to travel here and there, you just arrive, get changed and you have everything within reach. We have great facilities and we know exactly where they are and in the recent years it keeps improving.'

Some of the latest upgrade work is ongoing but completed in this 10thyear of Cobham are DESSO-reinforced pitches to match t he new one installed at Stamford Bridgein the close season, while other surfaces at the training ground with the most common alternative pitch construction system have been retained, allowing suitable preparation for some away games.

'The new pitches are beneficial to everyone because that special surface during winter just stays the same,' says Cech. 'You play games on there at Stamford Bridge and it is good to have the similar type of pitch when you train, but the main part is to have a good pitch where you can train as efficiently as you can.

'You need your base,' he sums up. 'The training ground and building are a very important part of the club structure because you have your base where everything is ready, you know where everything and everyone is and it is all good.'
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Source: Chelseafc.com