A NIGHT at the movies is proving popular with the Heybridge Swifts coaching trio and they have been watching horror films as they prepare to get the club moving again after the lockdown, by JON LONGMAN.

The Invisible Man, Wrong Turn, The Empty Man and You Should Have Left might be popular and appropriate viewing with Stuart Nethercott, Karl Duguid and Michael Pulford on a quiet night in.

However, their choices are limited to watching recordings of last season’s Swifts matches that contain more than their fair share of horrors.

Watching the most recent matches in the club house was a key part of training sessions until Covid struck with the trio highlighting where they felt lessons had not been learned and praising players who had taken the right turn and not become invisible during a match.

Pulford said: “We have already started to watch each game from last season back again in detail.

“The purpose being not so much to look at our various opponents, who could of course be much changed by August, but mainly to focus and reflect on our own levels of performance.

“It’s a vital step to compose the blueprint for how we can be successful next season.

“As a management trio, we have a clear concept of how we want to play and what it takes to win and be successful at this level.

“Now what is important is to identify our strengths and weaknesses as an overall unit but also individually as we start to consider recruitment for next season.”

The Pitching In Isthmian League’s North Division has a proposed start date of August 14 to get the 2021-22 season under way and Pulford added: “That date means that we will probably be back into the pre-season routines at the end of June.”

Pulford has been continuing to teach at the Thomas Lord Audley school in Colchester through the lockdown and this week has been particularly hectic as the Government has sanctioned pupils returning to school.

He says: “School is a busy place. We only have just under 1,000 pupils, so chose to test them all last Friday and again on Monday with the school shut.

“We then opened the school on Tuesday, but we will close again on Friday to complete the third compulsory test before we are all back and fully open from March15th.

“I felt happier knowing each student had been tested twice before returning on Tuesday.”