by Steve Shaw

"WE ran up a few hills, ran around the pond and ran up a few more hills," was Micky Adams's no-nonsense description of Vale's first day back at the office.

Adams treated his new players to a gruelling run around Hanley's Forest Park yesterday after his men clocked in for pre-season training.

They ran tirelessly for close to two hours in the stifling morning heat, before working up another sweat at their Vale Park base in the afternoon.

And they can expect much more of the same as Adams promised to take his men "back to basics" as they start their preparations for the new season.

The decision to train at Forest Park on the first day of pre-season marked a break from tradition as Vale have usually stomped around Westport Lake for at least the past 30 years.

But while Adams was happy to dispense with tradition when it came to the venue, he is far more "old school" when it comes to good old-fashioned toil.

He said: "There is never any short cut for fitness in terms of what the players do.

"Fitness, to a degree, has been taken over by sports science. But it never hurt me as a player, and I'm going to do things with them that I've done myself.

"Any session I do with them, I've done myself, so I know it works, and also what doesn't work.

"As a football club, we are going back to basics."

It's 'old school'. I'm sure some sports scientists would be shaking their heads at that, particular at what we did.

"We've been in the hills running and done things the sports scientists would say you shouldn't do now, but it didn't hurt me."

Adams has yet to appoint a player-coach to assist him on the training field. In the meantime, he is being helped out by youth-team coaches Mark Grew and Mick Ede.

Yesterday's start of pre-season training also saw the squad welcome new recruits Adam Yates, Doug Loft and Tom Fraser.

Fraser, a midfielder who played under Adams at Brighton, said: "It has gone well and the boys are a good bunch of lads.

"There are some good characters, who seem like they're together and they're a fit bunch of boys too.

"Pre-season is going to be hard, but what pre-season isn't?

"Micky is a good manager who will expect us to be fit, and to play on our massive pitch I think we need to be."