Hi everyone and welcome to my first blog for this exciting new website for the people of Newton Aycliffe.
For those who don’t know, I’m originally from Aycliffe and I’m now a professional footballer with Premier League club Chelsea, based in London.
I signed a four-year deal with them two-and-a-half years ago, joining from Middlesbrough where I began my career, so currently have 18 months left on my contract.
I live with my wife and children just a two-minute drive away from Chelsea’s training ground, which is in a place called Cobham, in Surrey. It is a lovely part of the world and we’re thoroughly enjoying the experience, although home is always home and me and my wife miss our friends and family a lot.
I always keep in touch with what’s happening in the town and, of course, I always keep up-to-date with the town’s football club.
It’s great to see the ongoing progress of the club, but having two very good friends in the side – Sean Tarling and Darren Craddock – gives me extra reason to keep an eye out for them!
As for me, I’m number two to Petr Cech. Petr is one of the best goalkeepers in the world, and it’s my job to work with him, try to keep him on his toes and, obviously, make sure I’m ready and able when called upon.
First team opportunities are always going to be few and far between when you’re competing with a player of his calibre, but I relish every chance I get. I can’t see myself as a number two for the rest of my career, but I’m still only 27, which is very young for a goalkeeper, so I’m enjoying the experience at the moment.
Goalkeepers are a special breed and we tend to do a lot of things by ourselves around the normal training sessions, but all work extremely hard.
The goalkeeper coach is a Frenchman called Christophe Lollichon and he always brings something new to our sessions. We do a lot of reaction work after sessions, working with tennis balls, rugby balls and table tennis balls, just to get us reacting to different bounces. No day is ever the same!
But we all have a great relationship. As well as Cech and myself, there’s Hilario and Jamal Blackman and we all work very hard.
To be fair, I get on great with all the lads. There are a lot of big-name players at the club, but when you’re working with them and are friends with them, you get to know them and they’re just ordinary guys.
They’re all down to earth and I consider all of them as mates. It’s just a shame that some of the press seem to target one or two of them unfairly, but they’ve got big shoulders and can deal with it.
Well that’s me signing off for now. I’ll be back with another blog very soon.
Thanks for reading.
Ross