A FEW people picked up on the fact there was a slight change in the way the players prepared for last Saturday's match at home to Halifax.

In order to try to rectify our slow start to games I had the players take part in a small-sided game before kick-off on Saturday in the hope it would get them off to a flier come 3pm.

I thought I would take this opportunity to explain more about our match preparations.

For a Saturday game we will always spend Thursday and Friday preparing for the match, both tactically and physically, although we don't go overboard on the physical side of things.

I always like to know in my own mind as much as possible what the team is going to be by Thursday morning.

I prefer the players to know on a Thursday morning although I know a lot of managers deliberately leave it until 2pm on a Saturday before announcing the team.

Everyone is different but I don't see the sense in that, I like to have my team ready.

On a typical home match day, having dropped my wife, Barbara and daughter, Jessica, off in York to do some shopping, the squad meets up at a hotel on Shipton Road where we all sit down together and have a pre-match meal at 11.30am.

We always have a pre-match meal before every home game and also before every away game three and a half hours before kick-off.

You maybe interested to learn what the players eat before a game.

Captain Chris Brass has pasta and meat bolognaise, Alan Fettis beans on toast, Lee Nogan pasta and beans, Christian Fox chicken and beans and Richard Cooper has beans on toast plus two poached eggs.

The early get together was done partly because quite a few of the players used to travel from away and you couldn't risk telling them to be at the ground for 1.45pm in case of problems with traffic.

The vast majority of the players live in and around York, which is encouraging.

We do not have a policy here where we specify players must live close to the city, but I think players realise these days that if you are having to travel from afar it is too tiring.

Regardless of the fact, I still like to get the players together so they can start to focus on the match.

After the meal, the players will stay at the hotel and watch Football Focus or Sky before coming down to the ground for 1.30pm.

Once at the ground, they go out for a warm-up 35 minutes before kick-off.

We hand in the team sheet an hour before kick-off and once we get the opposition's we put it up on a flip-chart so that everybody is aware of it.

We have diagrams of set-pieces both for and against on the walls so the players are reminded of their responsibilities.

At about 2.50pm we just go over any last minute instructions. I always try and say something different because every game is different but it's always positive.

What is said at half-time obviously depends on what has gone on in the first-half but there is always something to say. The majority of the players will drink water, some an energy drink.

At the final whistle, we don't allow the players alcohol for at least two hours after the game because of dehydration but they are encouraged to eat something fairly quickly.

On the Monday, we will go over the game with the players. Very rarely that may involve watching the game on video.