AFC Bournemouth
Next up, Irish midfielder Eunan O'Kane.
After a hectic first few days here in Chicago, it was really good to have a slightly different day yesterday.
We did paddleboard yoga in the morning – which isn’t as easy as it looks! Yoga is difficult enough on land, let alone when you put something underneath you that moves!
It was good but a few of the lads fell in! Wee Man was in as you’ll probably see from the camera he was wearing, Cooky was in, Max was in, and H fell in quite a few times!
There were five or six people in, but it was a bit unfair because we were so close together that if one person fell off, it was a domino effect and the whole row did! Last year in Philadelphia we did it and we were more spaced out, so it was better because if someone next to you fell in you could just laugh and not worry about falling in yourself!
We then had the option to go paddle boarding after, and around half of the lads chose to stay out and do that. I stayed out, it was nice going out but coming back in the wind was horrendous! I went out and the guy told me to turn around and I was just paddling and not moving – it was really tough.
Some of the lads got stuck out there – it was hard work getting back in! I passed Wils (Callum Wilson) a few times and he was just sitting on his – which is never a good sign!
We had some down time in the afternoon, so we all got back and some of the lads went into town and some went shooting, but I went to play golf at a place called Harbourside View with Chaz, Ryan Fraser and Jimmy (player liaison officer).
Chaz and I took on the Wee Man and Jimmy and Chaz single-handedly won the game for us! He is a really good golfer – I can get around but I don’t profess to being good. Wee Man is pretty good actually but he was getting angry with himself thinking he was playing badly when he wasn’t, it was just because Chaz was playing so well!
The golf was quite eventful though – a guy nearly killed us with a golf ball! He could see us walking but still had a shot and as I got towards our buggy the golf ball went across the front of my nose and literally just missed me! It then hit the ground and bounced up in front of Chaz, and then I think it actually might have just touched Wee Man - but fortunately there was no pace on it by that point!
We actually only got to the 11th hole and got rained off! We heard a siren and we looked at each other wondering what it was, but decided to carry on. Then the group in front us stopped and another group shot back inside, but we still didn’t pay much attention as the sun was still shining!
Then around 30 seconds later it started raining quite heavily, so we turned the buggies into the rain and sat and waited. It slowed down so we teed off the next hole but by the time I got to my ball I was soaking – and I mean soaking!
It was that bad that when we eventually gave up, we went to the shop to try and buy new clothes. Jimmy and Chaz managed to get some but American sizes aren’t really designed for people like Wee Man and I – the smallest t-shirts they had were a medium which were huge and I think you could have fitted the both of us in a pair of their trousers!
SNAPSHOT: Not your usual evening off! #afcb saw @Adele live in Chicago tonight. We'll get their verdict soon! #USA16pic.twitter.com/bhzRNcPg0k
— AFC Bournemouth (@afcbournemouth) July 14, 2016
We got back and changed before going to Adele, I’m not a huge fan so I wasn’t sure whether to go or not – but I am so glad I did. She was brilliant, I have been to see other people live and the shows with dancers and lights and other stuff are amazing, but she just stood there with a microphone and blasted stuff out!
She was also really friendly with the audience and did her best to involve them by bringing them on to the stage. I think everyone was surprised at how good she was.
All in all, it was a really good day, I will be tired tomorrow but it was worth it!
Cherries Player HD is the only place to get behind-the-scenes footage from AFC Bournemouth's pre-season tour of America. For just £4.49 a month, you can see all of our backlog of videos as well as all of our fresh, exclusive content from Chicago. Click here for more info.
