Derry City will stick to coronavirus guidelines - insists Kevin Deery

Derry City’s assistant manager Kevin Deery insists everyone will stick to government guidelines when the club returns to collective training on Monday.
Watch more of our videos on Shots! 
and live on Freeview channel 276
Visit Shots! now

The Brandywell men, along with Dundalk, Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians, will be the first League of Ireland clubs to start training as the FAI step up their pilot programme to ensure a safer return for football.

The FAI also confirmed yesterday that all of the second batch of COVID-19 tests carried out on players and staff at four SSE Airtricity League clubs on Monday, June 1 returned negative results, much to Deery’s delight.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Next Monday we must stick to the guidelines and we are having a Zoom call with the players today to discuss all those guidelines ahead of Monday’s training,” confirmed Deery.

Derry City assistant manager Kevin Deery.Derry City assistant manager Kevin Deery.
Derry City assistant manager Kevin Deery.

“We understand how strict and professional we have to be in terms of social distancing training and things that we aren’t used to, so Declan (Devine), myself and the rest of the staff will have the Zoom call with the players just to paint the picture in terms of what we have to do when we come back and the players have to be on board with it.

“The players needs to understand that there has been a lot of investment put in to get the four teams back training and we have to be really strict and professional about having an understanding of the environment we are going to be working in.

“There will be a COVID officer in attendance, so it’s not a matter of just coming back in and disobeying the rules, all of us have to be really professional.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Then it’s a wee step at a time and then hopefully we can get back to a bit of a reality soon. So far we have obeyed the government and Dr Alan Byrne’s guidelines and we’ll continue to do that.”

Deery confirmed that the club, who will go through their third batch of COVID-19 testing on Monday morning, hope to tell the players today where they’ll be training next week.

“We were told last week that we could have groups of five players with one coach, so we have plans for that, but Declan was to speak to Alan Byrne with regards to possibly having bigger groups, but I’m not sure if that happened,” he explained.

“So from our point of view there’s still a wee bit more work to be done and during Friday’s Zoom call we’ll put a wee bit more structure in place for everybody and I know that Declan and Paddy (McCourt) were also trying to sort a venue for us to train.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“At the minute all I know in terms of where we are training is that no matter where we are training there will be a COVID officer in attendance along with everyone who has been tested. They will be the only people near the venue.

“To be fair that’s because there has been big investment put into the testing and they can’t jeopardise that.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper whenever you are able to do so.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper when you can safely.

Thank you

Related topics: