Boss Kieran McKenna says the Blues’ pre-season plans are close to being rubber-stamped now Town know when their season will start with an overseas trip part of the preparations for their 2023/24 Championship campaign.
Last summer McKenna had planned to take the squad to Austria for a pre-season camp but in the end opted to stay in the UK due to concerns that Covid might cause an issue.
Asked whether Austria might be in mind for the pre-season ahead, McKenna said: "Yes, it’s in our thoughts. Those plans have been in place for a few months, but you can’t rubber-stamp any plans until you know when your season’s going to finish, and our season might have finished on May 31st [had Town been in the play-offs].
"Now we know when we finish, we know when we’re going to start back and we’re just trying to confirm plans at the moment for when we might go abroad for a tour and also for our friendlies.”
The Blues' last pre-season trip abroad was to Germany in the summer of 2019 prior to the pandemic.
Last season, Town started their programme with a stint at Loughborough University, where McKenna studied, and who sent a congratulatory tweet following this week’s promotion to the Championship.
"I didn’t see that, but that’s nice,” McKenna said. "I’m not on Twitter so I wouldn’t know. That’s not in the plans at the moment, the plan at the moment is to do an abroad tour and other than that, mostly to make use of the facilities we have here.
"But nothing’s 100 per cent rubber-stamped yet, so it’s not impossible, but it’s not in the plans at the moment.”
TWTD poster lborodan recently wrote about his memories of spending time with the Town squad at his cafe near to Loughborough University during their stint there last summer.