Dragons' Den Has A New Vibe

Boss Keates lays down the law

- Matt Badcock

DEAN KEATES quite literally had walls knocked down at Wrexham last summer.

More space was required to put in the foundations he hoped would bring a successful season.

Now they have an analysis room and an activation room for players to stretch before they train or play.

Keates took over partway through last season, but it was this pre-season the work could properly begin.

A sports scientist has been brought in, they have a GPS programme to monitor workloads and a university student clips the videos of the opposition.

Keates, who captained the club to FA Trophy glory in 2015, completely rebuilt the squad – only Chris Dunn, Mark Carrington and Paul Rutherford remain – and changed the culture around the club.

Blank canvas

“The lads come in at 9.45am, and they go to stretch and use the foam rollers before training just to get themselves ready to go when we get on the training ground and into the warm-up,” Keates tells The NLP.

“We had to change the mentality. It was things like there was no food after training for them. For me, you lose that togetherness. It’s only an extra 15 or 20 minutes sat around a table.