As other players head off on end-of-season holidays and well-earned breaks one of United’s first team squad is staying on top of his game following a call-up to international duty.
Bermudan-international Reggie Lambe will be jetting off to the Caribbean island of Grenada for a double-header of fixtures where the United midfielder is expected to once again wear the captain’s armband for his country.
“It’s a strange start to the close season for me because of the two games we have against Grenada [both to be played at the start of June],” he said. “The rest of the lads will be getting into some serious relaxation but I know I have to stay on top of my fitness.
“I don’t mind because I don’t really like taking time off anyway. I like to keep ticking over. You do need a bit of rest, so I will be getting that in as well, but I’ll keep doing my work to make sure all I have to do in pre-season is top things up.”
“The international fixtures are coming right in the middle of the time we get off,” he added. “I wish we’d made the final of the play-offs at Wembley because then I wouldn’t have had this little gap between now and the Bermuda fixtures.
“I suppose it’s good because it will keep me fit. I won’t be coming back for pre-season and lagging behind, or being one of the last people in the running, so I think that’s good for me. Also playing for my country is something which is very special for me.
“Ever since I started playing for them at 16-years-old I just loved it. I always want to represent Bermuda and show what I can do. There is no greater honour. I’ll go there to do well and I’m really looking forward to it.”
Looking back to the way the football season ended for United, he said: “The sick feeling from that is still there for me. I have the games saved on my Sky and I keep watching them back. I get the same feeling every time I see it.
“I just know that next season we’re going to come back and make sure we never have that feeling again. We’ll all be pushing because we’re very upset about what happened this year. We’ll be coming back fit and ready to get promoted.
“The aim is clear because we want to come first or get an automatic spot. I don’t think we want to go through the play-offs again because there’s always that chance of having to endure that feeling again. If you look back they did to us what we’d done to them all season.
“I think that’s what made it feel worse. They hadn’t beaten us all season until the game that really mattered. I definitely don’t want that feeling again, so in my head I’m aiming for an automatic spot.”
But can lessons be learned from what the club went through at the start of May?
“Yes, we’ve got to keep those feelings in our head and keep learning from them,” he commented. “You’ve got to try and get rid of the feelings you don’t like and keep the feelings you do like.
“The winning feeling and the feelings when we were unbeaten were great and we just want to get those back at the start of next season.”
Part two of this interview will appear on the official website on Tuesday morning.
Click HERE to see a clip from this interview on our YouTube channel. Follow the same link for more FREE content right from the heart of the club.
