Tam McManus relives the nightmare Hibs pre-season under Bobby Williamson that saw him get lost in a FOREST

As soon as close-season arrived I would do absolutely nothing.

We would be given a programme to work on and it would include circuits and runs which had to be completed but I'd throw it in the bin. These days players are given GPS which means global positioning system but for me it translated to Get Pints Sorted. I'd have strapped the monitor onto my dog and made it do laps of the local park.

I'm not even going to attempt to lie, I did everything wrong in my career and close-season was a confession time for me, I hated running. I was a sprinter and couldn't go long distances. There was one pre-season when Bobby Williamson was the Hibs boss and we were told to report to Chatelherault Country Park in Hamilton. We set off on what was supposed to be a 45 minute run and it was my idea of absolute hell. The boys were put into groups of six and ten minutes into the run I was toiling and started to drop off at the back and soon the other five had disappeared into the distance. I soon realised I was lost in a forest.

About an hour later there was a search party sent out to look for me. All I could see was trees all around me, I didn't have a clue where I was. I'd gone off the trail to try and find a short-cut back to the finishing point and was now shattered and disorientated.

There were voices, 'Tam, Tam." I could hear the shouts and I shouted back, 'I'm here, I'm in here." The search party found me an hour and a half later wandering around the forest and there wasn't a bead of sweat on me.

There was another pre-season under Bobby at Hibs when we went to Finland for six days of pre-season but it hadn't been thought out properly. It was in a place called Oulu and we stayed in a hotel which had a huge bar, a nightclub and a casino