Chris Lakey Canaries skipper Mark Fotheringham is eager to live life on the edge as he prepares to wipe away the memories of last season's brush with relegation. Fotheringham is with the rest of the City squad at a training camp in the west country, but is desperate to lead the team out at Coventry on August 9.

Chris Lakey

Canaries skipper Mark Fotheringham is eager to live life on the edge as he prepares to wipe away the memories of last season's brush with relegation.

Fotheringham is with the rest of the City squad at a training camp in the west country, but is desperate to lead the team out at Coventry on August 9.

"I can't wait," he said. "The first game against Coventry is going to be great, and it's very exciting.

"It's going to be a very tough league this year with teams who have come down and also those which have come up, with the likes of Swansea and Nottingham Forest it's going to be hard, but we're all looking forward to it."

The 24-year-old Scot has more reason than most to enter the campaign on an optimistic note, having missed more than three months of the early stages of last season with an ankle injury - and returning in time to help Glenn Roeder to his first win since taking over from Peter Grant.

"I was in a bad way last season with that injury and I knew I had to get back in and impress," said Fotheringham. "It was a difficult period because we had new management coming in and as a player you never know how they are going to take to you."

But Fotheringham escaped the Roeder axe, was made team captain and never looked back.

There was speculation that he was on his way this summer, when his contract expired, but less than three weeks after the campaign had ended, he had signed a one-year deal.

The length of the deal raised a few eyebrows, but Fotheringham is adamant his reasoning is spot on.

"I am committing for another season," he said. "There was never any real doubt in my mind.

"For me I like to be on the edge and I like to know that I am always playing for something. I am not the type of person that likes to be tied down for three or four years.

"I believe some players ease off when they have that security of a big contract and if it's not going too well they don't worry because they are on the same wages - and I don't believe in it. I think you have always got to be striving to be better all the time, no matter what level you are playing at or what age you are at."

Fotheringham soon gets the chance to prove his point, with the first day of the new season just around the corner, and says he is ready for the off.

"Everything's going great," he said. "It's good to be back. It's nice to have a break, but it's also really good to get back into training because it can become a little bit boring back at home.

"We're all given a programme and we have to run all the time over the holidays. Some boys do it three times a week, some guys every day of the week. It keeps you ticking over and it means when you get back to training you don't feel it affects you so much and you're ready for it."