McCormack: Lockdown has brought Cobblers squad closer together

Cobblers midfielder Alan McCormack says being separated for 10 weeks has only served to strengthen the bond between his team-mates.

Football at all levels has been suspended since mid-March due to the coronavirus pandemic but that is set to change in the coming weeks.

The Premier League and Championship are already back in socially-distanced training and clubs playing in the League Two play-offs are set to follow suit next week.

And when the Cobblers squad does finally meet up again, McCormack believes they'll be as close as ever.

"I think it'll bring a lot of teams closer together and that's certainly the case with us," he said. "We've got quite an open group chat and every player is involved in it and every player chats.

"One day it'll be jokes and banter and a barrel of laughter and another day it might be quite serious about what's going on in society at the moment,

"So it's a very open chat and we constantly keep in contact with each other. We were a close changing room anyway because everyone gets on with each other and nobody dislikes anyone.

"We all graft and work as hard as we can and that really rubs off on everyone else.

"If you speak to any retired footballer, the thing they miss the most is the dressing room so having nine weeks away from each other and not knowing when we'll be back in, you miss the dressing room even more because there's so many close friendships and we have a lot of laughter before we go out to play.

"We do miss that and we all look forward to going back to that again. It'll be socially distanced at first and we'll be divided into small dressing rooms but at least it gives us that stepping stone into having a full group back together again."