It was a not so bright but early start for the Seasiders on Wednesday morning as the 5am coach departed Bloomfield Road for Gatwick airport. The cups of tea were in full force as the players looked to cope with the tiredness.

Having Sky Sports News on the coach helped all the lads catch up with the transfer deadline day events, although Brett Ormerod did mention the words 'Jeremy Kyle' and 'surely on at this time'. The biggest bit of transfer news - DJ's move to the seaside - was greeted with large cheers from the back of the bus. The striker himself was still playing catch-up after a whirlwind 24 hours that saw him travel up from London to sign. He was now going back in the opposite direction for the flight to Latvia.

Alex Baptiste, Jason Euell, Luke Varney, Ludovic Sylvestre and Elliot Grandin opted to meet the rest of the lads at the airport, where a large group of Scotland fans had also assembled to catch our flight en-route to Lithuania for their Euro 2012 qualifier. The association with Blackpool led to chants of 'There's only one Charlie Adam' from the back of the plane.

The flight was a pretty smooth one but ended with us all playing our own version of the Generation Game in Riga airport, in an effort to remember what bags we had on the conveyor belt. With trolleys stacked, we were greeted in the arrivals section by director Normunds Malnacs, and were to make an immediate impression on Latvia by travelling to the hotel on a garish pink bus.

Bowling had been planned on arrival but the service was out of order, so the lads looked to rest up after a heavy day of travelling.