ALEX Baptiste admitted to being 'nervous' upon his arrival to the Blackpool dressing room yesterday.

Having been used to the surroundings of Mansfield for pre-season, the defender was faced with a new challenge of meeting his new teammates at Bloomfield Road.

It was safe to say that the Blackpool dressing room welcomed him with open arms, making his first day training with the club extremely enjoyable.

"You want to make a good impression but the lads made me feel really welcome and I'm really glad to be here," the 22-year-old said.

Pre-season training isn't necessarily the most enjoyable part of being a footballer, so it wasn't a surprise to here the players revealing that the first day back was 'hard'.

Baptiste was one of those to agree, and said: "It was hard. I think they were just easing us in but it wasn't easy, no pre-season is. It's good to get back though.

"We know that it's going to be hard, ask any player, pre-season is always going to be hard."

"I'll just get a few games under my belt and, obviously, I've got a few more bits of training to do - it's pre-season like I say, but we'll all be ready for the 9 August," he added.

SUBSCRIBERS TO TANGERINE WORLD CAN LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW WITH ALEX HERE.