YORK City player-boss Chris Brass will combine his holiday in Portugal with a spying mission this month.

Brass intends to visit both the English and Spanish training camps during his summer break and will be on the look out for any innovative coaching trips.

The Minstermen manager has also got tickets for all of England games, as well as the group matches in Faro involving Spain, Russia and Greece.

Brass is also expecting to indulge in a bit of networking on the golf course.

He said: "As a manager, I'm looking forward to seeing how different teams prepare. I will be based near a few of the training camps and hope to see what the England boys are doing.

"I'll probably be playing golf as well so, no doubt, I'll bump into more footballing people on the course. The Spanish are another one of the countries nearby and it will be good to see how they train and whether their approach is different to our's. I will certainly be looking to take things on board and, equally, will be hoping to arrive at grounds early to see how different teams warm-up and prepare for matches."

Brass will be leaving number two Lee Nogan in charge at Bootham Crescent during his holiday but added: "Lee will be taking care of things while I am away in terms of arranging possible things with new players but there also might be a chance that I will need to catch a plane back if the need arises and I don't mind doing that."

Brass will be writing an Evening Press Euro 2004 column from his holiday base in Portugal and you can read it every Thursday throughout the tournament.

He flew out from Manchester late last night but, first, shared his thoughts with our readers about who he thinks will be the top teams and the star performers during the next four weeks.

Brass Tacks from Portugal - Page 20

Ledley King is set to stand in for John Terry against France on Sunday should the Chelsea defender fail to recover from a hamstring injury. King has leapfrogged Jamie Carragher as England's preferred replacement.

Updated: 10:55 Thursday, June 10, 2004