David Holdsworth: Singing competition helps build dressing room X Factor

I would like to start this week by way of an apology to the other guests who had to endure the terrible vocal talents of our players at a hotel in Newport recently.

Thanks to club director David Parman, we had kindly been allowed an overnight stay ahead of our game against Newport County and it allowed us to do a bit of team bonding.

This took the form of a singing competition. Everyone gave it their all. Rob Duffy thought he was the new Tom Jones, Andrew Boyce was doing his best to rap, Jake Turner was the worst mime artist I have ever seen and I don't know where to begin with Adam Smith and Vadaine Oliver's efforts.

It is fair to say that at the end I think Simon Cowell would have given them all a big fat 'no'. So don't expect any of them to appear on X Factor any time soon.

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It drew a few perplexed looks from some of the other guests at the hotel, but crucially it was an icebreaker for the squad who were all together on a stopover for the first time.

It was something I've had to do in the past.

When I played for Howard Kendall he had the whole team stand up and sing Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline. We did it so often we had the words committed to memory.

While it may sound silly, it is a good exercise to draw some of the lads out of their shells and goes a long way to building the harmony you need for a successful dressing room.

What can happen at a club is that two or maybe three voices can dominate and that is not a good situation when you want everyone to come together.

When I arrived at Lincoln City it was clear that the dressing room was not in a good way.

I think all fans could see that anyway.

There were players who painfully did not want to be there and the lack of discipline was shocking. Players were turning up late and it was not a good place.

I had to make changes to make it a positive place to be.

In this situation you needed a big voice in there and that was why Jefferson Louis was so important last season.

But that was a different campaign and a different situation.

Going forward this summer I had to make it a place where everyone had the confidence to talk and contribute in a positive way.

We have a situation where you will have younger players being drafted in and the last thing you want is for them to feel intimidated and not included.

If everyone works together, the impact on the pitch is obvious and I think that has been clear in our first few games of the season.

We have been chasing matches, but the character and crucially the togetherness to work for each other to the bitter end has come from the dressing room.

So if you see us bellowing out a few bum notes on in a hotel restaurant, you know what is going on now.