It may be the close-season, but Academy Director Tony Carr is already busy making plans for the 2011/12 campaign.

Carr, who is about to begin his 39^th season of coaching within the Academy of Football, will begin pre-season training with fitness tests in a little more than two weeks' time.

The Under-18s will also contest a number of friendly matches before heading to Estonia for a four-team tournament before the FA Premier Academy League season commences in late August.

For Carr, that has meant a summer full of phone calls, emails and meetings - as well as a welcome week in the sun.

"Even when you're on holiday your phone is always receiving emails and texts and you're never far away from thoughts about how pre-season is going to go," he told West Ham TV. "You hope everyone is fit and well and players will progress and you think about what we're going to do, where we're going to go and who we're going to play.

"It is what it is - an all-consuming job - and even when you're away you can never relax 100 per cent."

Carr may have been conducting pre-season training every year for nearly four decades, but he still has the appetite for the job as if he had arrived at the club just this summer.

Central to this year's schedule is a trip to Estonia, where the Hammers will take on the likes of Dutch giants AFC Ajax and an Estonian national junior side.

"We start training in the first week of July and we'll start with fitness testing and seeing what levels the boys are at in terms of their fitness and then we're going to Estonia for six days for a four-team tournament, which is somewhere we've never been before.

"It's an all-expenses-paid trip and we're very much looking forward to it and it's a change of environment. You have your six or seven weeks of pre-season training at Little Heath and this will be a welcome distraction and will break up the pre-season with some foreign opposition.

"Estonia will host the UEFA European Under-19 Championship in 2012, so this tournament will help them to prepare for that competition."

Two players who may be allowed to join pre-season training slightly later than their colleagues are Blair Turgott and Dylan Tombides.

The duo are currently on duty at the FIFA U17 World Cup in Mexico, where they are representing England and Australia respectively.

"The World Cup is going on over in Mexico, so it's going to be a bit difficult for us to see the games, but I understand some are going to be televised.

"I think they are both doing quite well. They are in the preliminary stages of the tournament at the moment and I know Dylan has been doing quite well, scoring goals, and Blair has been playing quite well in England's matches.

"Hopefully they might even meet in the final, which would be great. Certainly it's a great experience for them and we'll have to bear in mind that they've been working all through the summer when they do come back."

*An extended interview with Tony Carr appeared first on West Ham TV. To subscribe, click on the link below.