Adebayo Akinfenwa is dripping with sweat and grinning from ear to ear as he arrives for his press session at the Wycombe Wanderers’ training ground.

It’s become a familiar sight around the place since the loveable striker’s move from AFC Wimbledon in July.

He has been busy putting the finishing touches on a pre-season training regime geared at preparing Wanderers for tomorrow’s League Two curtain raiser at Crawley Town.

Pre-season is far from the 34-year-old’s favourite part of the job and he is eagerly anticipating the season getting under way.

“It’s no secret that I am not a fan of pre-season, but this year I have embraced it more. You do that as you get older,” Akinfenwa explains.

“You just want to play games and cherish every moment. It is a new chapter for me, a new challenge with the boys.

“The beginning of the season is what I have been looking forward to and we are all ready for the Crawley match.

“We have five games in the first month which will be a test which I will relish.”

In recent times Akinfenwa’s reputation for burly centre-forward play has almost been usurped by his alter ego the ‘Beast’. It would be foolish, however, to suggest a man who played 42 times during the Don’s ascension to League Two last season has nothing to offer on a Saturday afternoon.

The noise which accompanies his media commitments is just that to Akinfenwa, who plundered eight goals including a penalty at Wembley, in the 2015/16 campaign.

“People in football know, ask a couple of the defenders that I’ve played against. They know I’m a footballer. I don’t get frustrated when people try to blur the lines,” he says.

“I am a footballer first and foremost and I keep saying that. There is no secret I do a lot outside of football and the gaffer knows that.

“I try as much as possible to work things around football and not let it affect my football because that always comes first for me.”

Akinfenwa’s personality has certainly helped him settle at Wycombe and his affable character has seen him integrate well with a tight knit group.

There is a sense the veteran of over 300 football league games could have an important role to play off the pitch as well as on it.

For Akinfenwa the position of role model is one he embraces and believes he can fulfil.

“The lads have made me feel welcome and I have been fined already. I thought my size would help me but they weren’t having any of it,” Akinfenwa says as a broad smile returns to his face.

“The senior players like Haysey (Paul Hayes), JJ (Joe Jacobson), Thommo (Garry Thompson) and Blooms (Matt Bloomfield) like the responsibility of helping.

“I will keep doing what I have been doing on and off the pitch. Like I said I am just looking forward to getting into the season whatever it brings good, bad or indifferent.”