Goodbye close season. It was brief but welcome.
If you’re into your Greek classics (which your editor isn’t, to be fair), you might smile at the headline there.
We played Pafos yesterday, and Aphrodite herself was apparently born in the city of our opponents.
I could make lots of comments here, but the Obscene Publications Act still exists. And I don’t fancy spending the next two years in jail with those who posts mean things on Twatter.
We’ll get onto our first PSF in a bit, but before then – we made two more signings last week.
To everyone’s amazement, they didn’t have any AFCW connections. Maybe one bought a steak bake in Greggs next door to Lidl on Plough Lane, but that’s probably pushing it.
Anyway, welcome to AFCW Nathan Bishop and Delano McCoy-Splatt, who has to have one of the best names anywhere.
Bishop is a goalkeeper, and by the look of it likely to be our first choice. He’s also ours, which is a change from the usual loan signing we all expected to get in.
It sounds like he’s an Ashley Bayes project, and apparently our over-excitable goalie coach has wanted to take on somebody he won’t lose after a year.
There’s a couple of clips on t’internet from the last season or two, most notably when Bishop was at Cambridge, and on a couple of them his positioning does need working on.
However, there were similar clips circulating this time last year about the player who joined us who was inbetween the sticks at Colchester.
Didn’t turn out too badly, did he?
It’s a shame that Goodman has gone to Huddersfield, though he probably thinks a change of scenery will do him good. And if you’re a pro footballer, it’s not a bad step up.
As for Splatt, that was another one out of the blue. Which if nothing else shows just how few leaks we get with transfers these days.
One can speculate why it was so open even just a few years ago (it was chronic under TB), to the point where you might as well just live-broadcast any negotiations with the player.
Anyway, Splatt is a Promising Youngster(TM) who like Foyo is one I expect we’ll try and mould this campaign.
It’s interesting we’ve bought him, rather than take a similar player on loan like we usually do. Although Craig Cope (PBUH) did mention the old “we’ve been tracking him for a while” cliche.
Both of them – and the rest of the squad – played their first game of the pre-season, in Marbella against Pafos.
It was live streamed, and I only caught bits and bobs of it, but it’s what is termed a Good Workout.
Kelly (who was fed through by the aforementioned Splatt) and Stevens found the net, and we want them looking as sharp as possible in just under a month.
I do wonder – and certainly hope – if the slightly less brutal nature of L1 might see both of them be more effective.
From January onwards last season, it was needs must, and all our strikers suffered for it. But while it’ll be a little bit quicker, it might not be so daunting after all.
Who knows, playing in the third tier might suit us a bit better.
To be fair, from the little I saw, we didn’t play too badly. There’s obviously ring rust, and we still need more signings, but there wasn’t the obvious sign of hopelessness that we’ve had from some PSFs in recent years.
We did seem to know where each player was, we passed it quite nicely at times, and the two goals were good to see.
I didn’t see their first goal, which we managed to concede in about a minute (or at least it seemed like it), and I thought we were a little bit dozy for their second.
It would be typical of us if our backline next season becomes our weak spot rather than our main strength.
But all can be pleased with the week in Spain. I know it’s a part of the world that we seem to travel to every pre-season, and I’m with those who wish we could go to somewhere like Germany instead.
Yet as we all know, pre-season isn’t for supporters.
As ever, results don’t really matter this stage of the calendar, although of course it’s not solely about fitness either.
By the time we go to Southend at the end of this month, we’ll probably be close to ready for Luton.
And if we aren’t, just remember last year – we were fucking awful at Barnet…
It feels a very short close season this time round, which to be fair it was. Everyone else had close to two months, and we’ve only had one, although it hasn’t dragged like it can do.
I would have liked another couple of weeks off, although by the time next Saturday arrives I’ll be going to Wealdstone for the Watford match.
Nobody is going to the Enfield Town one this week, are they? At least we’re not playing the Met Police this time round.
I expect we’ll be signing another forward, maybe two, but they’re very likely to be on-loan. Which to be fair suits me.
We have three of “our” strikers already, and we managed to get promoted with a deadweight in the form of Joe Pigott last season too.
Any news where Piggy has ended up, by the way? Didn’t he retire?
Whoever we sign will likely be a name who you won’t have heard of and is probably a Premier League 2 player.
If not, he’ll probably be a youngster at a Championship side who has featured in the first round of a Carabao Cup, and needs some game time.
No, I don’t know who that will be. And now the club has worked out how to keep our targets firmly under wraps, we won’t know until the cheesy poses at Plough Lane.
One thing is obvious though – we don’t need wholesale changes at the moment. And that’s a good thing.
Anyway, that’s for this window. For the next round of transfers in January, the latest Begging Bowl telethon is for £250k extra in the transfer kitty.
I couldn’t help noticing that it’s trying to push the idea that we can get the new AAH if you just sell your kidneys to help the club.
I hate to be “that guy” (well, actually, I don’t hate it one bit), but have you ever tried signing a half-decent L1 striker for that money in the January window?
We only got the Iraqi Scouser out of sheer good fortune, and I’m sure we’ve gone down this route before in the past.
Back then, the pledge-for-a-new-player ended up with us signing some crap, and this is why these kind of fundraisers turn out to be a hostage to fortune.
We don’t sign so many duds these days, but we’re still not immune from signing them, and we’re more likely to sign one in January with the fans’ money.
As a once-off, I understand why we’re doing this. It’s a transitional period off the field as much as on it.
But it’s only something you can do once anyway. Especially as a future Begging Bowl will need to start raising £300k for a similar player.
I suspect a part of this latest fundraiser is to “prove” we don’t need 50+1, even though we most certainly do (and have needed it for a good number of years).
Maybe that’s why when people ask for a plan by the decision makers, there isn’t one incoming?
It’s not that one is absent, it’s just because the solution won’t go down well with a certain influential section…
Your editor had a thought last week – perhaps we’ve been isolated too long from the harsh realities of running a football club by being at Kingsmeadow for so long?
We hardly had to upkeep the stadium, we could still pay relative peanuts to stay in the EFL and in a good season even get up to L1.
Now, we’re having to properly look after a decent stadium with its associated running costs, while dealing with the ever-spiralling wage bills that clubs simply can’t get out of paying.
Most clubs figured that out ages ago, but it still appears to come as a shock to us that having our own proper ground alone costs money.
It might actually do the club a favour if Begging Bowl falls way short of the £250k, because then it proves it shouldn’t be relied on.
The club has over-relied on player sales, but they’re drying up. Constant fundraising drives will do likewise, and then what happens after that?
Oh, and a lot of people will want their bond money back. Just saying, like.
Still, the football is back, even if it’s just the phoney war that is pre-season.
I have to admit, I did do a little “get in” when Stevens equalised in the last minute yesterday.
I’d forgotten what losing feels like, and it’s far too early to have my weekends ruined again…