The Lower League Week – Michael Knighton’s awful poetry

This Week’s Transfer News

Nile Ranger makes his move, after making a case

Nile Ranger has moved to Swindon, who’ve signed up the former Newcastle man even before a new manager’s appointed. Ranger has been given the number nine shirt, despite his unproven nature (four goals in 65 games by the age of 22), an upcoming rape case, and being an outside bet for the next Celebrity Big Brother.

In more conventional transfer news, Fleetwood’s Steven Gillespie has returned to Cheltenham on loan, five years after leaving. Gillespie, who was transfer-listed in May, has always been an eye-catchingly creative player, and seems to have been brought in as a direct, if stylistically different, replacement for the injured Jamie Cureton.

Meanwhile, the new Scunthorpe chairman Peter Swann has hinted that Brian Laws will be allowed to spend the sell-on fee the club have recieived from Gary Hooper’s move to Norwich, estimated to be around £500,000. Though it’s getting late in the transfer window now, even a quarter of that would be enough to significantly strengthen a League Two side.

The Kitman Runneth

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably worked a few jobs that start with a probationary period of a few months, just to check things work out. Oldham’s kit man was on one such contract… but this week crashed the club minibus, managing to hit three players’ cars at once.

For whatever reason, he decided not to stand his ground and apparently disappeared, not to be seen again.

Given that one of the cars belongs to the son of Brendan Rogers, Liverpool probably won’t be the next place he applies to…

Stanley to Make Do Without Heys

A decision has been made on the gambling charge laid against Accrington Managing Director Rob Heys – he’s been banned from working within football for 21 months, effectively until the end of next season. Given that he’s been with the club for 11 years since the reborn side were in the UniBond League, Stanley will be forced into the uncomfortable position of replacing a long-serving employee.

Unlike the Rangers player Ian Black, there doesn’t seem to be any accusation that he tried to create a negative result for his own side, though he did gamble against Accrington as part of accumulator bets.

But given that four Accrington players were convicted of throwing a match just five years ago, Stanley should have been working to make sure the club avoids even the appearance of scandal, with Heys himself among those most responsible for managing the club’s reputation.

It’s a shame that a long-serving employee will effectively lose his job for a bit of bad judgment that didn’t actually harm anyone, but the inability to make these sorts of bets is one of the conditions of being involved in professional football, and an experienced administrator like Heys should have known this.

Bobby Moore, Leyton Orient Legend

One of the minor pleasures of away days is scanning through the home team’s programme to get a sense of how well the opposing club knows your current team and your history. Leyton Orient fans travelling to Stevenage at the weekend will have been surprised to see a feature on “former Leyton Orient favourite” Bobby Moore, who never represented the club.

Yes, Stevenage somehow managed to devote an entire feature to Orient ‘legend’ Bobby Moore, without checking that he actually played for them. He did attend secondary school in Leyton, so you can understand… no, you can’t, really.

I’ve been giving this a bit more thought than I should. You can imagine the writer, having pitched the article idea to his editor, writing up the big moments of Moore’s career – winning the World Cup, that tackle on Pele, Escape to Victory, so on. Most of it’s so well-known that any English football fan could reel through it from memory.

But surely the writer would look on the internet, to find out if there’s any colourful stories from his time at the club they’re convinced he played for. I can only assume that a desk somewhere had a series of forehead marks struck into it the day after deadline.

Oh, and this isn’t what Stevenage’s £4 cheesy chips look like; though the picture was spreading over the weekend, the club took to twitter on Monday to refute the accuracy of the meme.

They’ve not yet commented on whether or not cats can have cheesy chips.