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Posted: January 6th 2009
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There was a time, not so distant, that January was a time to loosen the belt, relax a little and contemplate the chaos of the Christmas fixtures. The January transfer window has put paid to that. Now we desperately scour the sports pages and google for the latest coming or going at our beloved club.
For most there will be some action, even if you are Blackpool and you are witnessing no fewer than eight loan signings return to their parent clubs. The tangerine dream are a minority though. Even the most rickety of outfit will be generating some form of exciting new arrival during the coming month.
Manchester City will generate the spectacular headlines, especially if they fail to sign anyone other than that original ‘Trigger’ Wayne Bridge. For the rest of us the debate generally surrounds why? rather than who? The mid season buy rarely makes the difference, though City once proved that wrong by bringing in Rodney Marsh to scupper their last title bid.
Personally I’d like to move away from that particular pub chestnut and concentrate on a phenomenon that has surfaced around the same time as the concept of the window (though not because of it), the ‘Undisclosed Fee’.
Now, I know why it exists, clubs not listed on the stock exchange are under no obligation to release these fees and as the days of boasting about having a million pound player have long gone, I’m sure a lot of them are happy to keep it hush hush!
It provides endless opportunity to speculate on the actual fee, the redtops have a field day and the message boards go mad. Nobody knows if they are true or not, I suspect some clubs don’t really know…but I do.
Blessed or cursed, call it what you will, with a second sight on these matters, let me take you through the early transfers and reveal the ‘true’ fees involved.
Lets start in the nether regions of the old fourth. Gillingham have brought in winger Andy Barcham from Tottenham. The fee is ‘undisclosed’ as Tottenham don’t actually realise that Gillingham have him. At some point in the summer they’ll find their eighth team had been playing with ten men for months and demand a cursory fee from the Gills. Legendary dodgy geezer Paul Scalley will deliver a small bag of White Fivers and Harry’s Bournemouth Riviera mansion will get its drive way re-paved.
Richie Barker, a legend in the early versions of Championship Manager, has left Hartlepool to go to Rotherham on a ‘free’, this was actually supposed to be an ‘undisclosed fee’, but in true Yorkshire style, Rotherham refuse to pay.
In the first division Drissa Diallo left Cheltenham to join the MK Dons. The undisclosed fee involved a number of trigger clauses. While the Dons had merely to empty Pete Winkleman’s pockets of loose change to get him, every subsequent mispronunciation of his name or reference to ‘Diablo’ will generate £1000 for the Robins. The paucity of invention in your average football crowd means Cheltenham could be able to take Robhino off City’s hands at the end of the season.
The Coca Cola Championship has thus far seen a lot of movement, Preston have paid Blackburn £500 and a year’s supply of Balti Pies for Eddie Nolan, a surprisingly high figure considering Eddie drives the Team Bus! Barnsley lashed out a million on Hugo Colace from Newell’s Old Boys, again a shocking figure when you realise that it wasn’t the Argentinean Newell’s Old Boys, but the pub team that Mike Newell put together during his recent enforced absence from the game.
Bristol City tempted MSK Zilinia to part with Peter Styvar for an all expenses paid trip round the World’s famous Aardman animation studios, home of ‘Vallis und Grumit!’ and some betamax Johnny Morris videos.
The team now officially known as ‘MegarichQueensParkRangers’ have done surprisingly good business in the first week of the market. Despite having to pay £700,000 for a left back they’ve never actually seen play, they managed to capture Heidar Helguson from Bolton for the fee of one hour of listening to Gary Megson explain why he’s misunderstood. Then they got the potential riddled underachiever Wayne Routledge for a few hundred and a career’s worth of slightly too short track suit bottoms for Martin O’Neill, a bargain I’d say.
The Prem is where the real action is! Portsmouth, crumbling under the weight of Tony Adam’s determination to be a decent bloke, let Jean-François Christophe go to Southend for a fee that had to include seafood of some sort. A similar deal for Blackburn who received Pilsner for Sergio Peter from Sparta Prague and Spurs who in return for letting Dag Alexander Olsen go, gained a Time Share near Valencia.
We’re only at the end of the first week, by the time the month is through, Manchester United will have finally captured Tevez in return for Salford, Manchester City will take Scott Parker in a deal where they unwittingly end up owning West Ham and Arsenal’s new director of Scouting, Robert Winston will announce the first signing of an embryo…for an undisclosed fee, obviously.