Tales from the Bell End

  As we’re now half way through our August matches it feels like a good time to reflect on our opening to the season; with one win, one draw, and one loss, we sit 14 th  in the table.  We have a huge game this afternoon with an in - form Farnborough  coming to York Road before a difficult double header on bank holiday weekend with an away trip to Chelmsford and a home game two days later against AFC Totton who are currently flying high in 5 th .  I didn’t make the Truro game but watched the highlights and was really worried by that performance and the return of the flappy JVS that appeared at the start of last season as well. I attended both Dorking at home and Hemel Hempstead away and whilst its obviously way too early in the season to make any  concrete opinions on the team here are my main takeaways  from August so far. One win, one draw, one loss We are clearly  still a work in progress, as Ryan Peters has said, pre-season was less than ideal ...

Truro (A) The season begins tomorrow for The Magpies with a tough away trip to Truro. The Tinners are coming off a really difficult debut season in the National League where they never really looked like staying up. They have a pretty stable squad and a very experienced manager in John Askey as they look to bounce back at the first time of asking. The dangerman for Truro is Tyler Harvey who scored 27 times as they won the National League South in the 2024/25 campaign, although he did struggle at the higher level last season. Ex-Magpies Zac Bell and Shaun Donnellan are likely to start in the Tinners defence and whilst we haven't played them in 9 years we are unbeaten in our last 9 games against them stretching back to 2010. I'd also like to take this opportunity to note that their mascot is a giant Chough, a rare bird only found in the UK in Cornwall, called Brian.... Brian Chough... which is excellent pun work and puts Yorkie the Magpie to shame.  Maidenhead will likely be play...

 As we start our pre-season program tonight with a fixture against MK Dons I'll be looking at how we may line up in the coming season, where we still need to strengthen, and our summer signings so far. Ryan Peters spoke to the Maidenhead Advertiser last week where he said that the club were "pretty much done with their summer business" before admitting that they’ve "kept one or two positions open just in case anyone becomes available who can offer that additional spark."   Summer Signings Joel-Michael Odeniran - Centre Back - 20 y/o - Folkestone Invicta   A much needed left-sided centre back, a position which has been a real problem for us for a number of seasons. Odeniran received good reviews from Invicta fans and he was part of a very strong defence last season alongside ex-Magpie Kevin Lokko which kept 17 clean sheets. He will offer much needed covering pace alongside Manny O and Remy/MWH.  Christian N'Guessan - Defensive Centre Midfielder -  27 y/...

Now that we are finally announcing some summer signings I’ll be analysing them in next week’s blog. Hopefully, we’ll have even more new arrivals by then and I’ll also be looking at the squad depth and possible formations.  But this week is Part 2 of my look at The Magpies’ previous summer transfer windows. The review of last season’s signings will be a lot shorter as I’ve already written about them in depth. 2023/24 An off season with a large number of first team players including many of those signed the previous summer on their way out including Kpewaka and Arthur.  Emile Acquah would be hugely missed up front and Sam Barratt had earned his move to Barnet with a some great displays for the Magpies over the past few years. Regulars Dan Sparkes and Ryan Upward were saying goodbye to York Road after sterling service, and Dan Gyollai had also turned down a new contract after establishing himself as an excellent first choice keeper.   James Golding (Loan) - Football cliches ...

  Whilst we await our first signing, there is a lot of discussion around how important the summer transfer window is this year. I think our past few summer transfer dealings played a part in Alan Devonshire’s resignation as much of the support had lost faith in his recruitment abilities. As we have seen in various comments by Ryan Peters in the post season, Dev’s chief scout Lee Devonshire (I wonder how he got the job?) remains in post which has caused some concern.  So on that note I’ll be looking at his transfer record over the past 5 seasons over two posts; evaluating whether the players were a hit or miss, and then giving the transfer window an overall rating out of 10. I will however, only be assessing players signed during the summer transfer window.    2021/2022 The club lost some vital players that summer; 19 goal striker Daniel Danilo-Orsi and talented winger Josh Coley earned moves to full time clubs after excellent seasons. We also let go our centre midfie...

Retained List We have our retained list!!! The Magpies yesterday published our retained list for the 2026/2027 season with only a few surprises. As expected Liam Dulson has not accepted our contract offer and joins Josh Popoola in departing for full time football presumably. I'm surprised that Ryan Bartley hasn't been kept on and Luke May-Parrott must be terrible in training as he only played about 25 minutes of first team football so that signing feels very odd. I'm really happy the squad has been cleared of some of the deadwood although it's now very clear how much work Ryan Peters and Lee Devonshire have to do to put together a squad that will look to challenge for the title. As you can see from the image below, the squad has a lot of holes in it so  I thought I’d look at possible transfer options available to the club in this post. I’d caveat this whole article by stating that I am by no means a non-league football expert having spent most of my free weekends suppor...