City Gashing in?

Who said the close season had to be dull? After a gripping week-long transfer saga with more twists than a massive twisty thing, City have ended up missing out on one Ebbsfleet player we thought had signed, capturing one we'd never even mentioned and still waiting on a third who is, in all likelihood, not worth anywhere near the £50,000 rumoured to have been offered. So, how did we get here, why were the signings 'unveiled' before the deals had been finalised and, perhaps most importantly, how the devil did we become one of the most minted clubs in the Conference all of a sudden? Let's reacquaint ourselves with exactly how the story panned out.

Monday June 22nd
Ebbsfleet United announce that an unnamed club has bid £80,000 - payable in two equal instalments, one immediately and one in January - for defender Darius Charles and striker Michael Gash. Due to Ebbsfleet being owned by the faux-democratic social experiment gone wrong otherwise known as MyFootballClub, the decision over whether to accept the bid must be voted on by the site's members. Luckily for the unnamed club (which at this stage no-one really suspects is City) these votes are about as unpredictable as an Iranian election, given that they essentially follow whatever advice is given by the board and manager, which in this case recommends that they snap the unnamed club's hands off. The members have two days in which to decide to do exactly as they are told or else.

Tuesday June 23rd
Speculation is rife over the identity of the unnamed club, with City fans throwing our name into the hat more in hope than expectation. The evidence to support their theory seems fairly flimsy - we had earlier tabled a bid of £10,000 for Charles, but Luton and Morecambe had both made substantially larger offers for Gash, and seem more likely to be flush enough to afford such an offer.

Wednesday June 24th
Things begin to get really interesting today. An overwhelming majority (78%) of the MyFC members vote in favour of towing the party line, and all that remains is for the identity of the unnamed club to be revealed. Oh, and for the players to sign deals, but let's not get bogged down in mere formalities. That comes later. Meanwhile, reliable sources are being cited left, right and centre, to support claims that we are the unnamed club, and rabid excitement mounts. Whether this is over the prospect of the two players involved signing for City or the sheer novelty of the club actually being able to spend money on players remains unclear.

Thursday June 25th
With City fans just about creaming their pants as the rumour gathers pace, party-pooper Dave Flett ruins it all with a throwaway sentence in an otherwise uninteresting article about some mediocre left-back, which states that 'manager Martin Foyle has revealed that City are not the club who have had an £80,000 bid accepted by Ebbsfleet for Michael Gash and Darius Charles'. Sounds pretty final, so that must have been that, right? Weirdly, no.

Friday June 26th
Foyle's apparent denial fails to halt the juggernaut that is the Gash-and-Charles-to-City rumour. After all, proponents of the rumour point out, Flett's article contains no direct quote from Foyle, although it's difficult to envision the scenario in which a denial could have been interpreted when none was forthcoming. Perhaps Foyle said 'Oh, someone's bidding for Mark Gash and Darren Charles? Never heard of them' and then performed an exaggerated wink which Mr Flett failed to catch. We will simply never know.

Saturday June 27th
Today the world is turned upon its head, as it becomes apparent that we can no longer trust the Press. Flett's latest article not only adds fuel to the fire by revealing that the club are set to unveil three new signings on Monday, but also heavily insinuates that Gash and Charles are two of the three by retracting the earlier denial by Foyle.

Sunday June 28th
The Non-League Paper jumps aboard the bandwagon, with an article revealing City as the unnamed club. Fans wait with bated breath for the unveiling tomorrow, a week after the original bid was submitted.

Monday June 29th
It's official! York City have signed Darius Charles, Michael Gash and Neil Barrett! Wait, who's that third one? Another Ebbsfleet player, although it is unclear initially whether he is joining as part of the Gash/Charles deal or separately. There can be no more doubts that the deal is going ahead - maybe we can't trust the Press, but the official site is running the story too. Joy abounds, and City's odds descend rapidly. 'A big coup for York City', says Foyle! 'The London-based trio will be moving to York', adds the official site! 'We're going to win the league', yell the masses, foaming at the mouth despite having never seen the players involved in action.
And then, just as everyone is settling down with a celebratory cup of Horlicks, another rumour starts. The deal, despite appearing to have been finalised, has fallen through. One of the players has failed to agree terms. This rumour is then confirmed on the Ebbsfleet site, which makes it clear that since the offer was for both players, neither will now be making the move North due to an about-turn performed by one (Charles, it turns out).

Tuesday June 30th
The dust settles and all becomes clear: the players had agreed terms in principle and were all set to join today, but Charles had a last-minute change of heart and decided to stay in London with his pregnant girlfriend. So why had the deal been announced if it hadn't been finalised? Sophie McGill kindly explains to us that the club saw no point in delaying the announcement, because there simply remained a few formalities to tie up. Formalities like the players actually signing contracts with the club. In a final, farcical twist, the Press runs with a back page hailing the arrival of City's three saviours. That might have been understandable, as news of the collapse broke late the night before, but less understandable is the decision to add the stories about an '£80k statement of intent' eleven hours after it has become apparent that intent alone would be as far as the deal went. A brief article explaining the 'new' situation appears soon after, but not before a few idle hopes had been raised that the previous night had all been a bad dream. In the end, though, the overall damage turns out to be relatively minimal, as Barrett joins regardless, and the club submit a further bid for Gash.

So, it was a bit of pre-season excitement while it lasted, and given that we're one player better off with significant funds left to burn, can we not shrug off the loss of Charles, and move on with no real harm done? Well, not exactly. The image of those responsible for running the club is growing more amateurish by the week, and while Sophie McGill might cry that announcing players have signed before they've actually put pen to paper is 'the normal way' in football, the board are being left red-faced far too frequently for it to be attributed simply to misfortune. One occasion might seem like carelessness, but two in the space of two weeks? Fortunately, some blushes were spared when the club secured a replacement for Charles hours after the deal's collapse, but Martin Foyle's comment upon securing O'Hare that he 'always had a feeling something wasn't right' with Charles only makes the premature announcement that he had signed more baffling.

More baffling still, perhaps, is that the club are suddenly able to shell out £80,000 on two players from a team who finished below us last season, and still come in under the playing budget. The source of the funds is presumably the run to Wembley and extra monies from recently-promoted Scunthorpe as part of the Martyn Woolford sale. But aren't these the same funds which weren't sufficient to plug a £19,000 gap to keep the youth team running? Regardless of whether you think, as I do, that this reflects a wrong ordering of priorities, what is undeniable is that the tone of the board's statements about the financial situation seems to be changed at will in different circumstances. As for the Press, the debacle of the past week has only confirmed what we already suspected; that the reporters are just as clueless as the rest of us when it comes to goings-on at the club, and in some cases more so.