Month: November 2018

AROUND 7.30pm on a Friday night last month the Kenna League auction hammer fell to pieces.

The incident sparked little comment in the Hoop & Grapes. It was a cheap hammer from ebay, paid for by Kenna funds, and it had served five glorious years. Even if many of the hundreds of signings it had sealed were unremarkable.

No, in itself the hammer head falling off was not of note. Except that it was the most exciting thing to have happened in the opening half hour of the October transfer window.

Let us drop all pretence, it was a bloody slow night. The October window is usually a jaunty occasion where managers are keen to replace those August signings who drifted off to the Continent, the Championship, Scotland. Or prison.

That was when the Premier League window closed at the end of the August. This summer it closed before the Kenna auction to transform the October transfer window into a curious affair.

A distinct lack of talent was available. Perhaps the record number of managers in the world’s leading London pub-based fantasy football league were partly to blame. Surely even the most incompetent Kenna managers could sign all the best August players if there was enough of them?

Burnley, Wolves and Cardiff players dominated the window’s proceedings. The three hours of dogged, Bramble-strewn bidding familiar at transfer night was reduced to a tawdry 60 minutes.

How can Kenna HQ breathe life back into the October window?

Wild ideas were being whispered around the corridors of Kenna HQ even before the window began.

Should managers be forced to release their fourth highest scoring player? Or the third? Or second?

If managers were coerced into losing their top scoring player, how would that affect August player sales?

The marketing flakes at Kenna HQ are already keen to implement a scheme where each manager loses their best midfielder. After a ‘blue sky, ideas shower, no bad ideas’ session (they were going to add ‘helicopter view’…) they came up with a name for it: ‘Midfield General’.

Others suggest the event could be used solely as a cup draw made by a celebrity guest like Mike from the pub or a local prostitute.

Or should the October window be scrapped altogether?

Certainly, Kenna HQ will not be introducing the ‘third window’ of the 2006/07 season, which saw the chairman accused of having no mates.

Whatever the solution, the committee will have to come up with something before next season if we are to avoid a repeat of last month’s staid ceremony.

First they have to buy a new hammer.