Peltier's a Terrier

Well that was quick. No sooner had we got the news that Huddersfield had made an offer for Lee Peltier, then the very next day it's announced that the offer has been accepted and he is, indeed, off up the M1 to Yorkshire to sign a 3-year contract.

It's a shame he's gone, but it was inevitable. As discussed previously the only way the club can hope to break even at present is by selling its better players and Peltier is undoubtedly the jewel in YTFC's current crown. He's a right-back by preference but is equally capable of playing in midfield and towards the end of last season had what I thought were his best series of games for the Glovers as a central defender - versatility is his middle name. We'll miss that a lot. I have to say I'm surprised he's gone to another L1 club, all the talk since the end of the season was of him moving up to the Championship. Huddersfield are undoubtedly a step up from us, but still, they're in League One. They're by no means the biggest club in L1 at that and are by no means assured of challenging for the play-offs, automatic promotion would appear a distant dream. Still, the best of luck to him. He did well for us and I'm sure he'll do well for them.

The fee, I hear you ask, what about the fee? Undisclosed, as per usual with YTFC. I do get a little tired with the club's obsession with secrecy regarding transfer fees. As I understand it their argument is that if other clubs know how much we take in transfer fees then in turn the fees we pay (hah!) will be inflated accordingly. This is, in my humble opinion, a specious argument, or to put it another way, bollocks. Undisclosed transfer fees simply lead to reams of ill-informed speculation, most of which is exaggerated which inevitably leads to disappointment once the real fee is eventually discovered. And it will be discovered, sooner or later. There are always leaks, human nature being as it is, and the truth always comes out eventually. But if other clubs find out how much we received for a player then so what? Football clubs don't run in splendid isolation, every club in the football league will already have a pretty good idea of each other's financial situation. Everyone already knows we have to sell to survive, more pertinently everyone already knows that Yeovil don't do transfer fees; at least not the sort of transfer fees that the vast majority of other L1 clubs regularly contemplate.

Whatever, the first rumours are putting the fee at £250k plus add-ons and a sell-on percentage. Time will tell as to whether that's accurate, for what it's worth it sounds on the high side to me.

Just read: The City at the End of Time by Greg Bear. Oh dear. I've gone on about Bear's novels before, loved the majority of them but this, his latest, is a real disappointment. As the title suggests it's primarily set as far in the future as it's possible to go, but there are strands set in our time and the past. I found it confusing above all else and frequently incomprehensible, not to mention boring. It took me nearly a week to read 150-odd pages and with another 300 or so to go gave it up as bad job. Me no like.