Back to the future

After the fun and frolics of Skivo's testimonial game we're back to the reality of pre-season training, and reality is the right word with the news that three former players who took part in the weekend's festivities are still with us. There's no word on whether the three - Andy Lindegaard, Paul Terry and Kevin Gall - are training with a view to staying permanently or merely getting fit before trying out elsewhere.

For what it's worth I would be slightly concerned if we took any of them on permanently. Taking them one-by-one, Lindy is a right-back by preference though of course can play virtually anywhere on the pitch except centre-half, but we already have 2 versatile right-backs in Craig Alcock and Danny Hutchins, so one really can't see a space in the squad for him.

Paul Terry is perhaps the most consistent player of the three but we're not currently short of central midfielders, with Kieran Murtagh, Gary Roberts and Danny Schofield all contracted (three central midfielders? Luxury! But you try telling the kids that today...), though there are question marks over both Roberts and Schofield. But Terry has been linked very heavily with Conference side Luton lately and of course originally left Somerset to move nearer his London home. He played in most of Leyton Orient's games last season and is a proven, ball-winning centre midfielder of the type we could always do with, so I wouldn't entirely rule him out of Skivo's possible thinking. But I wouldn't start crying if he was gone by the weekend either.

Kevin Gall is the last of the old-timers. Ah Gally. Gally, Gally, Gally. As much as I like my fellow Welshman I have to say I'll be quite dismayed if we sign him up. Lovely fella, good turn of pace and couldn't hit a barn door from two feet away. Since leaving us for Carlisle in 2006 he's played for the Cumbrians and gone out on loan to Darlington, Lincoln and Port Vale; 74 league games in total and 9 league goals to show for it. He hasn't scored on a consistent basis since he formed his league-winning partnership with Kirk Jackson in the Conference back in 2002-03 and the suspicion must be that that was his best year and it's been all downhill since. There must be hungrier, younger, faster, better players out there who'd like to play for us? Please?

Aside from the former three there's one new face training at the club this week, and this one is something of a surprise. Former Ipswich Town left-back/left-sided midfielder Dan Harding is that man and on the face of it he's far too good for us and probably far too expensive in terms of wages too. So why's he here? Keep your fingers crossed, hope for the best and expect him to sign for a bigger club imminently. Imagining anything else will just lead to disappointment, or madness. Or both.

Good news (on the face of it): Terrell Forbes has signed a contract extension! I would be more enthusiastic about this news if it weren't for the fact that Lloyd Owusu did exactly the same thing this time last season, only to jump ship a month or so later for Cheltenham. The official site gives no details as to how long the extension is for and the suspicion must be that it's a short-term deal. Very short-term. Very, very short-term. Very, very, very short-term indeed. We'll see.

Finally, one player we've been linked to in the press would now appear to be out of our reach. Peterboro have accepted an offer of £150,000 from an unnamed club for striker Rene Howe, according to Posh DoF Barry Fry. Of course you never know with Barry, he might be telling the truth or talking complete bollocks, but if that is the kind of money Peterboro are looking for then we presumably have moved on to other targets by now.

Currently watching: The new series of Top Gear on BBC2. I refused to watch this programme for years, mainly because of frontman Jeremy Clarkson, who I always thought was probably the biggest prick on television. Not only that, but a former girlfriend used to insist we put the programme on and she'd sit on the sofa and literally laugh herself silly at his antics which used to irritate me immensely. She had to go and so did Clarkson. I hated the bloke with a passion and swore a mighty oath that whenever he came on my tv I'd either turn over to another channel or throw a brick through the screen. And for years that's exactly what I did, which began to get expensive, especially when plasmas came along. Anyway, one day I was at a friend's house watching the box as you do, when along came a repeat of an old Top Gear, the one when they had to turn ordinary vehicles into working boats and drive them to a lake, and then into the lake, sink or swim. To cut a long story short I watched the programme and was hooked. I laughed and laughed myself and thereafter began to watch all the re-runs on Dave. And I realised eventually that it doesn't matter that the main presenter is one of the biggest pricks to ever have walked this earth and the other two are public-school non-entities with nothing very interesting to say because together they become a sum much greater than their original parts. Top Gear works precisely because Clarkson is a prick, the little one an enthusiastic prat and the hippy a bit of a ponce. Together, they have a chemistry that works, that makes for entertaining tv. It took me a long time to realise this, but I'm there now and am thoroughly enjoying the new series. I'd just like to apologise to my ex for not getting the Top Gear appeal back then. Mea culpa! I get it now.