Three out of five ain't bad

Terry Skiverton's little game of brinkmanship with the five out of contract players paid off this week with the news that Dean Bowditch, Nathan Smith and Gavin Tomlin have all agreed new deals with the club; with only Kieran Murtagh and JP Kalala's future as yet uncertain. Murtagh is evidently going to return for pre-season training anyway, and Kalala is still at home in France, having been given extra time by Skivo to deal with a family problem.

I'm pleased to see Smith and Bowditch sign on in particular. There were strong rumours going around the interweb linking Smith with Ipswich and Bowditch with Colchester respectively. We'll never know if there was ever any substance to those rumours, but there's no doubt that both players were among our better performers last season, particularly of the contracted players. Bowditch was our top scorer despite missing over 3 months of the season with a dislocated shoulder; and Smith, once he gained a regular starting position, got better and better the more games he played. He's the epitome of a modern full-back - dangerous going forwards, strong defensively and has bags of pace. I'd go as far to say that with Smith on the left and Craig Alcock on the right, the Glovers will have as good a pair of starting full-backs as any other side in League One next season, and better than most. And not to leave him out, I'm happy to welcome Gavin Tomlin back for another season as well. I know Tomlin's a bit like marmite for a lot of fans, but I've always liked what he brings to the team. He's inconsistent, true. But he works hard, is better in the air than he's given credit for and does have a little bit of flair and creativity that can upset opposition defences. It's still fairly early days as far as squad-building is concerned, and there are still a lot of gaps to be filled, particularly in goal, defence and midfield. Nevertheless the retention of the above three players plus the addition of Andy Williams and Luke Ayling is encouraging.

The fixtures are out, and we've been drawn against Crystal Palace at home in the first round of the League Cup. It all kicks off again in 7 weeks time and the first friendly is in less than a month. What happened to summer?!

Been watching: The World Cup (what else?). After a pretty quiet first few days the tournament began to wake up when favourites Spain lost to Switzerland and it's been getting better ever since. What has been been disappointing is the standard of commentary and punditry, from both BBC and ITV. Almost without exception the viewer has been treated with contempt by both our national broadcasters who seem to have spared no expense in the creation of space age sets with wonderful views of the South African skyline and then filled them with talking heads with virtually nothing of interest to say and a complete lack of tactical insight into the games we've been watching. The likes of Alan Shearer, Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson, Gary Lineker, Gareth Southgate and Andy Townsend deal exclusively in platitudes and cliches, are boring to look at and listen to and oh so smug in their condescension, both to the viewer and the occasional different studio guest. Even Adrian Chiles, very watchable as host of Match of the Day 2, is being dragged down to Lineker-lite by the demands of constant live exposure on ITV. The games themselves are being spoilt by the constant drone of the sound-a-like commentary teams, only Jonathan Pearce in my view adding anything to the viewing experience with his trademark enthusiasm. There is a chink of light at the end of the tunnel with the arrival in South Africa of several current managers who actually know what they're talking about to augment the various sofa's - step forward Roy Hodgson, Harry Redknapp and Gordon Strachan. Hopefully we'll hear rather more from those three over the next couple of weeks and rather less from the ex-players who currently monopolise the airwaves.