Marked for MJ Kamson-Kamara
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Aug 2028
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Kayne Ramsay had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2028
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Hull City keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2028
Bradford City asked and Aston Villa said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market7 Aug 2028
The chase for MJ Kamson-Kamara ended with $750.0K changing hands and Lincoln City out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2028
Bradford City offered $42.0K; Queens Park Rangers said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Squad7 Aug 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Sam Walker commits to Bradford City for another 2 years.
Squad7 Aug 2028
José Luis García falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad7 Aug 2028
The medical room confirms 35 days on the sidelines for Matthew Cook, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Market7 Aug 2028
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom7 Aug 2028
The statement thanked him for his efforts and wished him well, in that order and in about that many words. The search begins immediately.
Squad7 Aug 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Alassana Jatta
48 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lincoln City lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom7 Aug 2028
An empty coaching office at Lincoln City
There is nobody left to promote and nobody left to run a session. The board have brought in a name the supporters do not know, and the question of how a club gets here will outlast whoever answers it.
Boardroom7 Aug 2028
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
The terraces7 Aug 2028
Lincoln City sell a favourite for $1.4M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Tom Bayliss was one of the reasons people came, and $1.4M does not replace that by itself.
Market7 Aug 2028
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Lincoln City is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market7 Aug 2028
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Lincoln City heard it as anything else.
Boardroom7 Aug 2028
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $190.2K — a club that wants Tomoki Iwata enough to be asked twice.
Market7 Aug 2028
Tom Bayliss has left for Southampton in a $1.4M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 Jul 2028
Alassana Jatta damages knee ligaments — 56 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 56 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Boardroom31 Jul 2028
The scrutiny sharpens at Lincoln City
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Lincoln City is running low.
Market31 Jul 2028
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Burton Albion waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Lincoln City is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market31 Jul 2028
The chase for Jordan Amissah ended with $1.7M changing hands and Burton Albion out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Market31 Jul 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Darío Rodríguez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lincoln City the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market31 Jul 2028
The phone has started ringing about Tom Bayliss again, and this time the name on the line is Southampton. Lincoln City are listening politely and promising nothing.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Will Murdock and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Jordan Amissah gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jordan Amissah has just signed for Lincoln City, and for once the answer mattered.
The terraces31 Jul 2028
The town asked, and Lincoln City paid $1.7M
Jordan Amissah was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $1.7M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.