Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Exeter City they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad19 Nov 2029
Thierry Gale 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.
Jake Doyle-Hayes and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Exeter City know it.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout19 Nov 2029
Somebody else is better right now than Ethan Ndiweni
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Exeter City is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad24 Sep 2029
Words at Exeter City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thierry Gale is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Jake Doyle-Hayes and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Mariano Riegel has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The deal with Brentford is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Exeter City, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Exeter City people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Keiner Hurtado will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Exeter City the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Ethan Ndiweni and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad27 Aug 2029
Words at Exeter City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thierry Gale is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jamie Mullins. 2‑1 against Swindon Town, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Exeter City, and it is not being withdrawn.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Exeter City will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Charlie Clanford has just signed for Exeter City, and for once the answer mattered.
At 22 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
$250.0K on the table at Bristol City. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Liverpool have kept their man, and Exeter City go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Charlie Clanford is 20, and Exeter City have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Adelaide United waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Exeter City is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Charlie Goode was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad15 Jan 2029
Thierry Gale 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Exeter City can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.