1 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.68 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
Position 3, 8 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
A first appearance Matt Just will want to forget — 5.53
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.53, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Tim McCowatt and Canterbury United agree another 3 years.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alex Boxall 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.
He is 15 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Canterbury United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Callum Barbarouses was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Cameron Garbett has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Canterbury United, and 1 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Nothing about this will be in a press release. A plan went upstairs, came back rejected, and the version of the club that would have existed in three years' time just quietly stopped being possible.
In brief
The dugoutTim Lockyer knocks on the manager's door
Looking aheadLooking ahead: the trip to WaiBOP United
The dugoutThe manager plants his flag on Tim McCowatt
At 18 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.
“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 Canterbury United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Michael Payne has improved at 26, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 4 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Alex Bell 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Canterbury United, another week without a signature from Noah Smith.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Marco De Vries is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Canterbury United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Alex Bell has improved at 30, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
“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 Canterbury United, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Canterbury United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alex Boxall 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.