Marked for Noah Stamatelopoulos
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
Liberato Garbett and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Bill Cacace 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Canterbury United did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market10 Aug 2026
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and WaiBOP United waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Canterbury United is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Jai Payne and Canterbury United agree another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
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.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to Southern United: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
Jai Payne knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Canterbury United, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Stefan Waine
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market10 Aug 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Owen Barbarouses has his answer from Canterbury United; what he does with it is the next window’s story.