Sam Van Hattum

Attacking Midfielder (L) - Canterbury United U18
22 Jan 2027
Friday
Process

Marked for Sam Van Hattum

12 Edition

The Canterbury United Gazette

19 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Steady

Squad

Clayton Singh is a better footballer than he was

Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.

Squad

Michael Rufer has improved at 27, 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.

Squad

Tempers go at Canterbury United

Michael Rufer 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.

Boardroom

4 academy players handed senior numbers at Canterbury United

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.

Squad

Enzo Ruiz 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.

Market

Canterbury United promote Sam Van Hattum from within

The academy exists for exactly this morning. Sam Van Hattum has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.

In brief