Deadline Day Latest

I’ve never really gotten into this whole ‘deadline day’ thing. I suppose today has been mildly exciting, but I don’t think Danny will feel that way. He’ll be happy when 11pm comes, if he’s got his man, or rather if he has got one of his men.

Here is some of the latest situations as I understand them, having spoken to a couple of different people.

I’m led to believe that Ollie Hawkins was one of our targets. It goes against the type of player I thought we would try to sign, but I’m now told he was interested in a deal with Lincoln and may have had a medical at the club. However, as Danny said of his target yesterday, there was interest from League One, and that was realised when he turned up at Portsmouth this afternoon. I’m told up until around 10am he was heading to Sincil Bank, that may not be the case of course.

Now his move to Pompey does open up a possibility, one of my favourite players from the non-league could now be available. Nicke Kabamba was previously at Hemel Hempstead but secured a January move to Pompey. He a tall lad, very mobile and perhaps able to offer options up front. He won’t have necessarily been available up until lunchtime today. Now his stats don’t look great, but don’t let that fool you: he has a lot of promise and may be an uncut diamond not quite ready for League One.

Hawkins move does put a big question mark over another possible target, Corey Whitely. Unless Dagenham have something up their sleeve I can’t see them letting two players go, and Whitely does seem to be very much in favour at the moment. I don’t expect him to move.

Now, over to the situation at Barnet. Our friends over there consider this to be squeaky bum time, but not because of those Akinola rumours. John Akinde does look likely to make a move, but Lincoln is not going to be his destination. Charlton have been heavily linked with him, and Bees fans are anxious he’ll be on his way. If Akinola was to turn up at Lincoln they’d be delighted, because it would mean they were less likely to lose their talisman and major goal threat.

Where this leaves us with Akinola is open to debate. Barnet may be willing to let him go on a loan with a view to buy, he hasn’t achieved much there yet. He has only been with them six months though, any indication they’re ready to move him on might be premature if they saw him as one for the future. Some Bees fans have described him to me today as a ‘panic buy’ who is not getting the care and attention he needs at Barnet. One even said ‘he just wants to be back with Danny’. Watch that space, but possibly not until 10.30pm as Barnet won’t let him go if there’s a late move for Akinde.

Dave Tarpey is a no, plain and simple. Anyone thinking the Maidenhead striker is joining us is (I’m told) dreaming. He has a very good paid job down south, he’ settled and he doesn’t want to relocate. If he’s coming into the Football League it will be with a London club, but they’ll need to spend big.

Jonny Margetts isn’t likely either, Peter Swann didn’t want him to come back here last year but the administrative error ensured he had to. His lack of game time on his second return was a let-down to the player and to Scunthorpe, but he is old news. I wish Margetts well, but it isn’t going to happen.

I’m told if things do not pan out as we hope there is a cheeky loan deal more or less tied up for a youngster, but again it’s only snippets and half-rumour I’m getting. Danny isn’t willing to go into the next couple of months without adequate cover, but in an ideal world he would bring someone in permanently.

As for the rumours linking us with James Norwood, I’ve seen or heard nothing further on that I’m afraid. It would seem unlikely at this stage that he’ll be unveiled, if he was the player having a medical yesterday then perhaps I could have seen it happening, but I do doubt it now.