It comes around twice a year but always has the ability to cause a stir. It can make people dare to dream and hope but more often than not ultimately ends in disappointment.
At the tail end of every August and January internet using football supporters sit glued in front of the BBC home page and various message boards frantically hitting F5 (or apple-r for the more discerning among us) with the hope that our team will sign *the* player who make the rest of the season a success. Many stories will come and go, players spotted at the airport, my friends dad’s taxi driver overheard it, and we’ll sit and devour everyone in the hope that some of them are actually true.
Of course for every team buying there is one selling so the smaller clubs inevitably lose as many players as they sign. Will your Championship star striker be flogged off to bolster some lower half Premiership club’s substitutes bench? Will your 17 year old wonderkid head for Spurs’ reserves? Will your overweight and overpaid reserve team stalwart get picked up by some mug with more money than sense?
It’s 7 o’clock and there’s still 5 hours to go – I live in hope that something magical will happen but it probably won’t. And knowing Palace if they do sign anyone the fax will get jammed and it’ll all fall down anyway.