Every deal of the summer window, club by club
A record fee, a free signing who wins games from the bench and a loan nobody saw coming.
The summer window closed at midnight on Friday with a rush of loans, one record fee and a signing that nobody saw coming. Here is every permanent deal involving a Northern League club, what it cost and what we think of it.
The big one
Riverside Rovers broke the league's transfer record to sign Femi Okoye from Fenwick Town for a fee that the club did not announce but that everyone in the league believes was around £400,000, with more to follow if Rovers are promoted.
Nine games in, it looks like a bargain. Okoye has eleven goals. Fenwick, who are bottom, have scored nine as a team.
We knew he was good. We didn't know he was this good. Nobody did, including him.
Hannah Ogden, Riverside Rovers manager
Every deal
| Player | From | To | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Femi Okoye | Fenwick Town | Riverside Rovers | Undisclosed (record) |
| Isaac Ferreira | Stoneley Rangers | Northgate Albion | £180,000 |
| Nadia Kovač | Free agent | Elmwood | Free |
| Tom Sherratt | Harbour City | Ashford United | £120,000 |
| Pavel Nowak | Millbrook Town | Kingsbridge Athletic | £60,000 |
| Kieran Doyle | Riverside Rovers (youth) | Millbrook Town | Loan |
| Danny Oyelaran | Fenwick Town | Castleford Wanderers | £25,000 |
| Mark Stead | — | Fenwick Town (manager) | — |
The winners
Northgate Albion did the smartest business of the summer. Isaac Ferreira was the best player in a poor Stoneley side last season, and at £180,000 he looked expensive. He has four goals and three assists in nine games, and he won the penalty and scored it in the 3-3 at Millbrook. Northgate's manager, Priya Chandran, moved him from the wing to the middle three games ago, and he has been the best attacking midfielder in the league since.
Elmwood signed Nadia Kovač on a free after her club in Croatia went into administration. She is the first woman to be registered as a player in the Northern League, and she has not needed any special treatment: she has five goals, all after the seventieth minute, all from the bench. Opposition managers now plan their last twenty minutes around her.
The losers
Fenwick Town sold their best player, lost their manager and have won one game. It is hard to argue with the sale: the fee will keep the club solvent for two seasons. But it is also hard to see where the goals will come from. Their new manager, Mark Stead, has asked for loans in January.
Stoneley Rangers lost Ferreira and did not replace him. They have scored three goals since he left. Their chairman has said there will be money in January. Their supporters have heard that before.
The strange one
Nobody saw Kieran Doyle's loan coming. He is nineteen, came through the Rovers academy and was expected to be on the bench at Riverside Park all season. Instead Rovers sent him to Millbrook, who are in the same division, on a season-long loan with no clause stopping him from playing against his own club.
He scored his first senior goal on Tuesday, a header in the eighty-eighth minute to earn Millbrook a draw against Northgate. Millbrook play Rovers in March. We have already marked the date.
Our grades
| Club | Grade | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Riverside Rovers | A | The record fee has paid for itself already |
| Northgate Albion | A | Ferreira has changed their season |
| Elmwood | A- | A free signing who wins games from the bench |
| Ashford United | B | Sherratt is solid; they needed more up front |
| Kingsbridge Athletic | B- | A good keeper, nothing else |
| Millbrook Town | B | The Doyle loan was clever |
| Harbour City | C | Sold their best defender, bought nobody |
| Castleford Wanderers | C+ | Oyelaran works hard; the squad is thin |
| Stoneley Rangers | D | Lost their best player for nothing like enough |
| Fenwick Town | D | Survival money, but no survival plan |
The ones that got away
Not every deal happened. Harbour City spent most of August trying to sign a striker from a club in Scotland, and the deal fell apart on the last day when the player failed a medical. Ashford made two bids for Northgate's Isaac Ferreira before he chose Northgate, and Pym admitted afterwards that he was "still annoyed about it".
The biggest story that did not happen was at Riverside Park. Rovers received an offer for Jonah Price from a club two divisions above them, reported to be more than they paid for Okoye. The chairman turned it down without telling the player. Price found out from his mother, who read about it online.
What happens in January
Most clubs in the league say they will be active in January. Most clubs say that every year. The two to watch are Fenwick, who need goals, and Harbour City, who need a striker so badly that their manager mentions it in every interview. If either of them finds one, the bottom of the table and the top six could both change shape before the spring.
