After all the talk of Queens Park Rangers, Coventry and Nottm Forest, it is Peterborough United who secure the signature of Jorge Grant. Of course it is, why wouldn’t it be?
After all, it was them that took my last hero, Peter Gain. They took Lee Frecklington at the height of his Imps’ powers, and they snatched away Alex Woodyard too. Whenever a club want to break my heart (Huddersfield aside), it always seems to be those bastards from down the A1. We spend years finally catching them up, getting back onto a level footing with us and then Szmodics dives, costs us our chance of automatics (which I’m not sure we would have taken, obviously….) and then they steal Grant too.
You know what it feels like? It feels like a big kid that always used to feel sorry for you has come along just as you’ve got on your feet, pushed you over and run off with your dinner money. Those bullying Posh buggers, right?
Well, I suppose that’s the feeling here. Whenever a player leaves there are a few opinions, and just to fill in time between now and my first bottle of homebrew opening for England, I want to look at each type of fan in turn. I’m not going to analyse Jorge going: he’s gone, we can’t get him back and at some point, we’ll sign someone in his place. That’s football. All I will say is we got a fee, however big or small it might be, which means we got more than we would have done if he’d not signed a new deal. He has gone to the Championship, whatever you think about Peterborough, and he can stay settled in this area. I’ve become a little more relaxed about these things now, although I must confess a new signing or two might put my mind at ease having lost Johnson, Rogers, Anderson and Grant from the attacking options. We’ve now got nobody winning penalties, and nobody scoring them (or missing them in a few instances, eh? Can we say that now? Can we?).
Anyway, we will start the season with 11 players, Jorge Grant won’t be one of them, but if he does go to Posh and earns a bigger move (to, say, Luton or maybe Coventry) then we’ll get some cash too, so it’s as close to a win as you can get without it actually being a win. It’s like getting through the group stages of Euro 2020 without conceding a goal, playing Germany and drawing 0-0, only to go out on penalties. We can claim a win (not beaten, no goals conceded), but it would be a loss. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen, right?
Anyway, here is the type of reactions I expect to find on social media, when I dare look.
Grant’s a Snake
It’s bound to happen, right? Someone will use the snake emoji suggesting that the lad shouldn’t have chosen Peterborough because they’re our rivals, in much the same way as a fan would not. I suppose I got called the same by Buildbase fans when I chose to move to Jewson Bourne because it was a step up and more money. It was a smaller branch, and maybe I was a snake, but it was a job. That’s what it is for Jorge. He has, at best, ten more years in the game, five maybe at his best. He waited patiently with Forest for years without a move happening and now he has a chance to earn more money and play against bigger clubs. Still, he should have stayed put, right? Gone away to Morecambe next season instead of Middlesbrough because he played for us for two years, as opposed to supported us for 30…..
Bloody Peterborough
I know right, they do it on purpose? They cheated us out of a top-two spot, because if we’d won that game we’d have definitely beaten Charlton and Wimbledon and they would definitely have lost to Doncaster, 100% (for any Posh fans oddly attracted to this article, this is sarcasm). In fact, they only sign our players to get at us, because that’s what clubs do. I’m surprised they haven’t signed Michael Appleton on as a player too, they’re such shits. Ignore the fact they saw Grant in the flesh twice last season, he appeared in the League One Team of the Season and was obviously primed for a move up the ladder. Yes, it’s Peterborough, but have we forgotten them loaning us Bozzie, or Lee Angol, or selling us Michael Bostwick on the cheap? We have a decent relationship with them I’m afraid and whatever happened in early May really has no bearing on this. They’re not even local rivals, not really. By the time I get to Peterborough from mine in the car, I can be in Sheffield or any one of about six other clubs in our division.
Backwards Step
They play in the Championship, we don’t. It’s not a backwards step. If someone offered you five numbers on tomorrow’s lottery, or a lucky dip for the week after with no guarantee, which would you take? Sure, you might actually get six numbers next week, just like we might be promoted and they might be relegated next season, but footballers have to live in the here and now. Think what you like, this is not a bad move for him, nor a lack of ambition. It is a juggle between keeping his young family in the area and finding a club with a really good track record of improving players. Okay, maybe Woodyard didn’t go on to bigger things, but what about Toney, Dembele, Washington, Gayle, Assombalonga etc, etc etc? Last year, I said Peterborough’s model was the one we should aspire to and I won’t be a hypocrite now just because some of the talent they’ve cherry-picked happens to be ours. that said, I won’t watch that smug bastard MacAnthony gloat about it, I lost all respect for him after the Szmodics dive and his reaction.
That’s Football
Ah, here’s me. You know what? It is football. Players come and go and as much as it hurts, that’s life. Yes, we have a history with Peterborough, but it only builds up the next matches we play against them. Nobody can begrudge Grant the chance to progress, he’s earned it. you know what – if he’d stayed instead of going to the Championship I actually think it would have shown a lack of ambition. I remember when Danny Cowley was trying to sign Tom Hopper a few years ago, and instead of coming to us, he chose Southend. Danny said to me that in a way, if he’d chosen us over them, it would have shown him to lack ambition and drive. Footballers want to play as high up as they can and if we’d beaten Blackpool, this wouldn’t be an issue. We didn’t, and now we are paying for that. Still, I can see new faces coming in soon and Grant being nothing more than a memory of happier times. I am a bit relieved if I’m honest, if he’d stayed much longer I might have had to reconsider Peter Gain and Gordon Hobson as my favourite Imps of all time. As it stands, two seasons is just not enough to knock them off their perch, whether he celebrates scoring against us in the future or not.
I would wish Jorge the best of luck, and I do hope he does well, but I’m bitter right now. Not ‘Grant’s a snake’ bitter, not ‘I hate Posh’ bitter, just bitter. Hopefully, a vibrant and exciting England display will make it all better.
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