Rendell joins the dark side

Morning everyone. Apologies to Radio Cambs to start with, as it appears they were right and I was wrong, which just goes to prove there’s a first time for everything, ahem.

Scott Rendell’s imminent move to the Scummers is a disappointing development, and one hopes it won’t prove to be a fatal blow to our promotion hopes. Loyalty is for fans of course, not players, and no-one could expect any footballer to turn down a move which offers them (allegedly) a quadrupling of their salary. There is also no excuse for the vitriol left by some of our supporters on Rendell’s facebook profile.

However, this move comes a week after SR stated on Setanta that he wanted to stay at the Abbey at least until the end of the season. While he was hardly going to say “I’m just waiting for something better to come along”, there’s no need to go to the other extreme. Robbie Simpson spent the second half of last season sounding non-committal about his future and left the club a hero, whereas Rendell will now be castigated by all and sundry.

The real villains of this (if villains isn’t too strong a word) are Peterborough United, who now, because they have a bit of cash, think that they can conduct their transfer business in public, ala Chelsea. Fat Barry’s tried and tested method of unsettling Rendell by leaking that story to Radio Cambs last week has succeeded, and I would hope the CUFC directors are looking into whether an illegal approach was made to the player and/or his agent.

I’m not naïve enough to think that ‘tapping up’ doesn’t occur all the while in football (indeed it seems unrealistic that our own signing of Beesley happened without any conversations between club and player beforehand) it would be nice to see the Scummers made an example of. They may now have nouveau rich status, but McAnthony’s millions won’t buy them any class while the malevolent presence of Fry continues to linger in their ranks.