Hard man David Partridge wings in

One wonders whether Lingy has a check list he goes through when looking at potential signings. Ex-Orient? Check. A chequered past? Er, Check. Then step forward new recruit David Partridge.

Obviously I'll wait and see what he's like before I get too excited, but on the face of it this looks like a good signing. An experienced centre half who's played in the Football League, and one who must be used to slumming it after spells in the Scottish and Irish leagues. If you believe his wikipedia page (and why wouldn't you?) he also appears to be a bit of a nutter, and as we've lacked a hard bastard at the back since the departure of Bolland he should slot in nicely alongside Saah. Good captaincy material to take some pressure off Carden perhaps?

Unfortunately he's not available for tonight's trophy tie at Eastbourne, which must be the biggest match of our season so far. It's a sad day when I use "trophy tie" and "biggest match of the season" in the same sentence, but if we lose we will literally have nothing left to play for this year. I'm in no hurry to get back to Wembley (or, as it was memorably described by a writer in When Saturday Comes magazine, "The Emirates with a handle"), but the revenue would be nice and it keeps the rest of the season vaguely interesting.

Good luck to any brave souls making the trip down to Eastbourne tonight, fingers crossed you don't have to endure extra time and penalties...