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Signing players is like catching a bus – you have to wait ages, and then two come at once. And then the privately owned, deregulated bus operator claims some of its routes are making a loss and threatens to close them down unless the council hands over thousands of pounds of public money in 'subsidies'.

Alan Buckley's record in the transfer market is mostly admirable, and sometimes astounding. Buckley is aware of this, and has shrewdly reminded us of it by suggesting that Martin Butler could be the new Garry Birtles. Not all of the manager's acquisitions down the years were quite that successful, however, and it is telling that he refrained last season from comparing Martin Paterson with, say, Murray Jones.

While Town were negotiating his transfer, Butler was described by the club as "an unnamed striker". GTFC then had to confirm his identity, as the media reported it before the deal was finalised – but the commercial department was already complaining to the PR office that if this new striker didn't have a name then they'd have a nightmare getting a certificate of authenticity for his shirt when they flogged it on eBay.

There are times when we need to put aside our reservations and just place a little faith in a manager with a record unrivalled in the Mariners' 129-year history. When Town and Southend were scrapping for top spot in the old third division in 1990, Southend signed a young centre-half from Arsenal, who were top of the league, and the very same day Buckley signed an old centre-half from the club at the very bottom, and we all sighed and lamented Town's characteristic lack of ambition.

That club was Halifax; the player was Paul Futcher; and the rest is history. Nearly 15 years of giddy overachievement, to be precise.

So what of Town's other new player, Shaleum Logan? Other than scoring on his debut against Rochdale last week, the Manchester City loanee showed good pace, agility and tackling – pretty much justifying the description of him by City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, who said he seemed reminiscent of a younger Ashley Cole.

The defining passage of Cole's recent autobiography is that in which his agent phones up while Cole is driving, with the details of Arsenal's new contract offer, and the player swears bitterly and almost crashes in disgust at the prospect of having to live on £55,000 a week.

It is to be hoped, then, that Sven was referring solely to Logan's playing style, as Cole would clearly be better off travelling by bus, and we can't have important first-team players relying on the 9X to get to Blundell Park. You have to wait ages for it, and then two come at once.

Labels: birtles, buckley, buses, butler, cole, futcher, logan, rochdale, transfers, travel

It was Sigmund Freud, the pioneer of psychoanalysis, who first identified the Oedipus complex. This is a stage of young men's development named after a Greek myth in which the hero murders his father and marries his mother.

Freud also had much to say about sex and our rude bits, and how we use other things to talk about them. This means that male football fans are actually expressing a deep-rooted insecurity about their own anatomy when they square up to each other on internet messageboards to compare the size of their stadiums and away support.

But it's the Oedipus thing that crops up again and again at the football. Take Peterborough's visit to Blundell Park last season. Paul Futcher, of course, earned legendary status here in the early 1990s but his son never quite lived up to it, and when Ben returned with the Posh in March the Town fans delivered a lusty chorus of "You'll never be your father!" When the chant died down you could clearly discern sighs of relief all the way from the Futcher household.

Undeterred by Ben Futcher's failure to become Paul, the rich new owner of Peterborough has appointed a manager in the hope that he may turn out to be his father, but so far Darren Ferguson is yet to match Sir Alex in terms of man-management, tactical acumen, skilful handling of youth players, domestic and European trophies, swearing at journalists and getting in a massive strop with the BBC. (Maybe Town can help him with the last bit.)

For supporters, too, the complex and sometimes troublesome issues between fathers and sons are played out at the football. Celebrity Arsenal fan Nick Hornby, who as a young boy had an absent father, has written movingly of the Highbury terraces providing a kind of substitute family; and the suspicion remains that a lot of unpleasantness could have been avoided a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, if Darth Vader had booked some annual leave and taken young Luke to see Tatooine United take on Alderaan Wanderers in the early rounds of the Core Worlds Cup.

But in England's fourth division in the Sol system all eyes are on Peterborough this season. There's no knowing tomorrow's outcome, but they'll be mortally disappointed with their mid-table start to the season, having been title favourites in the summer, with enough cash to have been offering a million quid for Izzy McLeod recently, and a Ferguson sitting in the dug-out.

So if the Oedipus myth is all about men growing up to sweep aside their elders and establish a new generation of power, it doesn't look like Sir Alex (and his wife) have anything to worry about just yet.

Labels: attendances, family, fathers, ferguson, freud, futcher, men, new stadiums, peterborough, psychoanalysis, rude bits, sex, sons, star wars