Jamie Brooks has now officially signed the one year extension to his contract that he was offered last week. This sees the unlucky wunderkind remain at the KasStad until the end of next season and allows him an opportunity to fight for his first team place, so cruelly denied him by his contracting Guillame-Barre syndrome.

Having now regained fitness enough to play full reserve games Brooks has been loaned for a month to Maidenhead United, where former U John ‘Tumble’ Dreyer is the manager and Phil ‘Rumble’ Gray is his assistant. Also at Maidenhead are Brooks’s former youth team colleagues, goalie Phil Wilson and midfielder Kelvin McIntosh. This move will give Jamie a chance of more competitive first team games, starting this Saturday against Heybridge Swifts.

Having just reported Southend United to the Football League for their alleged illegal approach to Ian Atkins to be the Shrimpers’ new manager, there is a report in today’s
Manchester Online that Bury chairman Albert Doweck has resigned after trying to lure Atkins to Gigg Lane. It has been alleged that Doweck approached Atkins after the two teams met in October, and Atkins apparently told Doweck to come in for him immediately as his relationship with Firoz Kassam wasn’t too good. When Doweck went back to his board this led to a split, as other board members were happy to continue with current boss Andy Preece. All this is pure speculation (or is it?). Now Doweck has left Bury presumably Atkins will continue to remain at the Us.