What's in a name?

New York Addick has managed to obtain exclusive extracts of the club's new transfer policy drawn up on appointment by new general manager Andrew Mills. It throws extraordinary light upon the club's recent difficulties in the current transfer market.

"Wherever possible, the club should only endeavour to purchase players whose first names are unique in the history of the club..."

"...the club has assessed its prior record in the transfer market and has concluded that value-for-money was highest where this same policy was implemented (Radostin, Hermann, Jerome, Jorge etc..)"

Only now does it all make sense. This remarkable turn of events began with the 'pre-contract' signing of the American-sounding American Cory Gibbs, and was followed by confirmation that Inter defender Gonzalo Sorondo was staying permanently. As we all know, Mr and Mrs Sorondo named their son after a character in the Uruguayan version of The Muppets.

"Oh, but hang on a second, didn't we then sign Simon Walton?" I hear you say, "He's not the first Simon to play for Charlton....there was Simon Webster and Simon Royce amongst others." Agreed, but read the policy's small print:

"**Note: This policy does not apply for players under the age of 21"

Then on July 11th, just a day before the Middle East crisis began (not that I'm suggesting this was more than a coincidence), we signed the impeccably-named Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink. And then we waited....and waited until we heard this news yesterday:

"Charlton have swooped to sign Djimi Traore and Amdy Faye in a double deal worth £4m"

I mean, I don't need Colin Cameron to confirm that they're the first Djimi and Amdy to play for Charlton. And then as if more proof were needed, the club has today confirmed the signing of Christian Bolanos. Now I'm racking my brains here thinking of other Christians to have graced the Valley turf, and whilst I can't be 100% sure about this one, perhaps neither is the club hence the loan deal.

And if you're still not convinced, just think about some of the players we've been linked with.....Emmerson Boyce? Now come on, that's not a name, it's an electrical company. Salif Diao? I mean, hello?! Tyrone Mears? It sounds like a hearing defect, "I'm very sorry Mr Addick, you've got Tyronem Ears...one of the worst cases we've seen." Zoltan Gera? I could go on.

And I bet you were all thinking the reason we didn't sign Steve Sidwell was because we couldn't agree terms. Bullshit. The reason we didn't sign Steve Sidwell was he wasn't willing to change his name to Augustus.