ONCE again trying to sign a player has proved anything but straight forward for manager Dean Saunders.
What looked a pretty much 'cut-and-dried' affair of getting Matt Jansen signed up and cleared in from England, so he could face Woking at Kingfield on Saturday, suddenly became a race against the clock!
The Football Conference readily accepted his registration on Thursday afternoon, on the normal condition that his International Transfer Certificate (ITC) was received by the FAW in Cardiff before he would be allowed to play.
All was proceeding as planned - until the FA emailed back on Friday morning to say that his registration was not still with Bolton Wanderers as initially thought, but had been cleared out by them to the United States in August 2006!
Matt had never signed for a US club, but had been on trial with both the Columbus Crew and the New York Red Bulls, so one of these clubs must have requested his international clearance in the hope of capturing him - but he never did put pen to paper with either of them.
Anyway, it's now 10.00am in the UK and 4.00am in Chicago, the home of the United States Soccer Federation - when Steve at the FAW emails America with our request for clearance and then follows this up with a phonecall to make sure the details have duly arrived - 2.30pm UK (8.30am US).
He makes contact with the only person in the registrations department, a very nice lady called Lucy, as the rest of the staff are distributed around the States with this weekend seeing the last round of pre-season games before the quaintly named 'First Kick 2009' gets the MLS season underway next Thursday evening in Seattle.
Anyway, poor Lucy is obviously weighed down with a mountain of paperwork and similar requests to our own - but full credit to her for wading through the files to locate Matt's registration and faxing his clearance to the FAW in Cardiff, just before she's about to head home - 9.30pm UK (3.30pm US).
The next problem is that the FAW offices are obviously well closed by this stage of the evening, but once again the cavalry rides to our rescue.
As from his hotel room in Madrid, where he is attending a two-day FIFA conference, the top man in registrations (we'll call him Tim to protect the innocent) makes contact with our friend Lucy to confirm the necessary fax has been sent and he is therefore able to email the Racecourse with the all-important ITC paperwork at 9.55pm UK (10.55pm Spain & 3.55pm US).
This in turn is emailed onto the Conference offices in Birmingham to complete the sequence - while calls are made to the team hotel near Woking to confirm Matt's availability for the big match.
We therefore have to offer a massive vote of thanks to the FAW staff for their continued help, which is not unique to us, but also offered to many a club throughout Wales - it just seems like we monopolise them at times though.
Indeed, as we head off to bed to get some sleep before journeying down to Woking in the morning, we leave Tim in the centre of one of Europe's great capital cities - up loading a PDF onto the FAW website detailing this week's transfers involving amateur clubs in Wales.
Another quiet day in the office...
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