First signing of the summer set to arrive next month as new owners invest in NUFC Academy

It may have escaped your attention based on the constant transfer links that come our way each day, but we have made our first signing of the summer.

As reported back in February, Alex Murphy will join Newcastle United next month with the deal done and dusted.

It’s had to wait until now because he’s not 18 until June 25th. But after taking him on trial earlier this year and watching him for the remainder of the season in Galway, the youngster has clinched a dream deal at NUFC and will join Elliott Dickman’s Under-23 squad in July.

Not the much heralded first summer signing many had been looking for but, a confirmed one and one that perhaps again shows that the ‘new’ NUFC and it’s owners are living up to their statements. That is the Club will be looked at from top to bottom and everywhere in-between.

There’s already talk of the vastly improved and ever-rising Women’s side being given professional contracts and encouragement by also looking at their facilities and requirements as they attempt to launch a bid for higher status.

Now, it’s the turn of the 23’s. In the last couple of weeks there have been some big noises coming out of that camp. More in the line of players being released and players that were very highly rated within the system as well. I talk of Tom Allan, Mo Sangare, Reagan Thomson and Oisin McEntee amongst others.

All were heralded as promising and with the potential to go all the way. They may of course yet do that but if they do it’ll be through another route not NUFC. There are others that have fallen by the wayside as well.

We also have Rodrigo Vilca and Santiago Munoz both still at The Club trying to make a breakthrough. Both have huge talent and both came with glowing reputations. To date neither has shown huge signs of progress although Santi did end the season well. Perhaps South America to Tyneside is too big a step?

I don’t know but that’s all conjecture anyway. What I do know is ‘The Boy Murphy. As John ‘Ando’ Anderson may well dub him is another that comes with a reputation but crucially perhaps he also has a couple of additional strings to his bow.

Often new 23’s come without having played any senior football or against senior men’s teams. Not Alex Murphy. He’s been in and around Galway’s first team since he was aged 16 so has almost two seasons at senior level. Yes, I know, the standard is not high but at the age of 16 he knows what it’s like to play against veteran men!

Also, he’s been on our radar since impressing in his trial in February. Nothing Steve Harper, Elliott Dickman and their coaching staff have seen since then has dissuaded them that Murphy is not worth a punt and remember he’s coming to join the 23’s even though he could still play for the 18’s.

This history of Association Football is littered with thousands upon thousands of youngsters that never made it. But every now and then a diamond in the rough emerges to become a polished gem. Perhaps in Alex Murphy we may have one of them. Perhaps not as well but the signs are promising to say the least.

So whilst we wait and see in the likes of Etitike, Botman, Diaby, Henderson and the 3,724 others mentioned may be coming, we can at least welcome Alex Murphy to the Club and wish him all the very best as he makes the first steps in what we all hope will be a successful journey.

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