The signing of Mark Howard has just been announced on a two year deal. The 29 year old goalkeeper joins after being released by Sheffield United. He will add much needed cover between the sticks with Chubs having left over the summer along with Ross Fitzsimmons leaving William Jaaskelainen as the only other goalkeeper beyond Ben Amos.
Howard hails from Southward in London and was originally in Arsenal’s youth set up though never made a first team appearance for the north London side. While at the Premier League club he was loaned out to Falkirk where he made 8 appearances. After leaving Arsenal he went to Cardiff City and also spent a loan spell at Swansea City although he did not make a first team appearance for either of the Welsh sides.
After that he returned to north of the boarder making just over 50 appearances for St Mirren before making 9 for Aberdeen. After that he returned to England making a handful of appearances for Blackpool before moving onto Sheffield United. He made 80 appearances during his four year spell with the Sheffield side which included spells as the clubs number one keeper.
Hopefully he will be of a standard to offer good competition to Amos meaning that we are not entirely reliant on him like we were last season. Hopefully it will also mean that Amos gets injured the man who replaces him is better than a horse on ketamine which I believe is how I described Chubs after that game at Bristol City.
One way or another it is good to see that the club is continuing to add new faces before the coming season.