Young duo agree deals

Last updated : 19 June 2006 By Richard Brown

After managing to secure four new faces during the latter stages of last week, as well as the coup of highly-rated defender Bobby Wilson on a new two-year deal, Thompson has continued his rampant raid of the transfer market with the additions another clutch of new recruits in Gary Silk and Stephen Hunt.

Hunt: Signed
Silk, 21, was released with along with seven other players by Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp after the club narrowly avoided relegation to the Championship last term.

The right-sided defender joined Pompey as a trainee where he was unable to force his way into the first team down south, instead being loaned out to Barnet (03/04) and Wycombe (04/05) prior to a six-month spell at Boston – lower-league experience that will, undoubtedly, stand the young right-back in good stead for his time with the Magpies.

The right back becomes the fourth player to have agreed terms with the Magpies who played at York Street last season, where Thompson was a match summariser for BBC Radio Lincolnshire.

Hunt, a left-sided defender, also joins having spent time on the south coast, this time with Southampton's much-acclaimed YTS system – a set-up that has embraced the likes of ex-Magpies starlets Leon Best and David McGoldrick.

Like Silk, however, Hunt was unable to force his way into the Saints' first-team and was thus released in the summer of 2004 to join Phil Parkinson at Colchester United.

After making just two substitute appearances for the U's this term, Hunt – who can also operate on the left-wing or at centre-half – has been allowed to join County following the player's release upon Colchester's promotion to the Championship.

The left-sider has been a long-standing target of Notts, though his move was delayed while the club's changed managers. Thompson, though, was happy to rubber-stamp the deal.

The news of the duo's arrival – which will be finalised on July 1st – may well throw the possible move for free-agent Carl Pettefer into doubt, who Thompson stated was only marked as a ‘contingency' target.