What time of day to Huddersfield Town usually announce new signings?

This is one of those articles that I’m not particularly proud to have put together. I’ve gone back through the announcement tweets for every player Huddersfield Town have signed since the start of last season and looked at the time these announcements were made.

I’ve used this data to work out when Huddersfield Town usually announce their new signings. I had a hunch that late afternoon or early evening were the most common time for new arrivals to be unveiled but I’ve now got the data to see if this hunch is correct.

What is the average time that signings are announced?

The average time of day for an announcement is 4.26pm. This average is dragged later in the day by the couple of deadline signings (Willock and Lössl’s loan deals) we made in January late into the evening. Even so, the vast majority of Town’s signings occur after lunchtime and before eight o’clock.

The only players that have been announced outside the 12pm – 8pm period were the two latenight deadline day signings mentioned above, Mbenza’s loan deal becoming permanent (so not really a proper signing) and Andy King’s loan.

So it’s not really worth bothering constantly refreshing your social media streams outside of this window. Looking more closely at the timings, there are two times of day when announcements are most likely for a #terrierinbound, they are around three o’clock and around seven o’clock.

Why don’t signings get announced in the mornings?

The day players come in to sign for the club is most likely fairly busy for the player. There will be the usual internal media stuff like interviews and photo shoots, new colleagues to meet and paperwork to sort out. That’s assuming the deal itself is already arranged and the medical has taken place. I’m guessing all this takes enough time for it to be hard to get the announcement out before lunchtime.

Whatever the reason, you can be fairly confident that new signings won’t happen in the mornings. Although, don’t quote me on this because obviously the club can announce a signing whenever they want.

Do the club ever strategically announce signings at a specific time?

A very long time ago, before social media existed, someone told me that Town used to time the announcement of new players specifically to favour The Examiner’s deadlines and give the paper the scoop over the national press. This was back when The Examiner was published in the afternoon, so news announced in the morning could just make it into the afternoon edition but the national press wouldn’t get the story until the next day.

I don’t know if that rumour was true but I was told this story because the person telling me had found out the practise was dropped by the club because of a squabble between the paper and club. Someone might know more details but unfortunately I’m trying to remember unsubstantiated gossip from 20 years ago, so apologies I can’t be more specific.

Bringing things back to recent times, I have a suspicion that Joel Pereira’s announcement was specifically timed to come out close to that day’s friendly, to dilute the backlash from fans. Hearts fans reports about the keeper meant a chunk of Town fans would be vocally dissatisfied with this acquisition so there is some logic in timing the announcement so it will almost immediately be replaced in the news with talk of Town’s performance in the friendly game.

I’ve read back that above paragraph and I appreciate that it sounds a bit like the paranoid ramblings of a conspiracy theorist. It seemed like a reasonable theory when the thought occurred to me but now I’m worried I’m getting a bit like those people that try to convince you that Earth is flat (when everyone knows it’s actually donut shaped).

Will it speed up transfers if I keep tweeting the club to tell them to announce players?

Obviously not. If you look at any communication from the club the replies are cluttered with fans pestering them about announcing whichever player we’ve most recently been linked with.

I have no idea what sparked this new trend but I find it tiresome. Town fans aren’t the worst offenders though, Leeds fans #FreeBenWhite campaign was pretty embarrassing. I’m sure many were tongue in cheek but a percentage of their fans seemed to genuinely think they could force Brighton to let a player leave using social media.

Most fans are desperate to hear formal announcement of new players arriving during the transfer window but nagging the club doesn’t help. It just annoys the admin of the club’s social media account, who will have very little influence over when these announcements are made.

How do I get informed of signings as soon as possible?

If you want to find out about new arrivals at Town as soon as possible then there are a couple of things you can do to stay informed.

The club’s official app, Town Square, can be set up to send you notifications whenever the club wants to tell you something. Beware though, as well as signings you’ll also get notified about whatever the club thinks is newsworthy, such as a new range of golf tees arriving in the club shop or a new commercial relationship with a bog roll company.

Alternatively, you can follow the club’s official social media channels and select the option to be notified whenever they put out an update. Again, you’ll get notified with a lot of rubbish but you’ll be among the first to know once a signing is officially announced.

Here’s a graph showing what time of day Huddersfield Town announced signings of new players

The graph may be tricky to read on mobiles, so here’s the data: