NEW GULL PROFILE

Sam Jones – @samuellejones

Sam talks about the newest Gull

It’s been a while since we had an incoming. Since the signing of Calum Dolan we’ve had a couple of players depart to pastures new and some teasers about various bits of merch. Which is fine, but it’s not an incoming is it? Well, that changed this week as United announced the signing of young Welshman Sonny Fish in an appropriately seaside themed announcement video. This joining felt like the worst kept secret ever, as Yellows Socials were abuzz with the new of the Son-Fish (sunfish, get it?) joining us. But who exactly is the new man?

CAREER SUMMARY

Like all of our players, Sonny Fish was born at a very young age. Unlike all of our players, he was born in Southend. He played Youth Team football for AFC Sudbury and Aveley, before joining Redbridge in 2021 at the age of 17. Must not have fancied Dagenham then. He made a handful of appearances for The Motormen before joining Leyton Orient in 2022. He spent most of his time on Leyton’s books on loan at Bowers and Pitsea, before joining Crawley on a permanent deal in 2023. More loans followed, with stints at Worthing, Tonbridge, Welling, Gateshead and Solihull in the coming years. A bit of nominative determinism there I see.

The Fish struggled to hold down a starting plaice at any of those clubs, as injuries held him back. His best stint came at Welling in 2024, where he managed 6 goals in 10 games for the South London side. He was released by Crawley in the summer of 2025 after only making four appearances for them across all competitions, and joined Wotton’s Gulls for the 25/26 season. He’s had two caps for the Wales U-18 side, both of which came in 2022 and both of which came in defeats.

HIGHLIGHTS

Here he is scoring a cracking goal for Welling against Worthing, picking the ball up in his own half, driving at the Worthing full back and firing past the keeper.

And here he is scoring another wonderful goal for Welling against Hampton, after being found by a through ball with Sturgical precision:

Couldn’t find any chips though, which was disappointing.

TALKING ABOUT SONNY

Paul Wotton on Fish signing for United – “…he’s six foot two and he’s a powerful boy. He can run and his work rate is phenomenal. I genuinely believe we’ve signed a top, top centre forward.”

FISH STATS

DATE OF BIRTH: 9TH JANUARY 2004 – 21 YEARS-OLD

BIRTHPLACE: SOUTHEND-ON-SEA, ENGLAND

HEIGHT: 1.87M

POSITION: CENTRE-FORWARD

L1 24-25 STATS: APPEARANCES 1, GOALS 0, YELLOW CARDS 0, RED CARDS 0

MOST LIKELY/LEAST LIKELY

Most Likely To

Improve our attack. While he is built like a target man, it seems he can really move. Cody did a fantastic job for us last season, and Sonny looks like he can provide us with another dimension.
Have a great fish themed chant. I’ve seen suggestions themed around both Daddy Cool by Boney M and the insufferable childrens song Baby Shark. Oh Cod, I hope its not the latter.

Least Likely To

Play every game. A bit of a theme with our signings this summer is a blotted injury history, which may be why they’ve dropped down to the NLS. He’s only played 46 games in 4 years, but Wotton is obviously happy to take a gamble on him as the potential looks enormous otherwise he’ll look like a kipper
Be a fish out of water. Sonny has played at this level for most of his short career, so knows the level required and obviously has the physical attributes to match.

CONCLUSION

Four signings for the Yellows so far, and they all feel like upgrades on what we had last season. Sundire feels like an upgrade on Threlkeld, Dolan an upgrade on Hasani and Dennis/Fish are upgrades on Seymour, Ash etc… The squad is taking shape nicely, and Fish feels like a great catch. He’s inexperienced, and pretty injury prone, but based on the YouTube highlights I’ve watched, he might be the greatest player I’ve ever seen. All jokes aside, he looks like a powerful forward who can run at defenders, but also lurk in the box to turn it home. I reckon Cooke will go into the season as the first choice striker, but Fish if he can stay fit, looks like a fintastic back up.