August 31st comes round again, and so begins the madness of the transfer deadline, writes Joe Romasiuk.

Drama, excitement and big money moves are all the flavour of the day as clubs scramble to grasp the best players and keep hold of their own. This juggling act begins at midnight on the 31st and does not finish until 11.00pm the same day.

But why the mad scramble? The clubs have had 60 days to sort out the deals, do the medicals and iron out the personal terms, so why do they keep supporters in suspense until the very final minutes? To keep transfers exciting? Possibly. To keep reporters in a job? More than likely. The more plausible reason, however, is financial. Clubs spend their whole summers trying to negotiate and re-negotiate prices for top class players, until they eventually realise that they still have to pay the same price for the player they could have bought a month ago.

Transfer deadline day has always been an exciting time for football fans such as me, many big deals have been done on the 31st August. In 2008 Dimitar Berbatov moved to Manchester United for a British transfer record of £30.7 million, only to be beaten minutes later by Manchester City, newly revitalised by Abu Dhabi money, who bought Robinho for £32 million.

This is part of what makes football great and backs up opinions that managers who call for the transfer deadline day to be scrapped are simply those who cannot afford to keep up with the bigger spending clubs.

However, there have been transfer windows that will back up the opinions of football experts such as Steve Coppell, ex-Reading manager, who was quoted as saying: “The old system, where if you had a problem you could look at loans, or make short-term purchases, was far better than this system we have at the moment.”

Many football fans and pundits would have disagreed there and then with Coppell.If you look back at recent transfer deadline days, such as 2009, the top stories of the day across the country were Britney Spears, online poker and a Lindsay Lohan sex tape. Hardly intriguing stories for football, or even sports fans as a whole.

So, transfer deadline day can swing one way or another, it is either the best day of the year, or it is as exciting as watching paint dry.

Whatever your opinion, transfer deadline day has brought drama, tension and controversy to world of football and many people wouldn’t change it for the world.

• Transfer Deadline Day as it happens – click here