RIP Mayflower

It’s a funny old world, Saint.

Less than two weeks after I had acquired from eBay an away shirt from the 2003-04 promotion season (that’s the tangergreen one, for the uninitiated), the man responsible for making orange our second colour returns to complete the job he started and that Rupert Lowe so rudely interrupted.  It’s official: we can now say, Paul Sturrock is the new Argyle manager.  Luggy’s coming home.

I’m enthusiastic.  He wasn’t my first choice, but he was probably second or third on my list.  While there’s always a danger of “never go back” – and I’m not sure how I feel about the coziness of his relationship with the chairman – he will bring a cohesiveness and a strength to what has the potential to be a very good side.  His first major test will be withstanding the raiding parties in the January sales and securing a permanent deal for Lee Martin.  The other purchase which needs to be made is as good a striker as we can get.  We still do not score enough goals and fail to kill teams off properly.  Stuart Fleetwood of Forest Green Rovers looks as though he might fit the bill, though we would face competition for his signature.

Tomorrow night promises to be a very special occasion indeed.  If the Plymouth public come out to welcome Luggy home, and the players oblige by putting in the sort of performance they’re capable of, it could go down as one of THE nights in Argyle history.  The tangergreen will get its first outing – marking the beginning of the SLE (Second Luggy Era).  Bring it, as they say, on.

With the deal all but done, and a range of emotions among the GA, ranging from hysteria, bereavement, incomprehensible grief and resignation, some clear and calm thinking needs to happen. I am a little premature, but for the sake of it, can we take a couple of things as read:

1) He is going;
2) We will get compensation, probably the £230K limit that is alleged to be in his contract;
3) The Board, despite what many people (including me) think they OUGHT to do, are not going anywhere at the moment.

We have five games in fifteen days. It’s the worst possible time for him to go. I assume (though I might be wrong) that he will take Breacker with him, which leaves the team to be picked by Bulpin and Crudgie and Maxie. We therefore need a replacement in as soon as possible. Who?

Above all else – are you listening Mr Chairman – NOT COTTERILL. Not Cotterill. Not Cotterill.

Unsurprisingly, many people are talking about the return of Sturrock. Would I take Luggy over Cotterill? Absolutely. I’d take him over a number of other candidates as well, including Gregory or Reid. Whether he’s the right candidate is another matter. In may ways it would be harder for him to come in again after being away: he carries baggage from nefore and it might also be harder for the players. I’m not sure that he would bring the stability people seem to be assuming he would. Theres also a nagging suspicion that he’s not (quite) good enough for this league.

So who else? Of the current out-of-work managers not already ruled out by me, Mike Newell and Martin Allen are probably the most high-profile. Both come with “issues”: Newell’s tendency to open his mouth before engaging his brain might wear thin rather quickly; Allen’s unproven at this level – and why did Mandaric get shot of him so quickly? Of the in-work managers, Paul Ince might be an interesting appointment, but I doubt he’d come here. St Johnstone have already rebuffed Burnley’s approach for Owen Coyle.

My personal preference is for Leyton Orient’s Martin Ling. He has links down here (OK, as an Exeter player!); his teams play football the right way and he’s done very well at Orient. Sure, he’d be a gamble. So’s any appointment: and I’d rather we tried something fresh than the stale old names with their recycled footballing philosophies.

LING IN!

In anticipation of a press conference in Leicester in the next 48 hours.

Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat –
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags – were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us – they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
– He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering – not through his presence;
Songs may inspirit us, – not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done, – while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more devils’-triumph and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life’s night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,
Forced praise on our part – the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him – strike gallantly,
Menace our heart ere we master his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

Robert Browning.

I spent Monday morning being shown over Trefrew Park, home of Camelford FC. The club have been at their new ground for just over a year since moving from their old place at Tregoodwell. It’s a £500,000 development, still under construction, with seating and covered standing for 100 spectators, two pitches, changing rooms and kitchen. Camelford field three senior teams, the first of which play in Peninsula League Division 1 (West). They also run a ladies team and four junior teams, running Saturday morning training for over 90 kids. Ticket prices are £3 – and unlike many other Peninsula League teams, pay no salaries or appearance money to players.

I came away convinced that local football is essential both to the wellbeing of local communities and to the game in general. Without local football, there can be no Premiership. I grew up, as a boy, watching Bodmin Town and I still remember those early experiences in vivd detail: the smells, the half-time Bovril; the glare of the rudimentary floodlights. And so I am resolved, on non-Argyle days, to put in appearances at Trefrew: the ground is within easy walking distance of my house and more importantly, the club deserves to be supported by the community.

Today, by contrast, I read that the Football League have signed a new deal with Sky and the BBC worth £264 million. How much of that Argyle will see is open to question, but nonetheless, these are unreal numbers in an increasingly unreal industry, disconnected from its fanbase and from its own grassroots. This cannot be healthy – and furthermore, expect to see continued spiralling wage inflation and ticket price rises. How sustainable is the bubble?

The debate over whether £500K represents best value for possibly the most naturally talented player Argyle have had in a quarter of a century (sit down, Paul Dalton fans) but who was frustratingly inconsistent and out of contact in the summer has been done to death elsewhere. Nor am I going to resurrect the various conspiracy theories doing the rounds over what pressure AB was or was not put under to sign his new deal, and what his agent did or did not want as part of the deal. I simply say that I personally shall miss him: and I think Argyle will too. I have a prejudice – I admit it – in favour of so-called flair players: and I contend that Argyle fans in general are suspicious of such players, much more so than, for example, QPR fans. I think its interesting that they have given Buzz the 10 shirt, formerly worn by such luminaries as Rodney Marsh and Stan Bowles. I hope he flourishes at Loftus Road.

But players come and players go. Lee Martin is here on loan from Manchester United and produced a virtuoso display (and the winner) against Coventry. Also joined on loan, but explicitly with a view to a permanent move in January is former Wycombe striker Jermaine Easter. They both deserve the patience of the Home Park faithful as they begin their careers here. Whether the same should be said of the current boardroom is another matter: this week on the official site appeared a quite bizarre (unnamed) attack on Herald columnist Owen Ryles for daring to suggest that not absolutely everything was peachy-creamy in the Argyle garden. The article was patronising, offensive and wide of the mark in fairly equal measure. In particular, I take exception to the notion that criticising specific decisions, policies and modi operandi of the current regime is the same as being negative about the Club. For what it’s worth, not only do I spend a great deal of money following the Greens, I almost always have at least one other person with me: often people who haven’t been to Argyle before. I’m doing my bit, personally, to expand the Argo fanbase and I reckon that gives me the right to say, clearly and distinctly, that the Club is crying out for substantial investment and that if the current Board cannot offer it then they should move over for people who can. If that makes me “negative”, “browntint” , or a “miserable old git” then so be it. But I pay my (and others’) money: and I shall continue to call it as I see it. And I don’t have a paid spindoctor to do my dirty work for me.

Looking forward optimistically to tomorrrow’s game against the Owls. Here’s to an Argyle win and a debut goal for Easter. Something all Argyle fans could agree with.

Otherwise known as, “Two-nil, and by more luck than judgement we avoided making a pig’s ear of it, unlike Saturday”.

If the train journey back (23.45 sleeper, no berth, urrrrgggh) was arduous, at least there was the comfort of three points. I’d had a good time, as well: met up with my brother, had a couple of pints of Tim Taylor in the Goldhawk and some food and enjoyed the atmosphere and chat of one of my favourite football grounds. There’s something deliciously old-school about Loftus Road: the peeling blue paint; the closeness of the crowd to the touchline; its location in the middle of a housing estate – it’s a proper football ground.

Sadly, Rangers and Argyle struggled for long periods to persuade us that either of them were proper football teams. The game wasn’t dull: it was just very poorly played. Both teams struggled for rhythm and to put more than two or three passes together without one going horrendously astray. Martin Rowlands terrified the life out of me for the first twenty minutes: he was murdering poor Shelly down our right; then, inexplicably, Gregory had him swapped wings with the utterly anonymous Stefan Moore and Sawyer made much more of handling “Magic Hat”. Daniel Nardiello looked sharp, but unacquainted with the offside law and Blackstock was as we lovingly remembered him – dangerous when he looked like he could be bothered, as a header which Luke touched on to the bar proved (inexplicably given as a goal-kick: Andre Marriner may be a Prem ref but he was indifferent here – and I’m being kind).

Down the other end, most of our good stuff was coming through Buzsaky, who was dominating Bolder and Leigertwood in midfield and who went close and then not so close with a couple of free-kicks. Timar and Connolly, in particular, seemed hell-bent on raising the collective blood-pressure of the GA. To be honest, neither of them look solid enough for this league. Connolly was very nearly responsible for sending us in behind as a woefully short back-pass let Leigertwood in. Happily, Luke chose that moment to play our “Get out of jail free” card and produced one of four or five top-drawer saves. The debate about who is our best keeper is, for now, at an end – on this performance, Luke deserves the jersey for the foreseeable.

Two poor teams was the consensus at half-time.  Fifteen minutes into the second, he game was effectively over as a contest.  First Halmosi – again, AGAIN, the best player on the pitch beat the hapless (and rubbish) Zesh Rehman so comprehensively he ended up on his backside and finished sublimely in the bottom right hand corner.  Then he headed Connolly’s penetrating cross back across the area to allow Norris to crash home from eight yards.  In between, Rowlands hit Luke’s cross-bar with a free-kick.  You sensed it was not Rangers’ night.

It wasn’t.  Argyle controlled most of the rest of the game at a canter and played some really quite sublime passing and moving on the break which could, maybe should, have widened the margin of victory.  Gregory waited until the 81st minute before introducing Israeli international and Chelsea loanee Ben Sahar, which made sense neither to me nor the understandably downbeat Rs I chatted to on the tube back to Paddington.  His pace unsettled us and in that ten or so minutes QPR had enough chances not just to get back in the game but win it outright.  Luckily, Luke, as I said, was on top of his game – and QPR had neglected to bring their collective shooting boots.

So there it was: a win at a place we last triumphed at in 1973.  There remain serious questions about our future however: the defence is in a terrible state; our midfield all look alarmingly like they’re playing for the shop window and the squad looks paper-thin, at least in terms of quality.  Now that the rumours of a January fire-sale have been given legs by the manager, really for the first time since Williamson left I fear for our survival in the Championship, if not this year then certainly next.  And a relegation fight this year is a certainty if, as is distinctly possible, two or three key players leave – say, Norris, Halmosi, Ebanks-Blake.  Imagine Argyle without those three and then tell me who you expect us to beat. It’s not even as though we can secure replacements for those likely to leave: if we can’t even manage to secure a player like Jermaine Easter, then we really are struggling.

We need money.  Lots of it.  And we need it yesterday.

Following our marvellous five-game winning streak at the end of last season, and a consequent best finish since 1986-7, it wasn’t hard to find Argyle fans talking as though the play-offs were a real possibility this season. And closing my eyes for a moment, it’s easy enough to get caught up in that fantasy. The dream logic runs something like this. Our band of heroes came appreciably close last time out, and would have been top six but for the three-game away blip at Leeds, Ipswich and Burnley. Colchester’s performance is additional proof that team spirit and a passionate crowd can carry you within touching distance – and then, if the football gods smile benignly…Our crop of youngsters are going to get better – look at Gosling and the 1000% improvement in Reuben Reid’s attitude. Ebanks-Blake could have the season Cameron Jerome did two years ago. Halmosi has signed full-time and will surely get better. Pre-season has been good.

But then I wake up. For fantasy is surely what it is, to imagine that promotion is on this year, or any other, without specific and serious investment. Some facts, to calm our ardour:

Our top scorer and best player last season are 34 and 35 years old.
We had a higher shots-to-goals ratio than almost anyone else in the League i.e. we DO NOT TAKE OUR CHANCES
We have not scored more than three goals in a competitive match since March 2005.
Almost every other club, especially those at or about the same level as us, have improved their squads – some dramatically so.
Other Championship clubs are sniffing around our best players.
We have no money, and no obvious way of raising any, save selling those aforementioned best players.

To tell the truth, I have absolutely no idea. That’s never stopped me offering an opinion on anything before, though. So, lets do a little crystal-ball gazing and see what the final table might actually look like come May.

Starting at the top, it’s hard to see past Wolves and Charlton for the top two spots. Wolves progressed well under McCarthy last season and have made some strong buys. Elliott, Eastwood, Keogh is as potent a frontline as there is in this league, especially with quality wide players like Matt Jarvis and Kightly delivering the crosses. Charlton have the parachute money, plus £16 million for Darren Bent, and while Iwelumo mayn’t be all that, Varney probably is. As for the play-offs, probably between the other two who came down, Watford (who have spent little but have cash in reserve, perhaps to spend in January, and a fit-again Marlon King) and Sheffield United (losing some of Warnock’s dead wood and gaining Billy Sharp); possibly West Brom (but they appear to be haemorrhaging quality players Col U style); Norwich, who’ve bought cannily in the shape of Cureton, Brellier and Stoke’s best player Darel Russell; possibly Wednesday (under Laws a much tougher proposition); possibly Palace if their youngsters come through; possibly (though highly unlikely – but more of this later) us.

As far as the bottom of the table is concerned, Colchester looked doomed, having lost almost all of their players of quality. Blackpool and Scunthorpe, Scunthorpe especially, look certain to struggle; Ipswich show no signs of doing anything other than tread water, which in this league means go backwards; Barnsley have bought well, but doubts persist about their strength in depth, also true of Coventry, who have not. My surprise tip to struggle – Stoke, who would be mourned by virtually no-one, and who seem unable to attract the sort of quality required to kick on. If they start badly, Coates may be forced to abandon his pal Pulis, a downward spiral kicks in- you get the picture. Bristol City, QPR, Leicester, Burnley, Hull, Cardiff, Preston should all be safe enough without threatening the upper echelons.

As for us – well its anybody’s guess, really, as the opening paragraphs suggest. I can’t see it, in all honesty, us making the play-offs – but the eight-year-old in me persists in thinking that, with a fair wind and the devil’s own luck it might – just might – be on. Which perhaps accounts for the rather schizophrenic tone of this piece. Much, I think depends on our start. We could – maybe should – win our first seven games. Realistically, five wins and two draws would put us right up there. Less than that and we can probably forget it. Bring it, as they say, on.

Final Predicted Table, for what it’s worth.

1.Wolves
2.Charlton
3.Norwich
4.Watford
5.Sheffield Utd
6.Sheffield Wednesday
7.C. Palace
8.West Brom
9.Argyle
10.Bristol City
11.Burnley
12.Southampton
13.Leicester
14.QPR
15.Hull
16.Preston
17.Cardiff
18.Coventry
19.Barnsley
20.Stoke
21.Blackpool
22.Ipswich
23.Scunthorpe
24.Colchester

I’m here because I have things to say about the state of the beautiful game. I’ve been a football fan since the age of nine, an ardent, passionate supporter of an unfashionable Championship side on whom I’ve wasted more tears than all the women I have had to do with. I have a naive longing for a return to old-fashioned football values and the loosening of the corporate ties that bind the game to the City of London, the marketers and the brand managers. I subscribe – in full – to Bill Hicks’ view of those who work in marketing and advertising.

My own club has recently been refused permission to continue with its terraced standing area for the coming season, a decision which, whilst widely expected, is nevertheless symptomatic of the football world we inhabit. The Government, hand in glove with the corporate chancers invading the game, decree that Standing Is Not Safe and thus we must have seats because Whatever Happens There Must Not Be Another Hillsborough. This opinion, constructed on the flimsiest of premises has been repeated so often it has now become received wisdom: one only has to listen again to Richard Caborn’s performances in interview to understand that. Like all ministers, he is merely a performing monkey, reading lines officials write for him, incapable of engaging in debate at all. But then, having worked in government, I have a generally low opinion of ministers.

I digress. The point is, of course, that the necessity to provide seating has been used in the Premiership as a convenient excuse for skyrocketing prices for an inferior product, coupled of course with the need to maintain the illusion that we are witnessing The Best League In The World. This is of course poppycock, as Alexis Lalas pointed out in the Guardian (and was rapidly rounded on by the tabloid scribes whose livelihoods depend on the Premiership cash-cow). It works thus. TV pays an exorbitant amount of money for the rights, which it then has to justify. The games are, by and large, cripplingly dull, contested as they are by teams too frightened of losing to take a chance on winning, so they must perforce be hyped and presented as “titanic clashes”, “typical blood-and-guts encounter” and so forth. Meantime, as the wage demands rise in response to the need for glitzier and glitzier stars, so the prices for the ordinary fan go up and the more of its soul football has to hand over to Sky in terms of kick-off times, rearranged fixtures, delayed starts for the commercial breaks and so on. Where will it end?

That’s a foretaste. No doubt as the new season approaches I will become less grumpy, and more swept up in the optimism a new seasn always brings – I always do. But the older I get, the more I wonder about how much emotional energy, not to mention money, I can continue to expend on a game mortgaged to the hilt to a bunch of Australian venture capitalists and run by politicians, accountable to no-one, whose primary concern is the wellbeing of the TV deal. Its about time the FSF stormed Lancaster Gate and took the FA in a bloody coup. Come to think of it, isn’t July a traditional month for revolutions?