Very favourable and welcome media coverage. But just for the historical record, Simon Hallett says, "‘I was a scholarship boy at Plymouth College, paid for by the taxpayers of Plymouth, a scholarship boy at Oxford University, paid for by the taxpayers of Plymouth. Argyle is a chance to give something back to those taxpayers.’"
Well, as a means-tested scholarship boy at St Boniface's College and having my fees paid and receiving a means-tested maintenance grant to go to The University of Nottingham around the same time, I feel compelled to point out that West Devon Education Authority administered it via a mix of national, county and local government funds. So not exactly "paid for by the taxpayers of Plymouth". We were both very lucky to be of that generation and to have opportunities not available to our parents. And it is appalling that so much of the cost of a good higher education is now borne by parents of modest means and their children with big loan debts.
He has been one of the better owners of Argyle, although I would prefer British football to be reformed and restructured via a collective fan ownership model that reins in the power of private shareholders (some of whom have monopoly control) and bans takeovers by the agents of repressive foreign governments.
And as for, "‘I’m a cold-blooded, free market, capitalist pig'", well it's an old resentment but I never could stomach the try-hard, minor public school pretension of Plymouth College!
