One Game at a Time
Accrington Stanley (H) October 8th
It was the 19th Century German Field Marshal Helmut von Moltke who described the military doctrine which has been gradually sifted down to “No plan survives first contact with the enemy”.
The opening on Tuesday nights Wednesday spectacular certainly bears testament to that maxim, although perhaps Mike Tyson summed it up better in a sporting context with “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
With one of the better League One Generals (by results if not by popularity on his own fans site) Darren Moore in town, the League One Leaders leader had to be on his mettle. The opening ten minutes saw two excellently worked goals and a few minutes later the first tactical shift by Schuey to counteract the changed line up fielded by Moore to try and give them a tactical advantage.
After Saturdays slogfest, enjoyable for its result rather than the journey to it, it was a pleasure to see a close to capacity Tuesday night under the lights being played fast and furiously along the ground by two teams who clearly both saw a win as the only outcome worth pursuing. Indeed, the first seven or so minutes saw more slick passing and football than the average Why Come season ticket holder sees in a, well sees, period.
Cooper the Keeper both kept the Greens in the contest, and at the same time gave the crowd palpitations when he went down injured and received lengthy treatment. One hesitates to think it was a usefully engineered coaching break to allow Schumacher to get his troops reorganised, but safe to say Cooper continued to pull out some fabulous post injury stops which combined with the Barn Park forcefield meant the game entered the final phase evenly poised. Am I alone in being grateful the World Cup is this year.
As a recent convert to the NTT20 podcast, who often have good things to say about our club and knowing our club’s owner predilection towards data I found their review of our start intriguing. This week’s episode, pre-Wednesday (well on Monday…I think we have all got the hang of the days now) had an interesting segment, where Argyle xG (Expected Goals) was considered as evidence that we are overachieving, before eventually arriving on the conclusion that we are where we are on merit and xG be hanged. Mind you that stats show Argyle having almost double the shots of their opponents, mainly because Morgan Whitaker seemed to be aiming to have his own personal xG stat for the evening.
Certainly, Wednesday had a plan, and a good one, pressing high and hard and putting pressure on our ball carriers. Aside from an anonymous first half from Scarr (not that he played badly, he just had no name on his shirt) we also saw the benefit of James Wilsons experience on more than one occasion when the normally dependable centre back missed his mark.
Cue the arrival of Schueys cavalry. The Duke of Wellington once said pre battle, when asked of his plan for the next day, “How can I tell you my plan, when I have yet to see his ( the his being Napoleon’s)?”
On came Galloway to shore up the left flank, Houghton for the excellent Matt Butcher to retain control of the ball, which he did almost immediately. Hardie, once again having pulled defenders hither and yon (and that is not where they want to be pulled) and Azaz (despite the best efforts of the fourth official to reign in Whitakers excesses) were sacrificed for the returning Ennis and Big Sam.
Finally, the returning Connor Grant replaced Mumba for his bite sized rehabilitation process and the crucial, as it transpired, last ten minutes.
On the other side of the battlefield, master puppeteer Moore took stock of the game situation and in one swift and decisive act, replaced Bannan and Windass, Argyle tormentors in chief, and promptly cut the strings to his team’s performance. Citing a lack of energy post-match, a theory that I would be interested to get the furious looking wee nugget Bannan’s opinion on, the game then took on a familiar direction. Towards the goal Argyle were attacking.
Not that that was the end of things. Despite dominating possession, it looked like bad luck, possible bad officiating and time would still end the perfect home record.
Cometh the hour (and fifteen) cometh the man. Two goals for the comeback of all comebacks at Pride Park on debut. Winning and converting the pen to remove the Why Come hoodoo, Cosgrove is rapidly becoming the most influential loan signing Argyle may have made since, whisper it, Tommy Tynan, from Rotherham all those years ago.
A possible penalty waved away. A goal bound header hooked from under the bar by the player from BEHIND the player standing on the line. Then a blatant shirt tug, as he closed on an enticing cross. And then, as the clock turned red on five minutes of added time, a throw in from Grant to Houghton, back to Grant, who plays in Ennis, whose sweet turn and cross is met by Cosgrove powerfully placing the ball where the pink florescent lino roll Stockdale could not reach. No argument this time. Mayhem. Four of the five subs involved in the decisive moment of the match. Now that’s what I call cavalry. And Ipswich and Wednesday fans, depth of squad.
It is no accident that the way Argyle play encourages teams to press them. Unsettling as that can be for us poor fans, it seems that like Ali and his “rope a dope” on George Foreman, when the game reaches its critical stage there is one team fizzing with energy and desire. And they wear green.
So, onto Saturday and the next contenders for the Argyle unbeaten perfect record, appropriately, Accrington Stanley, also known as “the team that wouldn’t die”. The only problem with this romantic title is that unfortunately after resigning from the league in March 1962 that is exactly what Accrington Stanley did.
The club had been struggling financially for many years, and despite controversially enlisting the help of Burnley Chairman Bob Lord who despite being chairman of a relatively local rivals attempted to save the club by promising to purchase shares before throwing them under the tram, the club was unable to secure its financial future. Having left the Football League, it then floundered in the Lancashire Combination for a further four or so seasons before being liquidated.
The club we now have visiting us is thus the reformed phoenix from those ashes (the flames being long extinguished). Coincidentally, that club was also a sort of phoenix as well. The original Accrington FC, precursors to the 1921 Stanley that expired in 1962, had themselves expired after being a founder member of the original Football League in 1888. After being relegated following a test match (a kind of Victorian play-off) by Sheffield United at Trent Bridge, the club declined to join the then Second Division and after a few seasons in non-league the club disbanded following a 12-0 FA Cup defeat by Darwen.
The new-fangled Stanley and Argyle in fact only met for one season, the first of the new non regional Division 3 in 1958/9 season. Despite Argyle finishing as Champions, Stanley won 4-2 at Home Park and then hosted Argyle in atrocious conditions for the penultimate game of the season, played on a sea of mud, and witnessed by a Green platoon of twelve hardy Argyle travelling souls, where a 1-1 draw courtesy of a Harry Penk goal into an empty net clinched promotion for the Greens. Within four years Stanley had left the league and was reborn two years after its liquidation to compete in the Lancashire Combination.
The legacy of the club at that point was to be one of the homes of Les Cocker, later to find fame as Leeds United and England coach at the 1966 Word Cup final. Cocker was not awarded a medal at the time but after a campaign his family were able to collect one on his behalf.
So, after the second coming of the Stanley in 1968 at the Crown Ground, replacing the long-abandoned Peel Park, local businessmanEric Whalley began rebuilding the club, and his first significant appointment was that of local manager John Coleman together with his assistant (and next-door neighbour) Jimmy Bell. Together the two friends have been at Stanley since 1999 apart from a brief gap of about two years for a spell at Rochdale, followed by even briefer stints at Southport and Sligo Rovers, which makes them comfortably the longest serving manager/coach at a single club, even if not consecutively. When they departed to Rochdale in 2012 there were only two managers who had been in post longer. Ferguson and Wenger.
The pair have made a virtue out of having one of the smallest budgets in the League and pride themselves on developing players who later go on to bigger and better things. Players in this category include Brett Ormerod, the only player to score in all four divisions for the same club, and whose sell on fees from his move to Southampton from Blackpool, effectively funded the club’s promotion to the league.
Other known Stanley players include Paul Mullin, not the Hollywood star, admittedly only because of the takeover of Wrexham by Rob McElhanney and Ryan Reynolds, but now a retired financial advisor whose brother John plated for Burnley, Omar Beckles and Josh Windass, who left the club for Glasgow Rangers. Wonder what happened to him?
Coleman, who has the clubs pub/bar named Coley’s after him, makes a virtue of their imposed frugality. He once had to take a chance on a young goalkeeper on loan when his number one quit mid-season, claiming through injury, but Coleman still believes it was because he had thrown a Jaffa cake at him in a half time berating. Coleman was waiting at the airport with a grainy photograph, thinking if the keeper was too small, he would just leave him there and look elsewhere. Luckily for him six three future Irish international Darren Randolph walked into the lounge.
If Coleman looms large over the club on the playing side, the other key individual is chairman Andy Holt, who arrived in 2015, when the club was in danger of becoming a Richard Osman novel, “The Club who died Thrice.” Holt bought a controlling stake, his box company became the ground sponsor (hence why the Crown ground is now the Wham stadium….nothing to do with George Michael)!
Holt runs the club as a sustainable entity and is an active purveyor of his opinions on social media. A Northern Don Quixote he tilts at establishment windmills on a regular basis, notably the inequitable distribution of revenues through the league, the way streaming revenues are controlled by the EFL, and has a regular spat with Gary Neville and Salford City as they attempt to buy their way into and up the Leagues.
Holt believes the club belongs to the community and runs it accordingly. In 2019 he was happy the club made it to the fourth round of the cup and a money-spinning tie against glamorous Derby County, another club run by a local boy made good Mel Morris, with Frank Lampard at the helm and Ashley Cole on the books. Just over three years later Derby at home is their next game after the trip to Home Park. I don’t believe Mel Morris will be attending.
Perhaps Holts most bizarre spat was when the EFL demanded to know why the McDonalds meals Holt bought the team when they had played well were not included in the player contracts as a benefit in kind. In the end the matter was resolved amicably, and Coleman and Billy Kee were presented with free happy meals by EFL boss Shaun Harvey at that season’s award ceremony.
Then again this is a club best known for another food association. The Milk Marketing Board paid around £10,000 to use the clubs name, replacing Tottenham Hotspur from the original draft, in a famous advert starring two young Liverpool fans who say that if they don’t drink their milk, Ian Rush has said they will end up playing for Accrington Stanley, ending with the immortal lines “Accrington Stanley, who are they?”
Exactly!!
The ad ran for about six years and still crops up in football media such as Soccer AM even today. Carl Rice, one of the eight year olds is now starring in Brassic and Brookside and has even called his production company Milk Pictures. More recently a shot for shot remake for a Dorset based milk vodka company Black Cow Vodka starring Rice was one of three ads made by the company banned by the ASA.
Despite the paucity of games for Argyle against the Stanley, indirectly they led to where we are today. A disastrous capitulation there in our relegation season led to the dismissal of Derek Adams and the arrival of Ryan Lowe and his fresh faced assistant, to commence the rebuilding of the club in a sustainable but entertaining way.
If everyone now knows who Accrington Stanley are, this Saturday will see the first matchday where Argyle fans can see and play homage to one of the all-time greats of the club, Jack Leslie, whose crowd funded statue is to be unveiled on the eve of the match.
Leslie’s story has been told well (and much better) by many others, and his partnership with Sammy Black and the “All Black wing” is as indelible a part of our history as a club as the shameful withdrawal of his international selection due to his skin colour is an indelible stain on the football establishment.
Let us hope we can celebrate his legacy with a win and continue to build on the foundations this footballing pioneer (although he would have been too modest to ever admit that) laid when leaving his local club, Barking, to forge a brilliant one league club career many miles from home.
We are not black or white or any other shade at Home Park.
We are Green and proud. Of both our history and our future.
COYG!!
Accrington Stanley (H) October 8th
It was the 19th Century German Field Marshal Helmut von Moltke who described the military doctrine which has been gradually sifted down to “No plan survives first contact with the enemy”.
The opening on Tuesday nights Wednesday spectacular certainly bears testament to that maxim, although perhaps Mike Tyson summed it up better in a sporting context with “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
With one of the better League One Generals (by results if not by popularity on his own fans site) Darren Moore in town, the League One Leaders leader had to be on his mettle. The opening ten minutes saw two excellently worked goals and a few minutes later the first tactical shift by Schuey to counteract the changed line up fielded by Moore to try and give them a tactical advantage.
After Saturdays slogfest, enjoyable for its result rather than the journey to it, it was a pleasure to see a close to capacity Tuesday night under the lights being played fast and furiously along the ground by two teams who clearly both saw a win as the only outcome worth pursuing. Indeed, the first seven or so minutes saw more slick passing and football than the average Why Come season ticket holder sees in a, well sees, period.
Cooper the Keeper both kept the Greens in the contest, and at the same time gave the crowd palpitations when he went down injured and received lengthy treatment. One hesitates to think it was a usefully engineered coaching break to allow Schumacher to get his troops reorganised, but safe to say Cooper continued to pull out some fabulous post injury stops which combined with the Barn Park forcefield meant the game entered the final phase evenly poised. Am I alone in being grateful the World Cup is this year.
As a recent convert to the NTT20 podcast, who often have good things to say about our club and knowing our club’s owner predilection towards data I found their review of our start intriguing. This week’s episode, pre-Wednesday (well on Monday…I think we have all got the hang of the days now) had an interesting segment, where Argyle xG (Expected Goals) was considered as evidence that we are overachieving, before eventually arriving on the conclusion that we are where we are on merit and xG be hanged. Mind you that stats show Argyle having almost double the shots of their opponents, mainly because Morgan Whitaker seemed to be aiming to have his own personal xG stat for the evening.
Certainly, Wednesday had a plan, and a good one, pressing high and hard and putting pressure on our ball carriers. Aside from an anonymous first half from Scarr (not that he played badly, he just had no name on his shirt) we also saw the benefit of James Wilsons experience on more than one occasion when the normally dependable centre back missed his mark.
Cue the arrival of Schueys cavalry. The Duke of Wellington once said pre battle, when asked of his plan for the next day, “How can I tell you my plan, when I have yet to see his ( the his being Napoleon’s)?”
On came Galloway to shore up the left flank, Houghton for the excellent Matt Butcher to retain control of the ball, which he did almost immediately. Hardie, once again having pulled defenders hither and yon (and that is not where they want to be pulled) and Azaz (despite the best efforts of the fourth official to reign in Whitakers excesses) were sacrificed for the returning Ennis and Big Sam.
Finally, the returning Connor Grant replaced Mumba for his bite sized rehabilitation process and the crucial, as it transpired, last ten minutes.
On the other side of the battlefield, master puppeteer Moore took stock of the game situation and in one swift and decisive act, replaced Bannan and Windass, Argyle tormentors in chief, and promptly cut the strings to his team’s performance. Citing a lack of energy post-match, a theory that I would be interested to get the furious looking wee nugget Bannan’s opinion on, the game then took on a familiar direction. Towards the goal Argyle were attacking.
Not that that was the end of things. Despite dominating possession, it looked like bad luck, possible bad officiating and time would still end the perfect home record.
Cometh the hour (and fifteen) cometh the man. Two goals for the comeback of all comebacks at Pride Park on debut. Winning and converting the pen to remove the Why Come hoodoo, Cosgrove is rapidly becoming the most influential loan signing Argyle may have made since, whisper it, Tommy Tynan, from Rotherham all those years ago.
A possible penalty waved away. A goal bound header hooked from under the bar by the player from BEHIND the player standing on the line. Then a blatant shirt tug, as he closed on an enticing cross. And then, as the clock turned red on five minutes of added time, a throw in from Grant to Houghton, back to Grant, who plays in Ennis, whose sweet turn and cross is met by Cosgrove powerfully placing the ball where the pink florescent lino roll Stockdale could not reach. No argument this time. Mayhem. Four of the five subs involved in the decisive moment of the match. Now that’s what I call cavalry. And Ipswich and Wednesday fans, depth of squad.
It is no accident that the way Argyle play encourages teams to press them. Unsettling as that can be for us poor fans, it seems that like Ali and his “rope a dope” on George Foreman, when the game reaches its critical stage there is one team fizzing with energy and desire. And they wear green.
So, onto Saturday and the next contenders for the Argyle unbeaten perfect record, appropriately, Accrington Stanley, also known as “the team that wouldn’t die”. The only problem with this romantic title is that unfortunately after resigning from the league in March 1962 that is exactly what Accrington Stanley did.
The club had been struggling financially for many years, and despite controversially enlisting the help of Burnley Chairman Bob Lord who despite being chairman of a relatively local rivals attempted to save the club by promising to purchase shares before throwing them under the tram, the club was unable to secure its financial future. Having left the Football League, it then floundered in the Lancashire Combination for a further four or so seasons before being liquidated.
The club we now have visiting us is thus the reformed phoenix from those ashes (the flames being long extinguished). Coincidentally, that club was also a sort of phoenix as well. The original Accrington FC, precursors to the 1921 Stanley that expired in 1962, had themselves expired after being a founder member of the original Football League in 1888. After being relegated following a test match (a kind of Victorian play-off) by Sheffield United at Trent Bridge, the club declined to join the then Second Division and after a few seasons in non-league the club disbanded following a 12-0 FA Cup defeat by Darwen.
The new-fangled Stanley and Argyle in fact only met for one season, the first of the new non regional Division 3 in 1958/9 season. Despite Argyle finishing as Champions, Stanley won 4-2 at Home Park and then hosted Argyle in atrocious conditions for the penultimate game of the season, played on a sea of mud, and witnessed by a Green platoon of twelve hardy Argyle travelling souls, where a 1-1 draw courtesy of a Harry Penk goal into an empty net clinched promotion for the Greens. Within four years Stanley had left the league and was reborn two years after its liquidation to compete in the Lancashire Combination.
The legacy of the club at that point was to be one of the homes of Les Cocker, later to find fame as Leeds United and England coach at the 1966 Word Cup final. Cocker was not awarded a medal at the time but after a campaign his family were able to collect one on his behalf.
So, after the second coming of the Stanley in 1968 at the Crown Ground, replacing the long-abandoned Peel Park, local businessmanEric Whalley began rebuilding the club, and his first significant appointment was that of local manager John Coleman together with his assistant (and next-door neighbour) Jimmy Bell. Together the two friends have been at Stanley since 1999 apart from a brief gap of about two years for a spell at Rochdale, followed by even briefer stints at Southport and Sligo Rovers, which makes them comfortably the longest serving manager/coach at a single club, even if not consecutively. When they departed to Rochdale in 2012 there were only two managers who had been in post longer. Ferguson and Wenger.
The pair have made a virtue out of having one of the smallest budgets in the League and pride themselves on developing players who later go on to bigger and better things. Players in this category include Brett Ormerod, the only player to score in all four divisions for the same club, and whose sell on fees from his move to Southampton from Blackpool, effectively funded the club’s promotion to the league.
Other known Stanley players include Paul Mullin, not the Hollywood star, admittedly only because of the takeover of Wrexham by Rob McElhanney and Ryan Reynolds, but now a retired financial advisor whose brother John plated for Burnley, Omar Beckles and Josh Windass, who left the club for Glasgow Rangers. Wonder what happened to him?
Coleman, who has the clubs pub/bar named Coley’s after him, makes a virtue of their imposed frugality. He once had to take a chance on a young goalkeeper on loan when his number one quit mid-season, claiming through injury, but Coleman still believes it was because he had thrown a Jaffa cake at him in a half time berating. Coleman was waiting at the airport with a grainy photograph, thinking if the keeper was too small, he would just leave him there and look elsewhere. Luckily for him six three future Irish international Darren Randolph walked into the lounge.
If Coleman looms large over the club on the playing side, the other key individual is chairman Andy Holt, who arrived in 2015, when the club was in danger of becoming a Richard Osman novel, “The Club who died Thrice.” Holt bought a controlling stake, his box company became the ground sponsor (hence why the Crown ground is now the Wham stadium….nothing to do with George Michael)!
Holt runs the club as a sustainable entity and is an active purveyor of his opinions on social media. A Northern Don Quixote he tilts at establishment windmills on a regular basis, notably the inequitable distribution of revenues through the league, the way streaming revenues are controlled by the EFL, and has a regular spat with Gary Neville and Salford City as they attempt to buy their way into and up the Leagues.
Holt believes the club belongs to the community and runs it accordingly. In 2019 he was happy the club made it to the fourth round of the cup and a money-spinning tie against glamorous Derby County, another club run by a local boy made good Mel Morris, with Frank Lampard at the helm and Ashley Cole on the books. Just over three years later Derby at home is their next game after the trip to Home Park. I don’t believe Mel Morris will be attending.
Perhaps Holts most bizarre spat was when the EFL demanded to know why the McDonalds meals Holt bought the team when they had played well were not included in the player contracts as a benefit in kind. In the end the matter was resolved amicably, and Coleman and Billy Kee were presented with free happy meals by EFL boss Shaun Harvey at that season’s award ceremony.
Then again this is a club best known for another food association. The Milk Marketing Board paid around £10,000 to use the clubs name, replacing Tottenham Hotspur from the original draft, in a famous advert starring two young Liverpool fans who say that if they don’t drink their milk, Ian Rush has said they will end up playing for Accrington Stanley, ending with the immortal lines “Accrington Stanley, who are they?”
Exactly!!
The ad ran for about six years and still crops up in football media such as Soccer AM even today. Carl Rice, one of the eight year olds is now starring in Brassic and Brookside and has even called his production company Milk Pictures. More recently a shot for shot remake for a Dorset based milk vodka company Black Cow Vodka starring Rice was one of three ads made by the company banned by the ASA.
Despite the paucity of games for Argyle against the Stanley, indirectly they led to where we are today. A disastrous capitulation there in our relegation season led to the dismissal of Derek Adams and the arrival of Ryan Lowe and his fresh faced assistant, to commence the rebuilding of the club in a sustainable but entertaining way.
If everyone now knows who Accrington Stanley are, this Saturday will see the first matchday where Argyle fans can see and play homage to one of the all-time greats of the club, Jack Leslie, whose crowd funded statue is to be unveiled on the eve of the match.
Leslie’s story has been told well (and much better) by many others, and his partnership with Sammy Black and the “All Black wing” is as indelible a part of our history as a club as the shameful withdrawal of his international selection due to his skin colour is an indelible stain on the football establishment.
Let us hope we can celebrate his legacy with a win and continue to build on the foundations this footballing pioneer (although he would have been too modest to ever admit that) laid when leaving his local club, Barking, to forge a brilliant one league club career many miles from home.
We are not black or white or any other shade at Home Park.
We are Green and proud. Of both our history and our future.
COYG!!
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