One Game at a Time: Back to the Future
Barnsley (H) August 2nd
Oh, hello. How was your close season? Quiet? Me too.
Any plans for Saturday?
The start of each new season is for football fans, akin to awaking from hibernation. The scenery is familiar, but things are somehow different. Sometimes very different.
Most hibernating Argyle fans would be waking up now, rubbing their eyes and thinking, “where the actual flippin’ eck are we?”
The answer, of course, is back in the thorny undergrowth of League One. Still within sight of the sunlit uplands of the Championship but finding the ground we are standing on a little bit crumbly and unsafe.
Like any wary traveller, awaking in a strange land, the first question we ask ourselves is, “how did we end up here then”? Was it only a year ago we were getting used to the media circus that came with Wayne Rooney’s (albeit temporary) Plymouth Argyle. That spirit of optimism that lasted until about half time at Hillsborough. Mind you, compared to Wednesday fans today, that would be a considerable improvement on what they are feeling right now.
Then the bearded media satan himself. Dancing on the reputations of Liverpool reserves (RIP Diogo) and tugging on the coat tails of Pep himself, whilst capitulating anonymously to Hull and Swansea, the Wendies and Derby. Failing to beat a ten-man Cardiff who eventually plummeted first through the trapdoor, ahead of us.
That final run in. Bundu and Hardie, playing (and scoring) like their futures depended on it ( theirs not ours as it transpired). Sticking it to Lampard and Wilder. Winning at Preston even though we were down. No final day redemption this season but there was pride at stake. Leading Leeds Leeds Leeds until close to the end and hanging on until injury time to try and win the title for Burnley.
In the end though finances told. Relegation, a fate we contemplated honestly after the fabulous Championship win two seasons prior hurt even more because the mistakes we made, we made in full and open public view. It didn’t have to be like this. But it is.
Football fans, however, are a hopeful breed. Every season we return to our team. Semper Fidelis. Optimistic, although a little wary this season after so much turmoil, but optimistic none the less.
Not so the playing and coaching staff though. Siren calls have seduced the familiar faces. Hardie chooses Season Five of Disney over Season six at Home Park. Bundu trades a three-month purple patch for a contract in Germany. Randell gets a brand-new combine harvester at City. The bearded satan deletes Simon Hallett from his contacts and heads to Schalke, to be joined by Katic, whose beginners Duolingo “Swearing for the Deutches press” CD was still in his club car when they did the valet. Maxi to Stoke, which to be fair looks a lot like much of Eastern Ukraine does since the Russians arrived. Obafemi. Who cares.
A more or less complete rebuild then. Bring it on.
Foxy is back, after a stint at Huddersfield and a flash mob of a career at Leicester before being called back to his spiritual home. No Randell, but Tom Randle in the player recruitment role, and with fourteen to fifteen departures he is the second busiest man in Devon behind the Pickfords booking clerk.
The key appointment was who would shape and steer the squad Foxy and Tom assembled. Not least because, each in their own unique ways, the last three appointments since the departure of St Stephen of Stoke, no Plymouth again, no Bolton, have all been different shades of disastrous.
For a club that espouses “being smarter” it was critical they went about this appointment more Cleverley than the past. And they did. More Cleverley by a whole letter “e”. The former Watford boss (as opposed to his replacement who is only the future former Watford boss) arrived with his backroom team to join the Midday Matchday pasty club with Nance. No pressure Friary Mill.
Despite a second half of the season at Vicarage Road that was statistically more relegation than play-off form, Cleverley was well regarded at Watford, and after experiencing the Pozzo regime might well have been in part seduced by the somewhat more welcoming and nurturing environment at Home Park.
The initial surge of new players through the door was impressive, but in truth it needed to be. Jamie Paterson, Xavier Amaechi, Bradley Ibrahim, Caleb Watts, Jack McKenzie and Owen Oseni were quickly through the door.
If none of these were household names, with only Paterson having Championship experience of note, most fitted the club template of being younger, capable of development and with potential to be sold on for profit. The concern most frequently expressed was that Argyle had a spine that needed stiffening, especially with Conor Hazard both injured and potentially wanting a Championship return with his mates who had abandoned him.
The next names on the teamsheet were not household ones, but for different reasons. Ayman Benarous was an ex Brizzle City man recovering from injuries but in his time rated in the realms of Alex Scott, now of Bournemouth. Brendan Wiredu, forever to be autocorrected to Wierdo on most computers, arrived from Fleetwood, and we gave a trial to ex Fulham keeper Luca Ashby-Hammond, which despite the calamity of a comedy own goal in our first friendly against Eintracht Braunsweig, was given a one-year deal and the incentive of a second, and possibly third, Ashby-Hammond goalkeeper derby against older brother Taye when we play Stevenage. The first finished one all last season in the EFL Trophy between Gillingham and Stevenage. Rumours that a third Ashby-Hammond sibling was drowned when he showed a preference for chess and kept dropping his feeding bottle are strongly denied by the Ashby-Hammond household.
What was concerning the Argyle faithful however was goals. And not the development of the recently acquired site next to Home Park. With the vast majority of our goals having departed with the loss of Bundu and Hardie, what we needed was a striker. A name.
What we received initially, to join Oseni and Paterson was certainly a name. Aribusitamunoipirim Emmanuel "Bim" Pepple arrived from Luton, and although perhaps not what Argyle fans were hoping for, the one thing they could be sure of is he wasn’t going to be a disciplinary problem.
Ref, pulling out yellow card, “Name ?”
Green shirted player. “Aribusitamunoipirim Emmanuel Pepple.”
Ref, replacing card in pocket. “Don’t do it again, lad.”
But Bim Pepple, as he will henceforward ALWAYS be known on these write ups, was in the finest Star Wars tradition, not the droid the Green army was looking for. Sounding more like a mystical luck bringing charm you bought on holiday somewhere in Thailand, to be worn as a bracelet or amulet, what we wanted was that most mythical of beasts. We wanted a twenty goal a season striker. And we wanted him now.
And none of your foreign rubbish either. Been there, done that. TJ, El Hajj, Baidoo, Rhys Griffiths. No. No. No.
Never mind that across the entire seventy-two EFL clubs last season there were only two of them. Kelman of QPR, on loan at Leyton Orient, and despite rumoured bidding from Argyle, heading for Charlton, and Michael Cheek, the thirty-three-year-old England C international who got to 26 on the back of quite a few penalties.
Argyle fans had Great Expectations. And a shed load of cash sitting in the current account after all the player sales, cup runs and bearded Satan compo. We deserved the cream of the League One striker crop.
To mix my Dickens metaphors, “it was the best of nines it was the worst of nines “. Actually, no, that’s still Obafemi.
With Tiny Tom holding out his bowl towards Squire Hallett and saying, “please sir, can I have some more” and the green chorus at the Dolphin changing the words from “Roll out” to “Rule Out the Burrell” we approach the first weekend of the new season engrossed in the “Taylor of Two Cities”. Us or Blackpool.
With still over a month of the transfer window available, it is a little too hysterical to proclaim each and every perceived transfer target who chooses another destination as a disaster of biblical proportions. Neither is the likely transfer strategy of the Argyle recruitment team a Micawberish “someone will turn up”.
Who we do know will turn up at Home Park on August the second are Barnsley. Just like they did three seasons ago, when they were the newly relegated side, rebuilding after failing to gatecrash the play-offs to the promised land. Their goal, then as now, restoring their Championship status, a task which, despite an ownership group that espouses “Moneyball” to the extent that they actually employed Billy Beane, it’s creator for a while, has remained beyond them since we left them (and Ipswich) in our dust.
Their multi club owning director (nine so far), Chien Lee has been voted off the board, although he retains a minority stake, having been fined by the EFL for breaching its ownership rules. The club, which has regularly made profits on player trading, still has a several million-pound annual deficit to find or fund. Then again 89 of the 92 clubs in the top four divisions make losses. As we know, it’s a rigged game.
Sliding sideways into the away dugout will be Conor “the crab” Hourihane, ex Argyle midfield stalwart and youthful captain, famed for his sideway passing ability, but in truth so much better than those around him. Now in his first coaching gig he is still looking to add players to his squad. One addition is the loan of Nathaniel Ogbetta from Argyle, but he will be condemned to a watching brief. Former Champion medal winning loanee Sam Cosgrove was discarded at the end of last season and still is seeking his next home. Barnsley are not favoured by the pundits, but neither are they a pushover.
Remarkably, it will be a close to capacity crowd, with more tickets made available even this week. Whether we will be watching a Lennonesque Number Nine Dream or Sergeant Pepple’s Lonely Starts Club Band remains to be seen.
It is a new season and chance to cast out old demons, bearded media satans included.
As Bowie would have (possibly) told Major Tom, it is time to find new Heroes, hopefully for more than just one day.
Ch ch ch ch Changes…….
COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Barnsley (H) August 2nd
Oh, hello. How was your close season? Quiet? Me too.
Any plans for Saturday?
The start of each new season is for football fans, akin to awaking from hibernation. The scenery is familiar, but things are somehow different. Sometimes very different.
Most hibernating Argyle fans would be waking up now, rubbing their eyes and thinking, “where the actual flippin’ eck are we?”
The answer, of course, is back in the thorny undergrowth of League One. Still within sight of the sunlit uplands of the Championship but finding the ground we are standing on a little bit crumbly and unsafe.
Like any wary traveller, awaking in a strange land, the first question we ask ourselves is, “how did we end up here then”? Was it only a year ago we were getting used to the media circus that came with Wayne Rooney’s (albeit temporary) Plymouth Argyle. That spirit of optimism that lasted until about half time at Hillsborough. Mind you, compared to Wednesday fans today, that would be a considerable improvement on what they are feeling right now.
Then the bearded media satan himself. Dancing on the reputations of Liverpool reserves (RIP Diogo) and tugging on the coat tails of Pep himself, whilst capitulating anonymously to Hull and Swansea, the Wendies and Derby. Failing to beat a ten-man Cardiff who eventually plummeted first through the trapdoor, ahead of us.
That final run in. Bundu and Hardie, playing (and scoring) like their futures depended on it ( theirs not ours as it transpired). Sticking it to Lampard and Wilder. Winning at Preston even though we were down. No final day redemption this season but there was pride at stake. Leading Leeds Leeds Leeds until close to the end and hanging on until injury time to try and win the title for Burnley.
In the end though finances told. Relegation, a fate we contemplated honestly after the fabulous Championship win two seasons prior hurt even more because the mistakes we made, we made in full and open public view. It didn’t have to be like this. But it is.
Football fans, however, are a hopeful breed. Every season we return to our team. Semper Fidelis. Optimistic, although a little wary this season after so much turmoil, but optimistic none the less.
Not so the playing and coaching staff though. Siren calls have seduced the familiar faces. Hardie chooses Season Five of Disney over Season six at Home Park. Bundu trades a three-month purple patch for a contract in Germany. Randell gets a brand-new combine harvester at City. The bearded satan deletes Simon Hallett from his contacts and heads to Schalke, to be joined by Katic, whose beginners Duolingo “Swearing for the Deutches press” CD was still in his club car when they did the valet. Maxi to Stoke, which to be fair looks a lot like much of Eastern Ukraine does since the Russians arrived. Obafemi. Who cares.
A more or less complete rebuild then. Bring it on.
Foxy is back, after a stint at Huddersfield and a flash mob of a career at Leicester before being called back to his spiritual home. No Randell, but Tom Randle in the player recruitment role, and with fourteen to fifteen departures he is the second busiest man in Devon behind the Pickfords booking clerk.
The key appointment was who would shape and steer the squad Foxy and Tom assembled. Not least because, each in their own unique ways, the last three appointments since the departure of St Stephen of Stoke, no Plymouth again, no Bolton, have all been different shades of disastrous.
For a club that espouses “being smarter” it was critical they went about this appointment more Cleverley than the past. And they did. More Cleverley by a whole letter “e”. The former Watford boss (as opposed to his replacement who is only the future former Watford boss) arrived with his backroom team to join the Midday Matchday pasty club with Nance. No pressure Friary Mill.
Despite a second half of the season at Vicarage Road that was statistically more relegation than play-off form, Cleverley was well regarded at Watford, and after experiencing the Pozzo regime might well have been in part seduced by the somewhat more welcoming and nurturing environment at Home Park.
The initial surge of new players through the door was impressive, but in truth it needed to be. Jamie Paterson, Xavier Amaechi, Bradley Ibrahim, Caleb Watts, Jack McKenzie and Owen Oseni were quickly through the door.
If none of these were household names, with only Paterson having Championship experience of note, most fitted the club template of being younger, capable of development and with potential to be sold on for profit. The concern most frequently expressed was that Argyle had a spine that needed stiffening, especially with Conor Hazard both injured and potentially wanting a Championship return with his mates who had abandoned him.
The next names on the teamsheet were not household ones, but for different reasons. Ayman Benarous was an ex Brizzle City man recovering from injuries but in his time rated in the realms of Alex Scott, now of Bournemouth. Brendan Wiredu, forever to be autocorrected to Wierdo on most computers, arrived from Fleetwood, and we gave a trial to ex Fulham keeper Luca Ashby-Hammond, which despite the calamity of a comedy own goal in our first friendly against Eintracht Braunsweig, was given a one-year deal and the incentive of a second, and possibly third, Ashby-Hammond goalkeeper derby against older brother Taye when we play Stevenage. The first finished one all last season in the EFL Trophy between Gillingham and Stevenage. Rumours that a third Ashby-Hammond sibling was drowned when he showed a preference for chess and kept dropping his feeding bottle are strongly denied by the Ashby-Hammond household.
What was concerning the Argyle faithful however was goals. And not the development of the recently acquired site next to Home Park. With the vast majority of our goals having departed with the loss of Bundu and Hardie, what we needed was a striker. A name.
What we received initially, to join Oseni and Paterson was certainly a name. Aribusitamunoipirim Emmanuel "Bim" Pepple arrived from Luton, and although perhaps not what Argyle fans were hoping for, the one thing they could be sure of is he wasn’t going to be a disciplinary problem.
Ref, pulling out yellow card, “Name ?”
Green shirted player. “Aribusitamunoipirim Emmanuel Pepple.”
Ref, replacing card in pocket. “Don’t do it again, lad.”
But Bim Pepple, as he will henceforward ALWAYS be known on these write ups, was in the finest Star Wars tradition, not the droid the Green army was looking for. Sounding more like a mystical luck bringing charm you bought on holiday somewhere in Thailand, to be worn as a bracelet or amulet, what we wanted was that most mythical of beasts. We wanted a twenty goal a season striker. And we wanted him now.
And none of your foreign rubbish either. Been there, done that. TJ, El Hajj, Baidoo, Rhys Griffiths. No. No. No.
Never mind that across the entire seventy-two EFL clubs last season there were only two of them. Kelman of QPR, on loan at Leyton Orient, and despite rumoured bidding from Argyle, heading for Charlton, and Michael Cheek, the thirty-three-year-old England C international who got to 26 on the back of quite a few penalties.
Argyle fans had Great Expectations. And a shed load of cash sitting in the current account after all the player sales, cup runs and bearded Satan compo. We deserved the cream of the League One striker crop.
To mix my Dickens metaphors, “it was the best of nines it was the worst of nines “. Actually, no, that’s still Obafemi.
With Tiny Tom holding out his bowl towards Squire Hallett and saying, “please sir, can I have some more” and the green chorus at the Dolphin changing the words from “Roll out” to “Rule Out the Burrell” we approach the first weekend of the new season engrossed in the “Taylor of Two Cities”. Us or Blackpool.
With still over a month of the transfer window available, it is a little too hysterical to proclaim each and every perceived transfer target who chooses another destination as a disaster of biblical proportions. Neither is the likely transfer strategy of the Argyle recruitment team a Micawberish “someone will turn up”.
Who we do know will turn up at Home Park on August the second are Barnsley. Just like they did three seasons ago, when they were the newly relegated side, rebuilding after failing to gatecrash the play-offs to the promised land. Their goal, then as now, restoring their Championship status, a task which, despite an ownership group that espouses “Moneyball” to the extent that they actually employed Billy Beane, it’s creator for a while, has remained beyond them since we left them (and Ipswich) in our dust.
Their multi club owning director (nine so far), Chien Lee has been voted off the board, although he retains a minority stake, having been fined by the EFL for breaching its ownership rules. The club, which has regularly made profits on player trading, still has a several million-pound annual deficit to find or fund. Then again 89 of the 92 clubs in the top four divisions make losses. As we know, it’s a rigged game.
Sliding sideways into the away dugout will be Conor “the crab” Hourihane, ex Argyle midfield stalwart and youthful captain, famed for his sideway passing ability, but in truth so much better than those around him. Now in his first coaching gig he is still looking to add players to his squad. One addition is the loan of Nathaniel Ogbetta from Argyle, but he will be condemned to a watching brief. Former Champion medal winning loanee Sam Cosgrove was discarded at the end of last season and still is seeking his next home. Barnsley are not favoured by the pundits, but neither are they a pushover.
Remarkably, it will be a close to capacity crowd, with more tickets made available even this week. Whether we will be watching a Lennonesque Number Nine Dream or Sergeant Pepple’s Lonely Starts Club Band remains to be seen.
It is a new season and chance to cast out old demons, bearded media satans included.
As Bowie would have (possibly) told Major Tom, it is time to find new Heroes, hopefully for more than just one day.
Ch ch ch ch Changes…….
COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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