One Game at a Time: Difficult Second Season
Blue Moonies v The Plymouth Brethren FA Cup 5th Round March 1st
It is a tale as old as football itself. The highest ranked side in the world in the last ten years versus the lowest ranked side left in the competition. A team struggling to find wins, led by a manager who paces the side-lines looking bereft of ideas and hope, against a side that has just despatched the team nailed on to win the Premier League, led by an inspirational motivator. Poor old Pep. That two-year extension looks like a long, long time now. No wonder he started self-harming and seat breaking. It must be soooo hard for him.
After a result that shocked the football world as much as it did the assembled crowd at Home Park, everyone of an Argyle bent waited for the inevitable away draw in the for Northwest against Burnley or Preston North End. Maybe a double header against Cardiff City (well played Villa) if we were lucky. Argyle don’t get many big draws, partly because of an ability to get themselves eliminated nice and early. QPR have the worst 3rd round record in the four divisions (Leicester this year in the middle of a decent run, conceding six on the way) but Argyle are not too far behind in the three and out round status contest.
So, imagine our collective surprise, delight, and then dumbstruck reality when a trip to the Emptyhad (I mean, it won’t be, but it really seems to wind up the Oasis fanboys) emerged from the velvet bag. Three Premier league sides in a row. We didn’t even have to do that in 1984 when we should have ended up playing Everton for the trophy.
Eight thousand, give or take (those half and half scarves will cover a multitude of sins in the home end, and no, it isn’t called the Bell End), Green Army having a day out for a respite from the trials and tribulations of a relegation scrap that grows ever more intense as the games start to disappear. After all, City will be focussed on the Champions League, Premier League, as the main attractions in the so-called second Golden Age. Hang on, what do you mean this is their only chance of a trophy now?
This is Argyle however. We don’t do straightforward and predictable. Since we drew the light blue Mancs two of our forward options are out. Hardie with a back problem that could yet threaten his participation in the most critical games we still face, just as he was hitting one of his hot streaks we love so much. Tijani, having finally netted the first league goal of his massively underwhelming loan season, has, because of course, done his hamstring again. Well, it might be the other one. I think most of us are beyond caring anymore. Up you step then Michael. Time to shine. Either or both, it doesn’t matter.
Inching our way via draws, despite the drubbing of Millwall under the lights, leaves us still horribly dependent on at least two sides above us being utterly garbage to an extent greater than we are, as well as Luton not working out how the defibrillator works. Derby and Stoke look our best bets. Hull too if you could make them play all their games at home where they are stinking out the place. Sadly, in inverse proportion to us, they seem to have discovered an away formula that works giving them morale boosting unlikely maximums at Sheffield Red Stripe Millwall and Sunnerlan.
Cardiff, our most recent opponents, did at least top that unlikely trend, with a one nil over the Hull team that we will face after the day trip to Bangor, sorry Manchester, in what was a gruesome travesty of a football game, which underscored the paucity of our squad depth at a time when the games were in Clinton Morrison mode. Thick and fast.
Argyle were off the pace from the start, with a couple of lost fifty fifties resulting in a simple toe poke in and a one nil deficit after a completely forgettable first half.
The introduction of Mumba, a man so not in the mould of a Muslic footballer that he was probably overlooked from selection primarily because he is so far under the Bosnians eye-line he hadn’t noticed him. His impact was almost immediate. A break through the middle resulted in Goutas being red carded for stopping his progress. Mumba also hit the bar with a header and, up until he was swapped to the left-hand side to accommodate more changes, Mumba was running the City defence ragged. That sounds like a sentence I can cope with repeating.
Finally, a long ball from Maxi was nodded on by the Moose and Tijani scored his first and quite possibly only Argyle league goal. The celebration was heartfelt, but one can only hope that wasn’t the cause of his hammy pinging. Again.
Although from there, there should only have been one winner. A niggly (shock horror) Cardiff side managed to incur some fourteen minutes on added on time, during which time their Keeper ended up hobbling and unable to clear his lines. A tired and frustrated Argyle failed to deliver the valuable knockout blow that would have moved them out of the relegation places.
It is still only one defeat in seven for Argyle, and whilst (the next) City, by their lofty standards, have stumbled to four defeats in the same period, those defeats have been to Arsenal, Liverpool (the good players) and Real Madrid twice. Crisis, what crisis?
This will be the twenty-first ever game between the clubs, and whilst it may seem like the two operate in very different echelons, some of that is the recency bias of the dominance of the Manchester club since the arrival of their Arab owners and the riches that have been bestowed regularly and perhaps, according to the 115 charges laid at the groups door illicitly, which could still see them heavily punished if found guilty.
Formed as St Marks West Gorton, in 1880 the club changed name in 1884 to Ardwick and then again in 1887 to Softlads, sorry, Manchester City. They won their first major trophy in 1904 when the won the FA Cup at the Crystal Palace against Bolton Wanderers and, having narrowly missed out on the League and Cup double that season could console themselves that they were the first club in Manchester to win a major trophy.
In something of a precursor to their legal woes of today, the club was then embroiled in a financial scandal that resulted in them having seventeen players suspended and losing their talismanic captain Billy Meredith on loan to local rivals Manchester United. Memo to the FA. There is still time for history to repeat itself.
After a fire damaged the main stand at Hyde Road, the club relocated to Maine Road, which was to be their ground until the petrodollars and naming rights (all legal and above-board guv, wink wink) prompted their move to the City of Manchester Stadium in 2002/3 which was renamed as the Etihad (worth every penny, spend it on Grealish for the bench) in 2011.
Another cup win in 1934, over Portsmouth featured a standout performance from a young Frank Swift, as well as being refereed by future FIFA President Sir Stanley Rous. The two clubs finally crossed swords in 1938/9 in Division 2 when Argyle, struggling in the lower reaches drew nil-nil at Home Park, but, led by “five little green devils” recorded a three one win on the Maine Road turf against a team with eight home wins in a row to their name. Some 1600 Argyle fans made that trip, which was no mean feat at the time.
Post war saw limited interaction, although City repeated their pre-war FA Cup final cup feat of consecutive appearances, with a goalkeeper inspired victory in the second match. In 1956 ex POW Bert Trautman was the celebrated hero, completing the match despite fracturing his neck in a challenge to help City to a three one win over Birmingham.
City once again descended to the second tier and it was here that an unsung club connection was about to begin. If the current Pep inspired side are the second golden era for City, then the first came about directly as a result of two appointments made by the Maine Road club from their most Westerly opponents.
The first was, after his departure from the managers post at Argyle after a falling out with the Board, the appointment of the innovative and colourful coach Malcolm Allison as the coach to manager Joe Mercer.
The second was the raid on Argyle for their veteran right back and skipper Tony Book. Book, who George Best no less described as one of his toughest ever opponents, had joined Argyle in his thirties from Bath City, where Allison had coached, via a spell in Toronto, also under Allison. It was rumoured that Allison lied about the thirty-year-olds age, claiming he was 28, worried that the Board might not pay the fee for a thirty year old. He joined the City dressing room and within a season was City’s captain and Player of the Year, the Football Writers Player of the Year and in 1968, the first City captain to hold aloft the First Division Championship. Then followed the FA Cup and the European Cup Winners Cup in 1969 and 1970. Book, who died in January of this year, had a sixty-year association with the Sky Blues, including being the manager of the infamous Denis Law game when City beat United, if not to actually relegate them, to write a piece of footballing folk lore.
In 1978 City were to once again return to Argyle to plunder Malcolm Allison as their manager, after he had returned to the club as they struggled in Division 3. This time the player the took with him was the almost polar opposite of Book, the perm haired, socks around his ankles Barry Silkman, brought to the club by Allison, but after his departure, out of favour with replacement manager Bobby Saxton gave Argyle a tidy profit on the popular Londoner.
City were however in a spiral of decline. Finally after dabbling in the dubious waters of employing Alan Squeaky Ball as manager, they finally became only the second side to have won a major European title to descend to the third tier of their national pyramid, 1FC Magdeberg being the first.
This resulted in the “we’re not Really here” season where the travelling fans would sing those lyrics to the tune of “We shall overcome” although the true origins of the song, known as “The Invisible Man ”, was far more poignant and related to a friend of some City fans who committed suicide whilst they were away on a stag do he could not attend. It was then adopted by City fans to reflect some of the absurdities of following their club.
City fans were also the instigators of the inflatable craze that occasionally grips football, with their inflatable bananas which were used to celebrate Imre Varadi.
The single season they spent in the third tier in 1998/9 ended in one of the most spectacular play-off finals seen. City trailed Gillingham two nil at the death but managed to claw the game back to level in injury time. Then, captained by ex-Argyle centre back Jock Morrison, they won a penalty shoot-out to reclaim their place in the second tier, having finished third behind Fulham and Walsall. Yep, that one.
Morrison, despite only playing around fifty times for City was voted into their Hall of Fame and was also voted as their third best captain behind only Roy Paul and, of course, Tony Book. He was also voted their second hardest player behind only Mike Doyle, but ahead of candidates like Psycho Stuart Pearce and Gerry Gow.
I don’t normally drop in reading recommendations but as an Argyle fan, if you haven’t read “The Good the Mad and the Ugly” for a truly unvarnished honest account of Morrisons career and issues you have missed out on one of the great football autobiographies.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Mad-Ugly-Morrison-Story/dp/1905769334
City only spent one season at the third-tier level. Then climbed back and, after a string of celebrity managerial appointments like Keegan and the late Sven Goren Erikkson, and after being owned by the former Thai leader Thaksin Sinawatra and his family (fit and proper person, no problem sir, this way through immigration, how are those pesky political opponents. All dead or in prison?) eventually they were swallowed whole by the Dubai oil billionaires (fit and proper….you can fill the rest in by now) and, are now the house that Pep built.
Argyle fans can travel in hope however, as before Pep came the House the Mal and Book built and followed by the House that Jock built. City fans sing the mournful Blue Moon as their anthem and have a “typical City” outlook. They were the first side to be relegated the season after winning the title, the first team to score and conceded a hundred goals in a season and they paid a million pounds plus for Steve Daley when that, to them as much as anyone was a fortune.
This is a side that let Alan Ball relegate them as they were told to time waste in the corner whilst they needed one more goal to be safe.
It may be “half a world away” in footballing terms, but if we follow “the masterplan” set by Miron, then “little by little” we can watch Citeh “slide away”. Our Eastern Bloc “Wonderwall” simply can “live forever”.
The Green Army won’t “look back in Anger”. It will be a siege no doubt, but all we need is a moment of magic and it could be “What’s the Story: Miron Glory”
Someone will have to score of course. Roy Essendoah is past it, but does anyone have “Needles” Mpenza’s number?
COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Blue Moonies v The Plymouth Brethren FA Cup 5th Round March 1st
It is a tale as old as football itself. The highest ranked side in the world in the last ten years versus the lowest ranked side left in the competition. A team struggling to find wins, led by a manager who paces the side-lines looking bereft of ideas and hope, against a side that has just despatched the team nailed on to win the Premier League, led by an inspirational motivator. Poor old Pep. That two-year extension looks like a long, long time now. No wonder he started self-harming and seat breaking. It must be soooo hard for him.
After a result that shocked the football world as much as it did the assembled crowd at Home Park, everyone of an Argyle bent waited for the inevitable away draw in the for Northwest against Burnley or Preston North End. Maybe a double header against Cardiff City (well played Villa) if we were lucky. Argyle don’t get many big draws, partly because of an ability to get themselves eliminated nice and early. QPR have the worst 3rd round record in the four divisions (Leicester this year in the middle of a decent run, conceding six on the way) but Argyle are not too far behind in the three and out round status contest.
So, imagine our collective surprise, delight, and then dumbstruck reality when a trip to the Emptyhad (I mean, it won’t be, but it really seems to wind up the Oasis fanboys) emerged from the velvet bag. Three Premier league sides in a row. We didn’t even have to do that in 1984 when we should have ended up playing Everton for the trophy.
Eight thousand, give or take (those half and half scarves will cover a multitude of sins in the home end, and no, it isn’t called the Bell End), Green Army having a day out for a respite from the trials and tribulations of a relegation scrap that grows ever more intense as the games start to disappear. After all, City will be focussed on the Champions League, Premier League, as the main attractions in the so-called second Golden Age. Hang on, what do you mean this is their only chance of a trophy now?
This is Argyle however. We don’t do straightforward and predictable. Since we drew the light blue Mancs two of our forward options are out. Hardie with a back problem that could yet threaten his participation in the most critical games we still face, just as he was hitting one of his hot streaks we love so much. Tijani, having finally netted the first league goal of his massively underwhelming loan season, has, because of course, done his hamstring again. Well, it might be the other one. I think most of us are beyond caring anymore. Up you step then Michael. Time to shine. Either or both, it doesn’t matter.
Inching our way via draws, despite the drubbing of Millwall under the lights, leaves us still horribly dependent on at least two sides above us being utterly garbage to an extent greater than we are, as well as Luton not working out how the defibrillator works. Derby and Stoke look our best bets. Hull too if you could make them play all their games at home where they are stinking out the place. Sadly, in inverse proportion to us, they seem to have discovered an away formula that works giving them morale boosting unlikely maximums at Sheffield Red Stripe Millwall and Sunnerlan.
Cardiff, our most recent opponents, did at least top that unlikely trend, with a one nil over the Hull team that we will face after the day trip to Bangor, sorry Manchester, in what was a gruesome travesty of a football game, which underscored the paucity of our squad depth at a time when the games were in Clinton Morrison mode. Thick and fast.
Argyle were off the pace from the start, with a couple of lost fifty fifties resulting in a simple toe poke in and a one nil deficit after a completely forgettable first half.
The introduction of Mumba, a man so not in the mould of a Muslic footballer that he was probably overlooked from selection primarily because he is so far under the Bosnians eye-line he hadn’t noticed him. His impact was almost immediate. A break through the middle resulted in Goutas being red carded for stopping his progress. Mumba also hit the bar with a header and, up until he was swapped to the left-hand side to accommodate more changes, Mumba was running the City defence ragged. That sounds like a sentence I can cope with repeating.
Finally, a long ball from Maxi was nodded on by the Moose and Tijani scored his first and quite possibly only Argyle league goal. The celebration was heartfelt, but one can only hope that wasn’t the cause of his hammy pinging. Again.
Although from there, there should only have been one winner. A niggly (shock horror) Cardiff side managed to incur some fourteen minutes on added on time, during which time their Keeper ended up hobbling and unable to clear his lines. A tired and frustrated Argyle failed to deliver the valuable knockout blow that would have moved them out of the relegation places.
It is still only one defeat in seven for Argyle, and whilst (the next) City, by their lofty standards, have stumbled to four defeats in the same period, those defeats have been to Arsenal, Liverpool (the good players) and Real Madrid twice. Crisis, what crisis?
This will be the twenty-first ever game between the clubs, and whilst it may seem like the two operate in very different echelons, some of that is the recency bias of the dominance of the Manchester club since the arrival of their Arab owners and the riches that have been bestowed regularly and perhaps, according to the 115 charges laid at the groups door illicitly, which could still see them heavily punished if found guilty.
Formed as St Marks West Gorton, in 1880 the club changed name in 1884 to Ardwick and then again in 1887 to Softlads, sorry, Manchester City. They won their first major trophy in 1904 when the won the FA Cup at the Crystal Palace against Bolton Wanderers and, having narrowly missed out on the League and Cup double that season could console themselves that they were the first club in Manchester to win a major trophy.
In something of a precursor to their legal woes of today, the club was then embroiled in a financial scandal that resulted in them having seventeen players suspended and losing their talismanic captain Billy Meredith on loan to local rivals Manchester United. Memo to the FA. There is still time for history to repeat itself.
After a fire damaged the main stand at Hyde Road, the club relocated to Maine Road, which was to be their ground until the petrodollars and naming rights (all legal and above-board guv, wink wink) prompted their move to the City of Manchester Stadium in 2002/3 which was renamed as the Etihad (worth every penny, spend it on Grealish for the bench) in 2011.
Another cup win in 1934, over Portsmouth featured a standout performance from a young Frank Swift, as well as being refereed by future FIFA President Sir Stanley Rous. The two clubs finally crossed swords in 1938/9 in Division 2 when Argyle, struggling in the lower reaches drew nil-nil at Home Park, but, led by “five little green devils” recorded a three one win on the Maine Road turf against a team with eight home wins in a row to their name. Some 1600 Argyle fans made that trip, which was no mean feat at the time.
Post war saw limited interaction, although City repeated their pre-war FA Cup final cup feat of consecutive appearances, with a goalkeeper inspired victory in the second match. In 1956 ex POW Bert Trautman was the celebrated hero, completing the match despite fracturing his neck in a challenge to help City to a three one win over Birmingham.
City once again descended to the second tier and it was here that an unsung club connection was about to begin. If the current Pep inspired side are the second golden era for City, then the first came about directly as a result of two appointments made by the Maine Road club from their most Westerly opponents.
The first was, after his departure from the managers post at Argyle after a falling out with the Board, the appointment of the innovative and colourful coach Malcolm Allison as the coach to manager Joe Mercer.
The second was the raid on Argyle for their veteran right back and skipper Tony Book. Book, who George Best no less described as one of his toughest ever opponents, had joined Argyle in his thirties from Bath City, where Allison had coached, via a spell in Toronto, also under Allison. It was rumoured that Allison lied about the thirty-year-olds age, claiming he was 28, worried that the Board might not pay the fee for a thirty year old. He joined the City dressing room and within a season was City’s captain and Player of the Year, the Football Writers Player of the Year and in 1968, the first City captain to hold aloft the First Division Championship. Then followed the FA Cup and the European Cup Winners Cup in 1969 and 1970. Book, who died in January of this year, had a sixty-year association with the Sky Blues, including being the manager of the infamous Denis Law game when City beat United, if not to actually relegate them, to write a piece of footballing folk lore.
In 1978 City were to once again return to Argyle to plunder Malcolm Allison as their manager, after he had returned to the club as they struggled in Division 3. This time the player the took with him was the almost polar opposite of Book, the perm haired, socks around his ankles Barry Silkman, brought to the club by Allison, but after his departure, out of favour with replacement manager Bobby Saxton gave Argyle a tidy profit on the popular Londoner.
City were however in a spiral of decline. Finally after dabbling in the dubious waters of employing Alan Squeaky Ball as manager, they finally became only the second side to have won a major European title to descend to the third tier of their national pyramid, 1FC Magdeberg being the first.
This resulted in the “we’re not Really here” season where the travelling fans would sing those lyrics to the tune of “We shall overcome” although the true origins of the song, known as “The Invisible Man ”, was far more poignant and related to a friend of some City fans who committed suicide whilst they were away on a stag do he could not attend. It was then adopted by City fans to reflect some of the absurdities of following their club.
City fans were also the instigators of the inflatable craze that occasionally grips football, with their inflatable bananas which were used to celebrate Imre Varadi.
The single season they spent in the third tier in 1998/9 ended in one of the most spectacular play-off finals seen. City trailed Gillingham two nil at the death but managed to claw the game back to level in injury time. Then, captained by ex-Argyle centre back Jock Morrison, they won a penalty shoot-out to reclaim their place in the second tier, having finished third behind Fulham and Walsall. Yep, that one.
Morrison, despite only playing around fifty times for City was voted into their Hall of Fame and was also voted as their third best captain behind only Roy Paul and, of course, Tony Book. He was also voted their second hardest player behind only Mike Doyle, but ahead of candidates like Psycho Stuart Pearce and Gerry Gow.
I don’t normally drop in reading recommendations but as an Argyle fan, if you haven’t read “The Good the Mad and the Ugly” for a truly unvarnished honest account of Morrisons career and issues you have missed out on one of the great football autobiographies.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Mad-Ugly-Morrison-Story/dp/1905769334
City only spent one season at the third-tier level. Then climbed back and, after a string of celebrity managerial appointments like Keegan and the late Sven Goren Erikkson, and after being owned by the former Thai leader Thaksin Sinawatra and his family (fit and proper person, no problem sir, this way through immigration, how are those pesky political opponents. All dead or in prison?) eventually they were swallowed whole by the Dubai oil billionaires (fit and proper….you can fill the rest in by now) and, are now the house that Pep built.
Argyle fans can travel in hope however, as before Pep came the House the Mal and Book built and followed by the House that Jock built. City fans sing the mournful Blue Moon as their anthem and have a “typical City” outlook. They were the first side to be relegated the season after winning the title, the first team to score and conceded a hundred goals in a season and they paid a million pounds plus for Steve Daley when that, to them as much as anyone was a fortune.
This is a side that let Alan Ball relegate them as they were told to time waste in the corner whilst they needed one more goal to be safe.
It may be “half a world away” in footballing terms, but if we follow “the masterplan” set by Miron, then “little by little” we can watch Citeh “slide away”. Our Eastern Bloc “Wonderwall” simply can “live forever”.
The Green Army won’t “look back in Anger”. It will be a siege no doubt, but all we need is a moment of magic and it could be “What’s the Story: Miron Glory”
Someone will have to score of course. Roy Essendoah is past it, but does anyone have “Needles” Mpenza’s number?
COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
