One Game at a Time: Difficult Second Season?
Hull City (H) August 17th
“Find a Keeper, Losers weepers.” (traditional, adapted)
My first ever gainful employment (I was far too lazy to get a paper round) was as the Saturday boy for Perilla’s Fish and Chip shops. It was the perfect Saturday job, as I was finished (and fed) in time to make it up to Home Park in time for either the first team or the combination fixture. In those days, rather than being glued to a mobile with constant updates, the reserves fixture would be punctuated by a sudden movement in the old Barn Park End radio announcers hut, and the placing of a scoreboard number in either the home or away corner of the window.
Possibly one of the most exciting reserve games ever, was the day we played at Bournemouth, when throughout the first half the Argyle score ticked up from nil to five. Then a brief period of second half panic as the Bournemouth score rose inexorably from nil to three. Finally, relief as the Argyle score climbed still further to seven. A ten-goal thriller played out through the medium of half-time score numbers. Simpler times. And no, I don’t recall a thing about the reserve game I was watching!
And so my early Argyle watching at the weekend always started by waiting for a delivery from Hull, where boxes of cod and haddock would be delivered by six thirty, and expertly sliced and filleted by old man Geo Perilla and his team, whilst I ran spuds through the peeler machine, manhandled them into the transit and topped then up with water to keep them fresh for the chippers at the local stores we would deliver to. Even the tub that spilled all across the road in St Budeaux one day after someone (ahem) forgot to close the transit doors properly after the Mutley Plain delivery. To the best of my knowledge no-one noticed any difference in the chips and no pandemic ensued.
The job, courtesy of my late mother’s waitressing at Mayflower Street also delivered my first football freebie. One of her regulars was Graham Little, and when she told him her son was heading up to his first ever FA Cup away game, he kindly delivered her a complimentary stand ticket for Boothferry Road for the 1976 trip to the frozen North. If you want to know where George R R Martin got the idea for the phrase “Winter is Coming” try Hull in January.
I don’t recall much about the game, other than Rafferty equalised. I do recall the life lesson that was, a matter of three days later, the pointlessness of being chuffed at an away draw in Hull, which was exorcised when Alf Wood scored after only twenty-five seconds and Hull booked their trip to Sunderland with a comprehensive four one win at Home Park. I mean who concedes a goal in under 25 seconds
One thing that does stand out, was that this, their first season back in the second tier, Argyle transitioned what was then, and remains to this day, a key position. Jim Furnell, a veteran of thirty-eight and perpetrator of the greatest penalty save in Argyle history the previous season. An injury time plunge to deny Terry Venables a Crystal Palace equaliser after a tumble performed by Alan Whittle that I can only assume was the inspiration behind the Daley family’s Olympic odyssey in some way.
Furnell’s replacement was a young non-league signing, Milija Aleksic, who had arrived two years previously from Stafford Rangers. Of mixed Yugoslav/English pedigree, he had played a couple of times for Port Vale in the FA Cup before being plucked by fellow keeper Waiters to head west to Argyle. Before his Division 2 debut, he had played three times for Argyle in the league and his most memorable moment until then had been being beaten by Pele from the penalty spot in the famous Santos friendly.
Mister Elastic, as he became fondly known, only played thirty-seven times for Argyle. He moved on after Furnell’s recall in February, playing first for Luton and then, after a six-figure move, for Spurs. He was an FA Cup winner as well as suffering a dislocated jaw in an “accidental” collision with Joe Jordan at Old Trafford, in a game which saw Glenn Hoddle take his place in goal and Ossie Ardiles score the only goal.
Sadly he was to die early, of lung cancer, aged only sixty-one, living in South Africa, but Milija will always feature on the list of top ten goalies in this fans eyes, and that at a club who have had more than their fair share of good and great ones. He is in good company. Shortt, Dunne, Barron, Miller, Nicholls, Hodge, Larrieu, Furnell, Super Luke, and Cooper...not a bad, or indeed complete list of goalkeeping talent that has graced Home Park.
Aleksic had no easy task, in that he was replacing Big Jim Furnell, and now that the final chapter of “Cooper the Keeper’s“ time at Home Park has been written, the same will apply to the next man through the door, assuming he can usurp the incumbent, Conor Hazard.
At time of writing the various potentials stretch from a Brazilian playing in Portugal via an ex-Portsmouth and Wycombe former opponent (Allsop who played for Rooney at Brum so altogether hardly auspicious, even discounting the fact Birmingham have only just shelled out big bucks for him), Baxter at Bolton, and various free agents. Of these the least likely has to be Begovic, despite his heroics in keeping us up with his gifting of a late equaliser to win an unlikely point in last season’s run in against his then club QPR.
Our incumbent, Hazard, at least, comes off the back of a clean sheet from the eventually comfortable Carabao Cup win over this season’s training ground traffic cones, Cheltenham Town. Conor seems to have become the latest in a line of whipping boys for the crowd, following in the footsteps of Brian Johnson, Jon Sheffield, Terry Austin, George Foster and no doubt others I have omitted, where errors are magnified, and good performances are simply dismissed as “doing his job”.
Having never understood how hounding a player from your own side helps either him, or the team, and, given the timelines, it seems most likely that Hazard will be in place for the home game against Hull. Following a patch of thirty minutes in the second half where we recorded three unanswered goals as well as some fine progressive attacking football, a number of players that did not start at Hillsborough will be hoping, if not expecting, to see their names on a starting XI for the first time in the League.
One of these may well be debutant from Wednesday, Cornel Szuchs, whose assured defensive performance and comfort on the ball, albeit against lowly opposition was in stark contrast to the nervous defensive performance seen last weekend. If he can deliver that kind of performance against Championship attacks he could well be worth the twenty points that is, coincidentally, his Scrabble score, towards safety. No pressure then.
With confidence boosting strikes from Waine, Hardie and Bundu, although strike may be over egging Bens three-inch finish somewhat, and a productive cameo on the left from Cissoko to set up the second and third chances, the mood was somewhat lifted after a nervous first half.
Arriving back at Home Park, only three months or so after they provided the fall guys to our season saving victory comes, well, virtually no-one who was party to the game at all in an amber and black shirt of Hull City.
Hull have lost eighteen players from that squad and according to one analysis, all eleven of their most used players, as well as the manager most likely to be sacked after losing to Argyle, Liam Rosenior. Argyle, by contrast, are amongst the top ten sides for retention of most used players at around 75%.
In part that is the impact of a Chairman who effectively removed his previous manager because he didn’t like the style of play which narrowly missed out on a play-off challenge last season. By replacing him with Hamburg’s Tim Walter he has gone with a manager who achieved precisely the same outcome in Germany, but who promotes his attacking ideals as being “heart-attack football.”
So far nine new arrivals have found their way to the MCM, although not their first two attacking options of Keifer Moore and Brandon Thomas Assante, who were both apparently at the club on the verge of signing before diverting their careers to Sheffield United and Coventry respectively.
Three of the nine arrived this week, in Hughes from Wigan , Burstow from the Chelsea conveyer belt of disaffected youth players and Oscar Zambrano, the Ecuadorian who may be about to be hit with a suspension for failing a doping test, but who for the time being is eligible to play.
More incomings are expected, and Ilicali is still in the process of setting up a network of clubs to act as feeder clubs to his Hull project, whilst retaining a nebulous involvement as Vice Chairman with Fenerbace. Here he professed to be behind the swoop to bring in lovable rogue Jose Mourihno as head coach. In the past he has also named players such as Fred as his “dream signings” for Hull City. It all has the faint whiff of Pozzo-nomics about it.
Like Argyle, goalkeeper has become a focus for City, with part of the falling out with Rosenior being the former coach’s determination not to play the purchased and Chairman favoured keeper Pandur, in favour of the statistically iffy Allsop, primarily for his comfort playing the sweeper-keeper role.
With Allsop now sold to bench warm at Birmingham (watch this space), the latest arrival, Rachioppi from Young Boys in Switzerland contrived to gift Wednesday reserves their winning Carabao goal, allowing the ball to roll under his foot for Charlie McNeil to walk into the net ten minutes into a debut that also saw him concede in under thirty seconds. If it isn't one all after two minutes on Saturday, then Henry Ford was right when he wrote "History is Bunk!". Walter says he has forgiven the Swiss for allowing the catastrophic roll against Rohl. We will see what the teamsheet tells us.
With a first match home draw snatched with an injury time penalty by returned loanee Columbian striker Estupinian against Bristol City, much against the run of play as the Tigers struggled to deliver the coach’s desired play out from the back style (sound familiar?) City travel to Argyle with a far from settled team selection. Or indeed a squad that knows each others names.
Argyle will be looking to replicate their early season home form of last season, and with two million (plus add-ons) burning a hole in Andrew Parkinson’s pocket the recruitment team will be burning the midnight oil finding the missing pieces to this season’s jigsaw.
Whilst Walter offers “Sheer Heart Attack”, no-one is expecting “We are the Champions” so soon after the trauma of Sunday. We have all bought into Simon and Janes “One Vision” and know that if we “Play the Game” the way we can “It’s a Kind of Magic.”
Is Wayne “Under Pressure”? The “Innuendo” of the Foster days needs to be removed. No-one is expecting “the Hammer to fall” on Wayne at Home Park. A full house full of Greens thinking “Now I’m Here” we will “Play the Game” and “We will Rock you” should generate an intimidating atmosphere.
In a “Flash” the team must show “The Show Must Go on” to “Keep Yourself Alive” and when “Another One Bites the Dust” we can all go "Radio Ga-ga”.
Early days with a long way to go…..and that is just the transfer window.
COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hull City (H) August 17th
“Find a Keeper, Losers weepers.” (traditional, adapted)
My first ever gainful employment (I was far too lazy to get a paper round) was as the Saturday boy for Perilla’s Fish and Chip shops. It was the perfect Saturday job, as I was finished (and fed) in time to make it up to Home Park in time for either the first team or the combination fixture. In those days, rather than being glued to a mobile with constant updates, the reserves fixture would be punctuated by a sudden movement in the old Barn Park End radio announcers hut, and the placing of a scoreboard number in either the home or away corner of the window.
Possibly one of the most exciting reserve games ever, was the day we played at Bournemouth, when throughout the first half the Argyle score ticked up from nil to five. Then a brief period of second half panic as the Bournemouth score rose inexorably from nil to three. Finally, relief as the Argyle score climbed still further to seven. A ten-goal thriller played out through the medium of half-time score numbers. Simpler times. And no, I don’t recall a thing about the reserve game I was watching!
And so my early Argyle watching at the weekend always started by waiting for a delivery from Hull, where boxes of cod and haddock would be delivered by six thirty, and expertly sliced and filleted by old man Geo Perilla and his team, whilst I ran spuds through the peeler machine, manhandled them into the transit and topped then up with water to keep them fresh for the chippers at the local stores we would deliver to. Even the tub that spilled all across the road in St Budeaux one day after someone (ahem) forgot to close the transit doors properly after the Mutley Plain delivery. To the best of my knowledge no-one noticed any difference in the chips and no pandemic ensued.
The job, courtesy of my late mother’s waitressing at Mayflower Street also delivered my first football freebie. One of her regulars was Graham Little, and when she told him her son was heading up to his first ever FA Cup away game, he kindly delivered her a complimentary stand ticket for Boothferry Road for the 1976 trip to the frozen North. If you want to know where George R R Martin got the idea for the phrase “Winter is Coming” try Hull in January.
I don’t recall much about the game, other than Rafferty equalised. I do recall the life lesson that was, a matter of three days later, the pointlessness of being chuffed at an away draw in Hull, which was exorcised when Alf Wood scored after only twenty-five seconds and Hull booked their trip to Sunderland with a comprehensive four one win at Home Park. I mean who concedes a goal in under 25 seconds
One thing that does stand out, was that this, their first season back in the second tier, Argyle transitioned what was then, and remains to this day, a key position. Jim Furnell, a veteran of thirty-eight and perpetrator of the greatest penalty save in Argyle history the previous season. An injury time plunge to deny Terry Venables a Crystal Palace equaliser after a tumble performed by Alan Whittle that I can only assume was the inspiration behind the Daley family’s Olympic odyssey in some way.
Furnell’s replacement was a young non-league signing, Milija Aleksic, who had arrived two years previously from Stafford Rangers. Of mixed Yugoslav/English pedigree, he had played a couple of times for Port Vale in the FA Cup before being plucked by fellow keeper Waiters to head west to Argyle. Before his Division 2 debut, he had played three times for Argyle in the league and his most memorable moment until then had been being beaten by Pele from the penalty spot in the famous Santos friendly.
Mister Elastic, as he became fondly known, only played thirty-seven times for Argyle. He moved on after Furnell’s recall in February, playing first for Luton and then, after a six-figure move, for Spurs. He was an FA Cup winner as well as suffering a dislocated jaw in an “accidental” collision with Joe Jordan at Old Trafford, in a game which saw Glenn Hoddle take his place in goal and Ossie Ardiles score the only goal.
Sadly he was to die early, of lung cancer, aged only sixty-one, living in South Africa, but Milija will always feature on the list of top ten goalies in this fans eyes, and that at a club who have had more than their fair share of good and great ones. He is in good company. Shortt, Dunne, Barron, Miller, Nicholls, Hodge, Larrieu, Furnell, Super Luke, and Cooper...not a bad, or indeed complete list of goalkeeping talent that has graced Home Park.
Aleksic had no easy task, in that he was replacing Big Jim Furnell, and now that the final chapter of “Cooper the Keeper’s“ time at Home Park has been written, the same will apply to the next man through the door, assuming he can usurp the incumbent, Conor Hazard.
At time of writing the various potentials stretch from a Brazilian playing in Portugal via an ex-Portsmouth and Wycombe former opponent (Allsop who played for Rooney at Brum so altogether hardly auspicious, even discounting the fact Birmingham have only just shelled out big bucks for him), Baxter at Bolton, and various free agents. Of these the least likely has to be Begovic, despite his heroics in keeping us up with his gifting of a late equaliser to win an unlikely point in last season’s run in against his then club QPR.
Our incumbent, Hazard, at least, comes off the back of a clean sheet from the eventually comfortable Carabao Cup win over this season’s training ground traffic cones, Cheltenham Town. Conor seems to have become the latest in a line of whipping boys for the crowd, following in the footsteps of Brian Johnson, Jon Sheffield, Terry Austin, George Foster and no doubt others I have omitted, where errors are magnified, and good performances are simply dismissed as “doing his job”.
Having never understood how hounding a player from your own side helps either him, or the team, and, given the timelines, it seems most likely that Hazard will be in place for the home game against Hull. Following a patch of thirty minutes in the second half where we recorded three unanswered goals as well as some fine progressive attacking football, a number of players that did not start at Hillsborough will be hoping, if not expecting, to see their names on a starting XI for the first time in the League.
One of these may well be debutant from Wednesday, Cornel Szuchs, whose assured defensive performance and comfort on the ball, albeit against lowly opposition was in stark contrast to the nervous defensive performance seen last weekend. If he can deliver that kind of performance against Championship attacks he could well be worth the twenty points that is, coincidentally, his Scrabble score, towards safety. No pressure then.
With confidence boosting strikes from Waine, Hardie and Bundu, although strike may be over egging Bens three-inch finish somewhat, and a productive cameo on the left from Cissoko to set up the second and third chances, the mood was somewhat lifted after a nervous first half.
Arriving back at Home Park, only three months or so after they provided the fall guys to our season saving victory comes, well, virtually no-one who was party to the game at all in an amber and black shirt of Hull City.
Hull have lost eighteen players from that squad and according to one analysis, all eleven of their most used players, as well as the manager most likely to be sacked after losing to Argyle, Liam Rosenior. Argyle, by contrast, are amongst the top ten sides for retention of most used players at around 75%.
In part that is the impact of a Chairman who effectively removed his previous manager because he didn’t like the style of play which narrowly missed out on a play-off challenge last season. By replacing him with Hamburg’s Tim Walter he has gone with a manager who achieved precisely the same outcome in Germany, but who promotes his attacking ideals as being “heart-attack football.”
So far nine new arrivals have found their way to the MCM, although not their first two attacking options of Keifer Moore and Brandon Thomas Assante, who were both apparently at the club on the verge of signing before diverting their careers to Sheffield United and Coventry respectively.
Three of the nine arrived this week, in Hughes from Wigan , Burstow from the Chelsea conveyer belt of disaffected youth players and Oscar Zambrano, the Ecuadorian who may be about to be hit with a suspension for failing a doping test, but who for the time being is eligible to play.
More incomings are expected, and Ilicali is still in the process of setting up a network of clubs to act as feeder clubs to his Hull project, whilst retaining a nebulous involvement as Vice Chairman with Fenerbace. Here he professed to be behind the swoop to bring in lovable rogue Jose Mourihno as head coach. In the past he has also named players such as Fred as his “dream signings” for Hull City. It all has the faint whiff of Pozzo-nomics about it.
Like Argyle, goalkeeper has become a focus for City, with part of the falling out with Rosenior being the former coach’s determination not to play the purchased and Chairman favoured keeper Pandur, in favour of the statistically iffy Allsop, primarily for his comfort playing the sweeper-keeper role.
With Allsop now sold to bench warm at Birmingham (watch this space), the latest arrival, Rachioppi from Young Boys in Switzerland contrived to gift Wednesday reserves their winning Carabao goal, allowing the ball to roll under his foot for Charlie McNeil to walk into the net ten minutes into a debut that also saw him concede in under thirty seconds. If it isn't one all after two minutes on Saturday, then Henry Ford was right when he wrote "History is Bunk!". Walter says he has forgiven the Swiss for allowing the catastrophic roll against Rohl. We will see what the teamsheet tells us.
With a first match home draw snatched with an injury time penalty by returned loanee Columbian striker Estupinian against Bristol City, much against the run of play as the Tigers struggled to deliver the coach’s desired play out from the back style (sound familiar?) City travel to Argyle with a far from settled team selection. Or indeed a squad that knows each others names.
Argyle will be looking to replicate their early season home form of last season, and with two million (plus add-ons) burning a hole in Andrew Parkinson’s pocket the recruitment team will be burning the midnight oil finding the missing pieces to this season’s jigsaw.
Whilst Walter offers “Sheer Heart Attack”, no-one is expecting “We are the Champions” so soon after the trauma of Sunday. We have all bought into Simon and Janes “One Vision” and know that if we “Play the Game” the way we can “It’s a Kind of Magic.”
Is Wayne “Under Pressure”? The “Innuendo” of the Foster days needs to be removed. No-one is expecting “the Hammer to fall” on Wayne at Home Park. A full house full of Greens thinking “Now I’m Here” we will “Play the Game” and “We will Rock you” should generate an intimidating atmosphere.
In a “Flash” the team must show “The Show Must Go on” to “Keep Yourself Alive” and when “Another One Bites the Dust” we can all go "Radio Ga-ga”.
Early days with a long way to go…..and that is just the transfer window.
COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
