One Game at a Time: You’re Only Here for the Pasties
Lady Godiva All Star XI (A) November 28th
There can be few grounds that an away team will visit, who will understand in the way that an Argyle crowd does, the sinking sensation that builds in the pit of your stomach, as heavy as a neutron star entering the final seconds of its life in some far flung distant galaxy. That moment when you realise that, as time travel has yet to be satisfactorily invented outside of GB News, your journey home is going to be long, and filled with angst and regret. We have been there, and for us there is always a long way back.
Spare a thought therefore, for the just over 1600 Mackems who first experienced that deep depressing feeling that began to seep into their consciousness when, after a game where they had dominated possession but had not created anything especially dangerous, Argyle created their first meaningful chance of the day. And by meaningful chance, I mean got the ball to Morgan Whittaker who after taking one, two, three and then four touches, simply smashed the ball past Anthony Patterson from around twenty yards for what the uninitiated (i.e., from Sunderland) called the best goal he will ever score in his life, and which Argyle fans called his second-best goal of November. Still one of them got Luke O'Niens shirt...sweat free in all probability.
If the modern-day fan can be bombarded with statistics from xG through to meaningful crosses into the box and number of incisive actions in the opponent’s penalty area, which based on the stats being quoted at length in the Sunderland forums, they clearly read them all, there is a clean simplicity about the only Argyle stat anyone cared about as half time. Two shots on target, two nil. If you want to overcomplicate it you can add two assists to Luke Cundle, the second of which was a sublime first time pass to Finn Azaz who stood his man up in the box and caressed the ball past the onrushing Ben Waine to score, coincidentally, the Villa loanees second-best goal of the month as well.
The second half, complete with a raft of changes from Moany Tony, who was doubtless choking on his Wispa bar, continued much as the first. Argyle able to surrender possession and manage the slow build-up of their opponents, and every now and again breaking incisively so that chances were honours even, but the points remained in Devon.
I wouldn’t have thought the travelling Mackems got much sleep on their coaches’ home, given the fervent tapping of mobile devices to post the hundred or so pages of indignant commentary, interspersed with the occasional sanity of someone noting that Argyle had played pretty well. For Argyle, a clean sheet is something to build on, and with attacking players like Whittaker, Azaz, Hardie, Waine and Bundu you can see why a solidified defence bult around Cooper Gibson and screened by Houghton and Cundle could easily see Argyle climb up the League.
It therefore seems a little harsh that the reward for such a good win is for the squad to be sent to Coventry, although we were always going to have to visit the City of Spires at some point (unlike the City of Dreaming Spires which is sooo League One these days), although a tad annoying that it is after a fine three-nil away win at the Den for their first win in seven games.
Coventry were originally formed as Singers FC in 1883, the factory being involved in the manufacture of materials used in the fledgeling bicycle industry, one of a number of surprising things that first saw the light of day in Coventry, including the UK Car Industry, The Green Party (which explains so much about why David Icke was their goalkeeper for a while), and the invention of twinning with other towns and cities, a feat they have now achieved 26 times.
In 1899 they moved into Highfield Road and after a spell in the Southern League they joined the proper League in 1919/20 season.
Their first season as a proper league club started badly (0-5 to Spurs)and fell away. Having failed to win a game before Christmas they ended their first season needing a win to avoid immediate relegation, which they managed, beating Bury 2-1. It transpired a couple of years later that this feat had only been secured with the paying of bribes to the Bury players and officials and the club were heavily fined. Expect a lawsuit from Everton any day now.
The remainder of the pre-war years for the Bantams, as they were originally nicknamed, passed of relatively uneventfully. They secured a fine promotion in 1935, under Harry Storer, with a free scoring team that featured Clarrie Boughton, who scored 39 and then 40 goals in two successive seasons and remains to this day their leading scorer. Boughton, a Bristolian, had a brief season at Argyle in 1937 before returning to Bristol City before the war ended his professional career.
The City side narrowly missed out on promotion to the First Division by a point in 1938, and were reckoned by many to be unfortunate that the war interrupted their rise up the League. Coventry, like Plymouth, suffered heavily at the hands of the Luftwaffe in the conflict, with to this day, the Coventry Conspiracy alleging that Churchill and his war leaders knew of the proposed saturation bombing raids planned for the city, but to react to that intelligence would have tipped off the Germans that the Allies had broken their Enigma code, and so the raids were allowed to proceed unimpeded albeit with a large number of first aid exercises being conducted in close proximity to the city.
Post war the club proceeded fairly anonymously, were founder members of the then Fourth Division in 1958, and it was only in the early 1960’s when Jimmy Hill arrived to take control of the club that City forced their way into the national consciousness, albeit not immediately.
Hill masterminded what would be regarded today as a masterful marketing campaign to build a brand based around the club. Gone were the old colours and nicknames and in was a return to the long-forgotten all Sky-Blue strip, last seen in 1899. Although light blue and white stripes had been in use for a while, Hill adopted the full Sky Blue strip and also the more modern “Sky Blues” nickname. Although the Bantams had been adopted, in part because it sounded aggressive and reflected the small stature of some of their then players, previous nicknames had been, not surprisingly given their affiliation with the City of Lady Godiva, “The Peeping Toms” and also when earlier playing in Black and Red, the “Little Blackbirds”.
Hills influence through the club was dramatic. He rewrote the lyrics to the Eton Boating Song, which remains the club anthem, even if its references to Cobblers, Posh and Oysters as opponents dates it somewhat, especially as the Oysters was the nickname of Colchester Town who went bust in 1936, rather than United who arrived in the early 1950's! The launch of the song featured Carry On Stars like Frankie Howard and Sid James, a testament to Hills grasp of celebrity endorsements to build attention.
Supported financially By Chairman Derrick Robins the ground was substantially rebuilt and in front of crowds averaging in the mid twenty thousands, the club gained promotion to Division 2. In 1966/7 season the club was finally promoted to the top division, winning a match billed with total hyperbole as the "Midlands Match of the Century” against Wolves.
At the end of the season Hill left to pursue a media career, but the much-feared immediate decline was in fact rarely at risk and the club began a 34 year stint at the highest level. Initially though, the club survived on the final day of its first season at the top, and then due to a last day defeat of Leicester City by their managers former club, Noel Cantwell's Manchester United, they again stayed up on the final day.
Remarkably the following season essentially the same players qualified for Europe with a sixth-place finish, the clubs highest ever, although the following seasons European campaign was humbled early in spectacular fashion, 6-1 by Bayern Munich.
Hill later returned to the club as Chairman and CEO and, whilst his return did not have the same dramatic impact as before, he was involved in an incident that created one of the more bizarre rivalries in Championship level teams of today, with Sunderland.
On the final day of the 76/7 season three clubs, City, Bristol City and Sunderland could go down. Coventry and Bristol were playing at Highfield Road, and, although disputed by Hill, he was allegedly involved in the decision to delay the start of the fixture, due to crowd congestion. Sunderland kicked off fifteen minutes earlier than the two Cities and lost at Everton. The score at Highfield Road was two all and a point for either side was enough, so Hill had the score announced and the two teams played out a threatless draw for both teams to stay up.
Hill, who had form with Sunderland, once watering a pitch heavily to allow their giant centre half George Curtis to dominate the nippy Sunderland centre forward of the day in an FA Cup tie, always denied any wrongdoing, but once had to have an escort at Craven Cottage when irate Sunderland fans spotted him many years later.
Eventually gravity of the football kind sucked City back down to the lowest level, including a brief spell in charge on the way for Peter Reid, who is less fondly remembered by the City faithful that our weekend opponents and ourselves. The club finally won a trophy that other fans had heard of, defeating Spurs in the FA Cup in 1987, and in the process ruining the 1970 Monty Python sketch where Che Guevara fails to realise the question about Coventry City winning the FA Cup is a trick one. Having overcome the debacle that was their chocolate coloured away kit, and the bizarre attempt to rebrand the club as Coventry Talbot after the local car manufacturer, in 2001 the club fell back into the EFL and then, struggling financially, they made one of those decisions that in hindsight should never have been allowed to happen and , from which in truth the club has only recently begun to emerge from.
The club’s solution was to sell off Highfield Road and move into the brand-new purpose-built Coventry Arena. The stadium, being built jointly by the local Council and the Alan Higgs Charity was supposed to be the answer to the struggling club’s dilemma. Instead, it was to prove the millstone that almost destroyed it. The story of the Ricoh (as it became known) and the involvement of SISU is too long and complex to do justice to today (although the good news is that there is always the home rematch to cover that one off). Let us simply say at this point, a club that finds itself owned by a Vulture Fund that specialises in distressed capital, and who have directors who think it is a good idea to a) encourage supporters to purchase shirts that are two sizes too big so they can be worn over their coats to enhance the TV rights potential of the crowd shots , and b) and this was not from the same director, that a good scheme would be a premium rate text line for fans to vote on in game substitutions probably are not that interested in the fans well-being in the long term.
As to the Ricoh (now the CBS Arena) itself, Coventry is an infrequent but not unhappy hunting ground, and in the six visits made there, Argyle have two wins and a draw to three defeats.
The most memorable of these has to be the 2006 visit, which featured two Argyle strikers with very different stories. The game was Reuben Reids first start for Argyle and over three spells with the club he was to carve himself a small but important niche in the club’s history.
He was replaced, making his debut for the club, by Cherno Samba, and it was he who would score his only football League goal of his career that whilst illustrious in the cyber realm of Football Manager, never quite made it in real life, although he now has a healthy career as an agent, featuring recently in the documentary series about such transactions on Amazon.
City themselves last season had a walk on part in the famed Ryan Reynolds vehicle for Wrexham, losing an FA Cup tie to the Dragons at the Ricoh. At the time City were engaged in a start to a season that would, had it been presented to a studio as a pitch, been rejected as too far-fetched.
The summary of the start to last season read as follows:
Starting the season unable to play their home fixtures at their ground as the pitch had been damaged due to it being used at the venue for the Commonwealth Games Rugby Sevens tournament. To be fair after stints playing home games at Northampton and Birmingham, no great drama for the Coventry fans, although they were then hit with a threat of a points deduction because of the pitch damage (not their pitch of course, they are simply tenants of the ground owned by WASPS at this point). They then have a major bust up with the said owners WASPS, who of course, as Rugby Union implodes under its own financial crisis, go bust!
Coventry started the season like a train. The one that you see hurtling off the bridge in Mission Impossible VII, and with no wins in their first seven matches are rooted to the foot of the League with a Wednesday like three points.
Rumours then swirl that the sale of Dom Hyams at the end of the transfer window was to provide the funds to relay the damaged pitch as their landlords had refused to do so or to reimburse the club for the work done.
After Wasps tip into administration City get the ultimate good news bad news one-two. The good news is that the stadium is bought. The bad news is new landlord Mike Ashley wants them out and starts eviction proceedings. The ever-helpful EFL put the club under a transfer embargo due to HMRC issues.
You could forgive the fans for not knowing which way to turn, but a new owner appears in Doug King who wipes out the club debts and allows the fans to believe again. Then, as an early Christmas present, the manufacturer of their kits and replica strips goes into administration.
And yet despite all those hurdles the team, managed by the now longest serving Championship boss Mark Robins, put together a run, largely driven by the goals of Viktor Gyokores and the midfield dynamism and shooting of Gustavo Hamer, and find themselves in the play-offs, where, after edging out Middlesbrough, they lose on penalties to Luton Town.
This season, following the rebuild with the proceeds of sales of Gyokores and Hamer, and with the security of a five-year tenancy at the CBS Arena, they are one place below Argyle but as they have shown in the past, they can be upwardly mobile at this level.
Argyle will be hoping to have the erstwhile Peeping Toms watching through their fingers as we try to get that long overdue away win under our belt.
Can we nick a win? Well if we do, no-one tell the coach driver that the chase scenes in the Italian Job original film were in fact filmed in Coventry.
Otherwise it could be a hairy ride home.
COYG!!!!!
Lady Godiva All Star XI (A) November 28th
There can be few grounds that an away team will visit, who will understand in the way that an Argyle crowd does, the sinking sensation that builds in the pit of your stomach, as heavy as a neutron star entering the final seconds of its life in some far flung distant galaxy. That moment when you realise that, as time travel has yet to be satisfactorily invented outside of GB News, your journey home is going to be long, and filled with angst and regret. We have been there, and for us there is always a long way back.
Spare a thought therefore, for the just over 1600 Mackems who first experienced that deep depressing feeling that began to seep into their consciousness when, after a game where they had dominated possession but had not created anything especially dangerous, Argyle created their first meaningful chance of the day. And by meaningful chance, I mean got the ball to Morgan Whittaker who after taking one, two, three and then four touches, simply smashed the ball past Anthony Patterson from around twenty yards for what the uninitiated (i.e., from Sunderland) called the best goal he will ever score in his life, and which Argyle fans called his second-best goal of November. Still one of them got Luke O'Niens shirt...sweat free in all probability.
If the modern-day fan can be bombarded with statistics from xG through to meaningful crosses into the box and number of incisive actions in the opponent’s penalty area, which based on the stats being quoted at length in the Sunderland forums, they clearly read them all, there is a clean simplicity about the only Argyle stat anyone cared about as half time. Two shots on target, two nil. If you want to overcomplicate it you can add two assists to Luke Cundle, the second of which was a sublime first time pass to Finn Azaz who stood his man up in the box and caressed the ball past the onrushing Ben Waine to score, coincidentally, the Villa loanees second-best goal of the month as well.
The second half, complete with a raft of changes from Moany Tony, who was doubtless choking on his Wispa bar, continued much as the first. Argyle able to surrender possession and manage the slow build-up of their opponents, and every now and again breaking incisively so that chances were honours even, but the points remained in Devon.
I wouldn’t have thought the travelling Mackems got much sleep on their coaches’ home, given the fervent tapping of mobile devices to post the hundred or so pages of indignant commentary, interspersed with the occasional sanity of someone noting that Argyle had played pretty well. For Argyle, a clean sheet is something to build on, and with attacking players like Whittaker, Azaz, Hardie, Waine and Bundu you can see why a solidified defence bult around Cooper Gibson and screened by Houghton and Cundle could easily see Argyle climb up the League.
It therefore seems a little harsh that the reward for such a good win is for the squad to be sent to Coventry, although we were always going to have to visit the City of Spires at some point (unlike the City of Dreaming Spires which is sooo League One these days), although a tad annoying that it is after a fine three-nil away win at the Den for their first win in seven games.
Coventry were originally formed as Singers FC in 1883, the factory being involved in the manufacture of materials used in the fledgeling bicycle industry, one of a number of surprising things that first saw the light of day in Coventry, including the UK Car Industry, The Green Party (which explains so much about why David Icke was their goalkeeper for a while), and the invention of twinning with other towns and cities, a feat they have now achieved 26 times.
In 1899 they moved into Highfield Road and after a spell in the Southern League they joined the proper League in 1919/20 season.
Their first season as a proper league club started badly (0-5 to Spurs)and fell away. Having failed to win a game before Christmas they ended their first season needing a win to avoid immediate relegation, which they managed, beating Bury 2-1. It transpired a couple of years later that this feat had only been secured with the paying of bribes to the Bury players and officials and the club were heavily fined. Expect a lawsuit from Everton any day now.
The remainder of the pre-war years for the Bantams, as they were originally nicknamed, passed of relatively uneventfully. They secured a fine promotion in 1935, under Harry Storer, with a free scoring team that featured Clarrie Boughton, who scored 39 and then 40 goals in two successive seasons and remains to this day their leading scorer. Boughton, a Bristolian, had a brief season at Argyle in 1937 before returning to Bristol City before the war ended his professional career.
The City side narrowly missed out on promotion to the First Division by a point in 1938, and were reckoned by many to be unfortunate that the war interrupted their rise up the League. Coventry, like Plymouth, suffered heavily at the hands of the Luftwaffe in the conflict, with to this day, the Coventry Conspiracy alleging that Churchill and his war leaders knew of the proposed saturation bombing raids planned for the city, but to react to that intelligence would have tipped off the Germans that the Allies had broken their Enigma code, and so the raids were allowed to proceed unimpeded albeit with a large number of first aid exercises being conducted in close proximity to the city.
Post war the club proceeded fairly anonymously, were founder members of the then Fourth Division in 1958, and it was only in the early 1960’s when Jimmy Hill arrived to take control of the club that City forced their way into the national consciousness, albeit not immediately.
Hill masterminded what would be regarded today as a masterful marketing campaign to build a brand based around the club. Gone were the old colours and nicknames and in was a return to the long-forgotten all Sky-Blue strip, last seen in 1899. Although light blue and white stripes had been in use for a while, Hill adopted the full Sky Blue strip and also the more modern “Sky Blues” nickname. Although the Bantams had been adopted, in part because it sounded aggressive and reflected the small stature of some of their then players, previous nicknames had been, not surprisingly given their affiliation with the City of Lady Godiva, “The Peeping Toms” and also when earlier playing in Black and Red, the “Little Blackbirds”.
Hills influence through the club was dramatic. He rewrote the lyrics to the Eton Boating Song, which remains the club anthem, even if its references to Cobblers, Posh and Oysters as opponents dates it somewhat, especially as the Oysters was the nickname of Colchester Town who went bust in 1936, rather than United who arrived in the early 1950's! The launch of the song featured Carry On Stars like Frankie Howard and Sid James, a testament to Hills grasp of celebrity endorsements to build attention.
Supported financially By Chairman Derrick Robins the ground was substantially rebuilt and in front of crowds averaging in the mid twenty thousands, the club gained promotion to Division 2. In 1966/7 season the club was finally promoted to the top division, winning a match billed with total hyperbole as the "Midlands Match of the Century” against Wolves.
At the end of the season Hill left to pursue a media career, but the much-feared immediate decline was in fact rarely at risk and the club began a 34 year stint at the highest level. Initially though, the club survived on the final day of its first season at the top, and then due to a last day defeat of Leicester City by their managers former club, Noel Cantwell's Manchester United, they again stayed up on the final day.
Remarkably the following season essentially the same players qualified for Europe with a sixth-place finish, the clubs highest ever, although the following seasons European campaign was humbled early in spectacular fashion, 6-1 by Bayern Munich.
Hill later returned to the club as Chairman and CEO and, whilst his return did not have the same dramatic impact as before, he was involved in an incident that created one of the more bizarre rivalries in Championship level teams of today, with Sunderland.
On the final day of the 76/7 season three clubs, City, Bristol City and Sunderland could go down. Coventry and Bristol were playing at Highfield Road, and, although disputed by Hill, he was allegedly involved in the decision to delay the start of the fixture, due to crowd congestion. Sunderland kicked off fifteen minutes earlier than the two Cities and lost at Everton. The score at Highfield Road was two all and a point for either side was enough, so Hill had the score announced and the two teams played out a threatless draw for both teams to stay up.
Hill, who had form with Sunderland, once watering a pitch heavily to allow their giant centre half George Curtis to dominate the nippy Sunderland centre forward of the day in an FA Cup tie, always denied any wrongdoing, but once had to have an escort at Craven Cottage when irate Sunderland fans spotted him many years later.
Eventually gravity of the football kind sucked City back down to the lowest level, including a brief spell in charge on the way for Peter Reid, who is less fondly remembered by the City faithful that our weekend opponents and ourselves. The club finally won a trophy that other fans had heard of, defeating Spurs in the FA Cup in 1987, and in the process ruining the 1970 Monty Python sketch where Che Guevara fails to realise the question about Coventry City winning the FA Cup is a trick one. Having overcome the debacle that was their chocolate coloured away kit, and the bizarre attempt to rebrand the club as Coventry Talbot after the local car manufacturer, in 2001 the club fell back into the EFL and then, struggling financially, they made one of those decisions that in hindsight should never have been allowed to happen and , from which in truth the club has only recently begun to emerge from.
The club’s solution was to sell off Highfield Road and move into the brand-new purpose-built Coventry Arena. The stadium, being built jointly by the local Council and the Alan Higgs Charity was supposed to be the answer to the struggling club’s dilemma. Instead, it was to prove the millstone that almost destroyed it. The story of the Ricoh (as it became known) and the involvement of SISU is too long and complex to do justice to today (although the good news is that there is always the home rematch to cover that one off). Let us simply say at this point, a club that finds itself owned by a Vulture Fund that specialises in distressed capital, and who have directors who think it is a good idea to a) encourage supporters to purchase shirts that are two sizes too big so they can be worn over their coats to enhance the TV rights potential of the crowd shots , and b) and this was not from the same director, that a good scheme would be a premium rate text line for fans to vote on in game substitutions probably are not that interested in the fans well-being in the long term.
As to the Ricoh (now the CBS Arena) itself, Coventry is an infrequent but not unhappy hunting ground, and in the six visits made there, Argyle have two wins and a draw to three defeats.
The most memorable of these has to be the 2006 visit, which featured two Argyle strikers with very different stories. The game was Reuben Reids first start for Argyle and over three spells with the club he was to carve himself a small but important niche in the club’s history.
He was replaced, making his debut for the club, by Cherno Samba, and it was he who would score his only football League goal of his career that whilst illustrious in the cyber realm of Football Manager, never quite made it in real life, although he now has a healthy career as an agent, featuring recently in the documentary series about such transactions on Amazon.
City themselves last season had a walk on part in the famed Ryan Reynolds vehicle for Wrexham, losing an FA Cup tie to the Dragons at the Ricoh. At the time City were engaged in a start to a season that would, had it been presented to a studio as a pitch, been rejected as too far-fetched.
The summary of the start to last season read as follows:
Starting the season unable to play their home fixtures at their ground as the pitch had been damaged due to it being used at the venue for the Commonwealth Games Rugby Sevens tournament. To be fair after stints playing home games at Northampton and Birmingham, no great drama for the Coventry fans, although they were then hit with a threat of a points deduction because of the pitch damage (not their pitch of course, they are simply tenants of the ground owned by WASPS at this point). They then have a major bust up with the said owners WASPS, who of course, as Rugby Union implodes under its own financial crisis, go bust!
Coventry started the season like a train. The one that you see hurtling off the bridge in Mission Impossible VII, and with no wins in their first seven matches are rooted to the foot of the League with a Wednesday like three points.
Rumours then swirl that the sale of Dom Hyams at the end of the transfer window was to provide the funds to relay the damaged pitch as their landlords had refused to do so or to reimburse the club for the work done.
After Wasps tip into administration City get the ultimate good news bad news one-two. The good news is that the stadium is bought. The bad news is new landlord Mike Ashley wants them out and starts eviction proceedings. The ever-helpful EFL put the club under a transfer embargo due to HMRC issues.
You could forgive the fans for not knowing which way to turn, but a new owner appears in Doug King who wipes out the club debts and allows the fans to believe again. Then, as an early Christmas present, the manufacturer of their kits and replica strips goes into administration.
And yet despite all those hurdles the team, managed by the now longest serving Championship boss Mark Robins, put together a run, largely driven by the goals of Viktor Gyokores and the midfield dynamism and shooting of Gustavo Hamer, and find themselves in the play-offs, where, after edging out Middlesbrough, they lose on penalties to Luton Town.
This season, following the rebuild with the proceeds of sales of Gyokores and Hamer, and with the security of a five-year tenancy at the CBS Arena, they are one place below Argyle but as they have shown in the past, they can be upwardly mobile at this level.
Argyle will be hoping to have the erstwhile Peeping Toms watching through their fingers as we try to get that long overdue away win under our belt.
Can we nick a win? Well if we do, no-one tell the coach driver that the chase scenes in the Italian Job original film were in fact filmed in Coventry.
Otherwise it could be a hairy ride home.
COYG!!!!!
Last edited:
