Fleetwood Town (a) August 6th
And breathe……
As starts to the seasons go, so far so great. A three pointer against a top six side (admittedly only alphabetically, but at this point in the season but you take your positives where you find them) is what we all hoped for. Still seventh though.
Three points better than the same time last season and 135 more still available.
A debut goal for Finn Azaz, a debut assist and MOM for Bali Mumba, a clean sheet for the defence, thanks to not one, but two goal-line clearances by Macaulay Gillesphey, and a hat trick for skipper Joe 90, albeit of missed sitters. All this without last season’s regular first team starters Houghton, Grant, Camara and sadly injured new boy Mickel Miller even making the squad.
Away from the match action a slightly surprising active transfer window continuation (post the Barnsley preview) as Alfie Lewis departs back to the Emerald Isle (once a Green), Finlay Craske is sent to Yeovil to build his experience in the Conference and the Van Dyke-esque Dutchman Nigel Cello Lonwijk arrives on a season long loan from Wolves.
Hopefully he will last a bit longer than our last Wolves loanee, the unfortunate Harry Burgoyne, who we had to send back with a “sorry, we broke him,” note in 2018. Mind you we broke so many keepers that season, I had to check that he hadn’t been left behind the old nets in the kit room. He is in fact currently at Shrewsbury (since 2020), so, a similar outcome really.
Just for clarity, neither Lonwijk nor Van Dijk presently sport a Van Dyke. Van Dijk’s facial hair is, in fact, more of a soul patch. More interesting is whether Argyle have ever before had a player named after part of an orchestra before. Apart from Brian Bassoon of course. Nigel Cello Lonwijk may however be the first Argyle player ever named by a combination of What Three Words and autocorrect.
But what of Fleetwood I hear you ask? We move forward, like that efficient predator, the shark, having spotted a shoal of succulent juicy cod. I have, however, determined to avoid fishing puns (despite being a dab hand) as to be honest the fishiest thing about Fleetwood these days is the football club nickname and the manufacture of Fisherman’s Friends.
This well-established menthol based lozenge, whose trawler logo the Cevic has been appropriated by the “Cod Army”, and which has a catalogue of flavours that resembles a vape shops advert for the school bus route, remains a local family run business, the fourth generation of Lofthouses. Sadly for Fleetwood nothing to do with Nat Lofthouse though. The lozenge has a following amongst politicians though. Maggie Thatcher carried them about in her handbag, and Emmanuel Macron is a fan. Who knew? The President of France is a bit phlegmish.
The club has a somewhat unfortunate history since the creation of the first planned Victorian town, laid out in radial spikes at the then end of the Euston line north to Scotland from London. Designed by architect Decimus Burton, also responsible for the Wellington Arch and Hyde Park (not the mound of dirt…the posh archy bit) the town even boasts its own inland lighthouse. Their first ground was beside the North Euston Hotel, once occupied by Queen Victoria. Perhaps more pertinently, a subsequent ground was next to the local magistrates court. Fleetwood ranks as the second most dangerous town in Lancashire in the 2021 crime survey.
Subsequently bypassed by rail line alterations Fleetwood became something of a backwater, which might explain its difficulty in sustaining a viable football team. Since inception the club has undergone multiple incarnations including Fleetwood Rangers, Amateurs, pure plain old Fleetwood FC, Fleetwood Windsor Villa, Town, Wanderers and Freeport before re-alighting on Town again in 2002. That said the latest filed accounts for Fleetwood Town are under the name Fleetwood Wanderers according to the Price of Football podcast. Go figure. That it remains viable is solely due to the financial underpinning of long-term Chairman Andy Pilley and his BES group, which again, according to accounts, is some £21 million and counting.
Under his ownership the Highbury ground, once host to speedway as well as football, has been redeveloped, even if one of those redevelopments was plonking a new stand in front of the old one. There is no truth that seats in the previous stand command a significant premium. They have also invested in a well-regarded training facility, opened by none other than Sir Alex Ferguson at Poolfoot Farm.
Fleetwood also has a Guinness World Record holding Pond. In this case, Nathan Pond who holds the record for the most different levels played for by a footballer at a single club (seven since you ask) and who recently returned to take a coaching qualification whilst working with the U23 squad.
Combined with the first ever VAR goal being scored in the FA Cup at Highbury, and Jamie Vardy being an ex-player, this completes the list of interesting things about Fleetwood. Even long time Fleetwood PA announcer Rod Allsworth admitted that when they tried to get a top ten interesting facts about the club, they ran out at seven. And that number seven was it was the only league club without a railway station in the town. They won the FA Vase in 1985 and made it to League 1 in 2014 with some bloke called Sarcevic scoring the winner in the play offs. And Joey Barton may or may not have punched someone but that is more fact of life than interesting fact.
Last season saw a 3-1 comfortable away win for the Greens clawed back by two late goals, in, what in hindsight, was Alfie Lewis’s last game for us. Maybe, like the Argyle fans, he could not stomach the thought of further renditions of the “Trumpet Hornpipe” aka as the Captain Pugwash theme song, which blares out for 21 seconds every time Fleetwood score at home. Any Argyle fan who has seen all our games at Highbury will have endured this sonic torture fourteen times in total. Ironically, that’s longer than So Solid Crews 21 seconds (radio edit). And a lot more annoying.
It may be a good time to play The Cods. New manager Scott Brown, a man who would be the scariest person at the Auld Firm Derby, including amongst the fans, recounted his idea of an initiation “joke” for a teammate as being to strap him into an office chair and push it down the hill into a gate. So they may have a few ankle injuries.
Let’s hope Argyle’s So Solid Crew at the back can repel all boarders and the travelling Green Army have plenty of (mint green) local lozenges at hand for the long hoarse journey home (fish supper not included).
Edited to add
Yee haw!!! ( And any other suitable Americanisms you wish to incorporate.)
And breathe……
As starts to the seasons go, so far so great. A three pointer against a top six side (admittedly only alphabetically, but at this point in the season but you take your positives where you find them) is what we all hoped for. Still seventh though.
Three points better than the same time last season and 135 more still available.
A debut goal for Finn Azaz, a debut assist and MOM for Bali Mumba, a clean sheet for the defence, thanks to not one, but two goal-line clearances by Macaulay Gillesphey, and a hat trick for skipper Joe 90, albeit of missed sitters. All this without last season’s regular first team starters Houghton, Grant, Camara and sadly injured new boy Mickel Miller even making the squad.
Away from the match action a slightly surprising active transfer window continuation (post the Barnsley preview) as Alfie Lewis departs back to the Emerald Isle (once a Green), Finlay Craske is sent to Yeovil to build his experience in the Conference and the Van Dyke-esque Dutchman Nigel Cello Lonwijk arrives on a season long loan from Wolves.
Hopefully he will last a bit longer than our last Wolves loanee, the unfortunate Harry Burgoyne, who we had to send back with a “sorry, we broke him,” note in 2018. Mind you we broke so many keepers that season, I had to check that he hadn’t been left behind the old nets in the kit room. He is in fact currently at Shrewsbury (since 2020), so, a similar outcome really.
Just for clarity, neither Lonwijk nor Van Dijk presently sport a Van Dyke. Van Dijk’s facial hair is, in fact, more of a soul patch. More interesting is whether Argyle have ever before had a player named after part of an orchestra before. Apart from Brian Bassoon of course. Nigel Cello Lonwijk may however be the first Argyle player ever named by a combination of What Three Words and autocorrect.
But what of Fleetwood I hear you ask? We move forward, like that efficient predator, the shark, having spotted a shoal of succulent juicy cod. I have, however, determined to avoid fishing puns (despite being a dab hand) as to be honest the fishiest thing about Fleetwood these days is the football club nickname and the manufacture of Fisherman’s Friends.
This well-established menthol based lozenge, whose trawler logo the Cevic has been appropriated by the “Cod Army”, and which has a catalogue of flavours that resembles a vape shops advert for the school bus route, remains a local family run business, the fourth generation of Lofthouses. Sadly for Fleetwood nothing to do with Nat Lofthouse though. The lozenge has a following amongst politicians though. Maggie Thatcher carried them about in her handbag, and Emmanuel Macron is a fan. Who knew? The President of France is a bit phlegmish.
The club has a somewhat unfortunate history since the creation of the first planned Victorian town, laid out in radial spikes at the then end of the Euston line north to Scotland from London. Designed by architect Decimus Burton, also responsible for the Wellington Arch and Hyde Park (not the mound of dirt…the posh archy bit) the town even boasts its own inland lighthouse. Their first ground was beside the North Euston Hotel, once occupied by Queen Victoria. Perhaps more pertinently, a subsequent ground was next to the local magistrates court. Fleetwood ranks as the second most dangerous town in Lancashire in the 2021 crime survey.
Subsequently bypassed by rail line alterations Fleetwood became something of a backwater, which might explain its difficulty in sustaining a viable football team. Since inception the club has undergone multiple incarnations including Fleetwood Rangers, Amateurs, pure plain old Fleetwood FC, Fleetwood Windsor Villa, Town, Wanderers and Freeport before re-alighting on Town again in 2002. That said the latest filed accounts for Fleetwood Town are under the name Fleetwood Wanderers according to the Price of Football podcast. Go figure. That it remains viable is solely due to the financial underpinning of long-term Chairman Andy Pilley and his BES group, which again, according to accounts, is some £21 million and counting.
Under his ownership the Highbury ground, once host to speedway as well as football, has been redeveloped, even if one of those redevelopments was plonking a new stand in front of the old one. There is no truth that seats in the previous stand command a significant premium. They have also invested in a well-regarded training facility, opened by none other than Sir Alex Ferguson at Poolfoot Farm.
Fleetwood also has a Guinness World Record holding Pond. In this case, Nathan Pond who holds the record for the most different levels played for by a footballer at a single club (seven since you ask) and who recently returned to take a coaching qualification whilst working with the U23 squad.
Combined with the first ever VAR goal being scored in the FA Cup at Highbury, and Jamie Vardy being an ex-player, this completes the list of interesting things about Fleetwood. Even long time Fleetwood PA announcer Rod Allsworth admitted that when they tried to get a top ten interesting facts about the club, they ran out at seven. And that number seven was it was the only league club without a railway station in the town. They won the FA Vase in 1985 and made it to League 1 in 2014 with some bloke called Sarcevic scoring the winner in the play offs. And Joey Barton may or may not have punched someone but that is more fact of life than interesting fact.
Last season saw a 3-1 comfortable away win for the Greens clawed back by two late goals, in, what in hindsight, was Alfie Lewis’s last game for us. Maybe, like the Argyle fans, he could not stomach the thought of further renditions of the “Trumpet Hornpipe” aka as the Captain Pugwash theme song, which blares out for 21 seconds every time Fleetwood score at home. Any Argyle fan who has seen all our games at Highbury will have endured this sonic torture fourteen times in total. Ironically, that’s longer than So Solid Crews 21 seconds (radio edit). And a lot more annoying.
It may be a good time to play The Cods. New manager Scott Brown, a man who would be the scariest person at the Auld Firm Derby, including amongst the fans, recounted his idea of an initiation “joke” for a teammate as being to strap him into an office chair and push it down the hill into a gate. So they may have a few ankle injuries.
Let’s hope Argyle’s So Solid Crew at the back can repel all boarders and the travelling Green Army have plenty of (mint green) local lozenges at hand for the long hoarse journey home (fish supper not included).
Edited to add
Yee haw!!! ( And any other suitable Americanisms you wish to incorporate.)
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