One Game at a Time
Sheffield Wednesday (h) September 10th
Carpe Diem.
Seize the day applies to us all, be we fans, players or management. When, after frankly being the better team, you go to the dressing room down by two goals, one self-inflicted, the other a flash of brilliance, you alone can choose your path.
As a manager, you can trust the process and the game plan, tweak the things that are not working and then throw in your reinforcements to have an impact. As a player you can put behind your frustration and negativity and grab the chance that fate, or a lucky rebound, puts in your path. And as fans, as numerous as magnificent, noisy, long suffering and yet still omnipresent you can cheer, inspire, support and, in the end celebrate. And those were some celebrations.
As someone, I forget who, once said. You canât buy days like these.
It would be easy to dwell on what was a famous victory, but this team moves forward, and so must we. They say you can prove anything with statistics, but equally that the numbers never lie, so let us leave the Pride Park Revival meeting with a simple statistical comparison.
Erling Haaland : Minutes per goal 22/23 48.5
Sam Cosgrove: Minutes per goal 22/23. 24.0
Sam Cosgrove: Minutes per Argyle goal 22/23 7.5
With apologies to Slade, who probably wonât mind as they are Wolves fans, (and I will wait for the under fifties to do a quick Spotify search)âŚ
When Cozzy gets the ball
Itâs in the Derby goal
Coz, we luv you!
If last season had any lessons at all it seemed to be that we didnât quite cut it when we played the teams above us. Schuey and Co seem to be reducing that problem by simply reducing the number of teams that that comprises, currently standing at two. With two home games to come that might be reduced further by the time those two, Ipswich and Pompey, finally come into view later this month.
After our flying start to ex-Prem September, up next are the team that has, without doubt, the toughest fixture schedule of the entire division, The Wendies. Never mind that it consists of the same number of games against exactly the same opposition. No other team in the division are so massive that, like Wednesday, they face no fewer than forty-six cup finals in order to complete their allotted season. Itâs a burden the likes of Argyle will clearly never know or understand. Apparently.
Indeed, last season the burden was so great that the unfortunate, and put upon, Wendies were eliminated in the semi-finals of the play offs, although that does make the end of their season a forty-eighth cup final that was in fact a semi-final. No wonder they looked bereft. And confused.
So how does such a mighty team come to have fallen so low? And exactly how mighty are they? Sheffield is obviously a football city, indeed in many ways it is the birthplace of football, as the oldest club in the world was formed there. Not The Wednesday though, but Sheffield FC, some ten years prior, followed by Hallam FC in 1860. Sheffield Wednesday (although not officially called that until 1929) came along as a section of the local Sheffield Wednesday cricket club in 1867. So, whilst old, at best only the third oldest club in their city.
The name came from the fact that the clubâs players were drawn from local traders whose half day was a Wednesday, allowing them to play fixtures. Sheffield itself was a hotbed of football, even producing its own set of rules, something that if you visit the Wednesday fan sites you will find still runs in their DNA today. The club won its first trophy in 1868, the Cromwell Cup, still held in the Hillsborough trophy cabinet, which was donated by Oliver Cromwell. Not the Lord Protector, but a local theatre impresario. Like I said, old, but not that old.
Having joined the Football Alliance, the club was one of three Alliance teams who joined the newly formed First Division of the expanded Football League, along with Nottingham Forest and Newton Heath. To their eternal delight Sheffield United were allowed in but only as a second-tier club.
Indeed, The Wednesdayâs golden age was just around the turn of the century, when they won the first of their league titles in 1902/3 and 1903/4,. This, combined with their first FA Cup win at Crystal Palace in 1896 against Wolves, made them daunting opponents for Argyle in the 1903/4 FA Cup as Argyles first ever 1st round FA Cup opponents. Having disposed of Whiteheads (seven nil to the Clearasil, did I hear you chant) and Brentford (after a replay) in qualifying, Argyle held the Wednesday to a creditable draw before bowing out 2-0 in the replay at Owlerton. An interesting historical footnote is that the attendance at Home Park was around 2000 higher than the one at Owlerton. Argyle were massive you see, even then.
From Owlerton, now known as Hillsborough, came the nickname âThe Owlsâ which has stuck with the Wendies. That said it was bestowed by a newspaper rather than the fans. Having hopped around from ground to ground, including Bramall Lane, The Wednesday were nicknamed the Groveites briefly, as they vacated the aforementioned Lane, where the owners took a cut of gate receipts, to the Olive Grove, leased from the Duke of Norfolk. The loss of Wednesday, and their gate receipts, led directly to the formation of their closest rivals Sheffield United, founded by the owners of Bramall Lane to replace the lost revenues. When the Olive Grove was required to allow for expansion of steam rail, Wednesday, unchuffed, moved out of the centre and onto Owlerton.
And thereby hangs a tale or even a tail. With regards to nicknames, both Wendies and United were, as befits a steel-based club involved in cutlery and weapon manufacture, the Blades. United for a while took on the mantle of the CutlersâŚa similar version, but adopted the Blades when Wednesday became the Owls.
Wednesday also took to referring to the Blades as âthe Pigsâ, some say because of their red and white stripes resembling butcher aprons, and the mixture of those colours resembling pink bacon. Perhaps more credible is the reference to Pig Iron, the runoff of the steel industry process, and the forming of metal ingots of this waste product, or pigs.
There remains, however, a swirling accusation that the Wendies too were known as the Pigs by United fans. Wednesday fans argue that the basis for this was fabricated by United fans in the early days of fanzines, but the claim remains that Owlerton was built in part on or near the site of a former piggery, and that there exist historic records of the fact deep in the archives of local records offices. Whatever the truth, there is no obvious record of the nickname ever being widely used against them, although it might lend itself to the useful chant of âYour groundâs too Pig for you!â one day.
Hillsborough has remained their ground ever since and was also for many years one of the go to choices for FA Cup semi-finals until the awful circumstances of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. This led to the advent of all seater stadia at the higher levels of the game. In the post war years Wednesday were very much a yo-yo club between the First and Second division. Following a mid-seventies flirtation with their current level, and almost the one below, the club were nursed back to the big time by Jack Charlton. After Howard Wilkinson came and went, Big Ron Atkinson arrived to lead them to their most recent trophy, the League Cup in 1991, the winning goal scored by ray of sunshine future Argyle boss, John Sheridan.
Incidentally, whilst the local rivalry with United may be the most consuming one, the Wendies have no great love for Leeds United, and the feeling that the local media much prefer the Peacocks to the Owls. This is immortalised in the naming of one fanzine âWar of the Monster Trucksâ which was the TV programme Yorkshire TV elected to cut to, rather than show the post-match celebrations of the Wendies League Cup triumph.
Since then, the overlaps between the clubs have been relatively few and far between, although ex Argyle midfielder Gary Megson, son of Wednesday stalwart Don, rocked up to briefly manage the club under itinerant owner Milan Mandaric.
More successful was the prior arrival of Luggy, who after his brief tenure at the Saints, following his legendary spell of promotions at Home Park, returned to the scene of one of his greatest away triumphs to lead them, captained by fellow ex-Argyle stalwart stopper Graham Coughlan. Few Argyle fans who were amongst the approximately 2000 away fans on a Tuesday night in October 2003 will forget the night when David Friio (twice) and Paul Wotton scored to retain top stop for the Pilgrims, building on an even more emphatic 5-1 away win the previous Saturday at Port Vale. By the end of the season Argyle were Champions and Championship bound, Wednesday sixteenth, but massively so.
After Megson departed to Bolton, the squad he assembled gained promotion back to the Championship, and in 2014 Mandaric, never a long term investor in clubs, sold out to Thai magnate Dejphon Chanceri, with a promise to gain promotion back the English Promised Land, sorry, English Premier League, by their 150th anniversary. He almost made it, losing in the play-off final the year before his self-imposed deadline, and then losing in the semi-finals the following year.
As Chanceri is the owner of the John West brand we should be grateful that Sky are not broadcasting the match under the banner of the John West Country Derby, with the visit of the Bluefin and White Tuna Army.
Despite the installation of lucky golden elephants at Hillsborough, the wheels came off the Chanceri strategy when the EFL found that the sale of the ground, which Wednesday still appeared to own, had been registered a year after the profits had been booked into the clubs P & L, to avoid them breaching FFP rules. Deducted 12 points, reduced for no apparent reason to six when Chanceri the Chancer claimed it had all happened accidentally, the club finally succumbed to gravity and returned to League One in the 20/21 season. Despite using four managers that season, including ex Argyle leader Tony Pulis with his imaginative take on a back eight, the club finally were relegated on the last day under current boss (at time of writing), Darren Moore.
Retaining a strong squad, led by spirited Harfoot pensioner Barry Bannon, Moore started badly, and the man with the body of Darth Vader but the voice of a Brummie David Prowse was under pressure from fans. A strong end of season rally saw them into the play offs, where Sunderland won the battle of Fallen Egos.
This season sees a largely rebuilt squad as the Wendies attempt to regain their status as the biggest club in the Sheffield postcode, where they currently sit third behind United and Rotherham, currently on the upswing of their bouncy castle cycle of promotion and relegation. So, third oldest and third biggest in the Sheffield region. But the wisest mascot. And lucky elephants. And definitely no pigs.
After two visits in league and cup last season, with a net nil six aggregate, and hot on the heels of a painful home reverse by another local rival, Barnsley, a wounded owl will be no easy opponent although they do have a tendency to a long injury list. Moore himself set up an investigation last season into why the Wendies picked up injuries more easily than a Russian infantry platoon on manoeuvres, but a capacity Fortress HP crowd will be hoping that once again the first away team League scorer raffle prize rolls over as easily as the Wendies did last season. Twice.
COYG!
Sheffield Wednesday (h) September 10th
Carpe Diem.
Seize the day applies to us all, be we fans, players or management. When, after frankly being the better team, you go to the dressing room down by two goals, one self-inflicted, the other a flash of brilliance, you alone can choose your path.
As a manager, you can trust the process and the game plan, tweak the things that are not working and then throw in your reinforcements to have an impact. As a player you can put behind your frustration and negativity and grab the chance that fate, or a lucky rebound, puts in your path. And as fans, as numerous as magnificent, noisy, long suffering and yet still omnipresent you can cheer, inspire, support and, in the end celebrate. And those were some celebrations.
As someone, I forget who, once said. You canât buy days like these.
It would be easy to dwell on what was a famous victory, but this team moves forward, and so must we. They say you can prove anything with statistics, but equally that the numbers never lie, so let us leave the Pride Park Revival meeting with a simple statistical comparison.
Erling Haaland : Minutes per goal 22/23 48.5
Sam Cosgrove: Minutes per goal 22/23. 24.0
Sam Cosgrove: Minutes per Argyle goal 22/23 7.5
With apologies to Slade, who probably wonât mind as they are Wolves fans, (and I will wait for the under fifties to do a quick Spotify search)âŚ
When Cozzy gets the ball
Itâs in the Derby goal
Coz, we luv you!
If last season had any lessons at all it seemed to be that we didnât quite cut it when we played the teams above us. Schuey and Co seem to be reducing that problem by simply reducing the number of teams that that comprises, currently standing at two. With two home games to come that might be reduced further by the time those two, Ipswich and Pompey, finally come into view later this month.
After our flying start to ex-Prem September, up next are the team that has, without doubt, the toughest fixture schedule of the entire division, The Wendies. Never mind that it consists of the same number of games against exactly the same opposition. No other team in the division are so massive that, like Wednesday, they face no fewer than forty-six cup finals in order to complete their allotted season. Itâs a burden the likes of Argyle will clearly never know or understand. Apparently.
Indeed, last season the burden was so great that the unfortunate, and put upon, Wendies were eliminated in the semi-finals of the play offs, although that does make the end of their season a forty-eighth cup final that was in fact a semi-final. No wonder they looked bereft. And confused.
So how does such a mighty team come to have fallen so low? And exactly how mighty are they? Sheffield is obviously a football city, indeed in many ways it is the birthplace of football, as the oldest club in the world was formed there. Not The Wednesday though, but Sheffield FC, some ten years prior, followed by Hallam FC in 1860. Sheffield Wednesday (although not officially called that until 1929) came along as a section of the local Sheffield Wednesday cricket club in 1867. So, whilst old, at best only the third oldest club in their city.
The name came from the fact that the clubâs players were drawn from local traders whose half day was a Wednesday, allowing them to play fixtures. Sheffield itself was a hotbed of football, even producing its own set of rules, something that if you visit the Wednesday fan sites you will find still runs in their DNA today. The club won its first trophy in 1868, the Cromwell Cup, still held in the Hillsborough trophy cabinet, which was donated by Oliver Cromwell. Not the Lord Protector, but a local theatre impresario. Like I said, old, but not that old.
Having joined the Football Alliance, the club was one of three Alliance teams who joined the newly formed First Division of the expanded Football League, along with Nottingham Forest and Newton Heath. To their eternal delight Sheffield United were allowed in but only as a second-tier club.
Indeed, The Wednesdayâs golden age was just around the turn of the century, when they won the first of their league titles in 1902/3 and 1903/4,. This, combined with their first FA Cup win at Crystal Palace in 1896 against Wolves, made them daunting opponents for Argyle in the 1903/4 FA Cup as Argyles first ever 1st round FA Cup opponents. Having disposed of Whiteheads (seven nil to the Clearasil, did I hear you chant) and Brentford (after a replay) in qualifying, Argyle held the Wednesday to a creditable draw before bowing out 2-0 in the replay at Owlerton. An interesting historical footnote is that the attendance at Home Park was around 2000 higher than the one at Owlerton. Argyle were massive you see, even then.
From Owlerton, now known as Hillsborough, came the nickname âThe Owlsâ which has stuck with the Wendies. That said it was bestowed by a newspaper rather than the fans. Having hopped around from ground to ground, including Bramall Lane, The Wednesday were nicknamed the Groveites briefly, as they vacated the aforementioned Lane, where the owners took a cut of gate receipts, to the Olive Grove, leased from the Duke of Norfolk. The loss of Wednesday, and their gate receipts, led directly to the formation of their closest rivals Sheffield United, founded by the owners of Bramall Lane to replace the lost revenues. When the Olive Grove was required to allow for expansion of steam rail, Wednesday, unchuffed, moved out of the centre and onto Owlerton.
And thereby hangs a tale or even a tail. With regards to nicknames, both Wendies and United were, as befits a steel-based club involved in cutlery and weapon manufacture, the Blades. United for a while took on the mantle of the CutlersâŚa similar version, but adopted the Blades when Wednesday became the Owls.
Wednesday also took to referring to the Blades as âthe Pigsâ, some say because of their red and white stripes resembling butcher aprons, and the mixture of those colours resembling pink bacon. Perhaps more credible is the reference to Pig Iron, the runoff of the steel industry process, and the forming of metal ingots of this waste product, or pigs.
There remains, however, a swirling accusation that the Wendies too were known as the Pigs by United fans. Wednesday fans argue that the basis for this was fabricated by United fans in the early days of fanzines, but the claim remains that Owlerton was built in part on or near the site of a former piggery, and that there exist historic records of the fact deep in the archives of local records offices. Whatever the truth, there is no obvious record of the nickname ever being widely used against them, although it might lend itself to the useful chant of âYour groundâs too Pig for you!â one day.
Hillsborough has remained their ground ever since and was also for many years one of the go to choices for FA Cup semi-finals until the awful circumstances of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. This led to the advent of all seater stadia at the higher levels of the game. In the post war years Wednesday were very much a yo-yo club between the First and Second division. Following a mid-seventies flirtation with their current level, and almost the one below, the club were nursed back to the big time by Jack Charlton. After Howard Wilkinson came and went, Big Ron Atkinson arrived to lead them to their most recent trophy, the League Cup in 1991, the winning goal scored by ray of sunshine future Argyle boss, John Sheridan.
Incidentally, whilst the local rivalry with United may be the most consuming one, the Wendies have no great love for Leeds United, and the feeling that the local media much prefer the Peacocks to the Owls. This is immortalised in the naming of one fanzine âWar of the Monster Trucksâ which was the TV programme Yorkshire TV elected to cut to, rather than show the post-match celebrations of the Wendies League Cup triumph.
Since then, the overlaps between the clubs have been relatively few and far between, although ex Argyle midfielder Gary Megson, son of Wednesday stalwart Don, rocked up to briefly manage the club under itinerant owner Milan Mandaric.
More successful was the prior arrival of Luggy, who after his brief tenure at the Saints, following his legendary spell of promotions at Home Park, returned to the scene of one of his greatest away triumphs to lead them, captained by fellow ex-Argyle stalwart stopper Graham Coughlan. Few Argyle fans who were amongst the approximately 2000 away fans on a Tuesday night in October 2003 will forget the night when David Friio (twice) and Paul Wotton scored to retain top stop for the Pilgrims, building on an even more emphatic 5-1 away win the previous Saturday at Port Vale. By the end of the season Argyle were Champions and Championship bound, Wednesday sixteenth, but massively so.
After Megson departed to Bolton, the squad he assembled gained promotion back to the Championship, and in 2014 Mandaric, never a long term investor in clubs, sold out to Thai magnate Dejphon Chanceri, with a promise to gain promotion back the English Promised Land, sorry, English Premier League, by their 150th anniversary. He almost made it, losing in the play-off final the year before his self-imposed deadline, and then losing in the semi-finals the following year.
As Chanceri is the owner of the John West brand we should be grateful that Sky are not broadcasting the match under the banner of the John West Country Derby, with the visit of the Bluefin and White Tuna Army.
Despite the installation of lucky golden elephants at Hillsborough, the wheels came off the Chanceri strategy when the EFL found that the sale of the ground, which Wednesday still appeared to own, had been registered a year after the profits had been booked into the clubs P & L, to avoid them breaching FFP rules. Deducted 12 points, reduced for no apparent reason to six when Chanceri the Chancer claimed it had all happened accidentally, the club finally succumbed to gravity and returned to League One in the 20/21 season. Despite using four managers that season, including ex Argyle leader Tony Pulis with his imaginative take on a back eight, the club finally were relegated on the last day under current boss (at time of writing), Darren Moore.
Retaining a strong squad, led by spirited Harfoot pensioner Barry Bannon, Moore started badly, and the man with the body of Darth Vader but the voice of a Brummie David Prowse was under pressure from fans. A strong end of season rally saw them into the play offs, where Sunderland won the battle of Fallen Egos.
This season sees a largely rebuilt squad as the Wendies attempt to regain their status as the biggest club in the Sheffield postcode, where they currently sit third behind United and Rotherham, currently on the upswing of their bouncy castle cycle of promotion and relegation. So, third oldest and third biggest in the Sheffield region. But the wisest mascot. And lucky elephants. And definitely no pigs.
After two visits in league and cup last season, with a net nil six aggregate, and hot on the heels of a painful home reverse by another local rival, Barnsley, a wounded owl will be no easy opponent although they do have a tendency to a long injury list. Moore himself set up an investigation last season into why the Wendies picked up injuries more easily than a Russian infantry platoon on manoeuvres, but a capacity Fortress HP crowd will be hoping that once again the first away team League scorer raffle prize rolls over as easily as the Wendies did last season. Twice.
COYG!
Last edited:
