The Argyle Archive (PAHA) was the brainchild of Russell Moore, the author of that wonderful book about Home Park. I got involved, as did another Pasoti regular, and we decided to do it properly by forming a not-for-profit company about a year ago - hence you've seen it on the Companies House website.
In a nutshell, PAHA is all about preserving and promoting the history and heritage of PAFC. It is volunteer-run and strictly not for profit, but at the same time we have to find money to cover costs. I suppose two of its absolute principles are that (a) it is independent of the club - that's why we formed a separate company. All its assets (e.g. records, programmes, photos, memorabilia) belong to PAHA, not PAFC - you can guess the reason for that. And (b) we work in harmony with the club - that's why there are PAFC-related people as PAHA directors, and why the club has happily donated all sorts of artefacts over the last few months to PAHA, with the grandstand etc being an obvious treasure trove.
As Postey says, we launched with an exhibition a year ago, and later in 2017 we had a very successful evening with Graham Little, Argyle's Secretary for some 25 years. There are still a series of audio extracts from that evening on argylearchive.org.uk.
All that said, you might also be wondering what, if anything, has happened since, particularly as PAHA's website appears to be in a deep sleep. I can only liken it to having a baby... for the first year or so it's hard work but everything is new and exciting and the baby is oh-so-cute, but after that the much less glamorous work kicks in. The ultimate result, hopefully, will be a fine young man/woman, but such things take time and hard work. Wouldn't it be nice to have a permanent museum at or near Home Park for fans to see the history of the club - that has to be the dream. PAHA is probably in that terrible twos phase now, with all sorts of issues to address, and that's what we're busy with at the moment. In the next few months I hope we can be a bit more visible again and another exhibition would be nice, although for the time being a venue is an issue of course.
As far as GoS is concerned, yes that was one of the reasons I became involved in PAHA, at least in terms of future possibilities for the GoS-DB element (the match and player records). We've not pursued those thoughts yet, and in the meantime the GoS status quo will continue. Will PAHA be the answer? I don't know - I've a feeling that the combination of time, dedication and a significant technical bent will be a stumbling block, whoever the owner is. Time will tell.
