Vote for your Greatest Pilgrims

I notice that the categories are modern positions. I wonder where a right half and a left half fit into that. Are they central defenders or midfielders?

Lundan Cabbie":243x6tcq said:

I notice that the categories are modern positions. I wonder where a right half and a left half fit into that. Are they central defenders or midfielders?

Click to expand...

Interesting point. I first recall seeing Argyle adopt a 4-2-4 in March 1960, the week after manager Jack Rowley was sacked. In the new system it was both wing halves and inside forwards that were affected. The central midfield was occupied by the right half Johnny Williams (number 4) and the inside left (number 10) Jim McAnearney. The left half John Newman (number six) lined up deeper and beside the centre half. Indeed, that was the pattern in most teams of that time. The back four was 2, 5, 6 and 3, the midfield 4 and 10 and the front 4 was 7, 8, 9 and 11. When we progressed to 4-4-2 numbers 7 and 11 played either side of 4 and 10. In a 4-3-3 one of11 joined 4 and 10. So from the 1960-61 season forward, it is very much having know the player's role to know where to categorise them. Once Malcolm Allison arrived numbering meant very little as he had sweepers playing in the 11 shirt and introduced positions never seen before!

Problem with polls like this is Sammy Black an all time great and even outstanding others from 70s/80s may not get much of a look in compared to a modern internet age favourite like, say, David Fox or Nalis - not saying they're not good players by the way but not ahead of McCall or Machin in my views.

I know it's just for fun etc but how many people will really research on GoS or just select (on the whole) based on recent memory ? :think:

I started watching Argyle in 1995 so the typical names you’d expect from modern era are in my list. Couple of curveballs:

Rab Douglas in my GK list, as he contributed to one of my all time favourite Argyle matches / memories.

Bolasie as a winger. Unpredictable, exciting to see him run, and fair bloody play managing to go on and command a £29 million fee.

Number 1s:

McCormick
Billy
Wotton
Sinclair
Buzsaky
Littlejohn (again, 4-3 v. Torquay and his hat trick one of my favourite ever Argyle memories - bumped him up)

Sturrock

Marcus Stewart