Big name/money signings

[JannerinCardiff]

I always thought our biggest name signing was Forbes Phillipson-Masters... :funny:

 

[Knibbsworth]

Who could forget Steve Maclean, a snip at £500,000?

 

[Cdp]

I still remember how excited I was when we signed carlo corazzin. I think we paid 150.000 and at the time he was quite a good goal scorer for cambridge then we got 1 goal every three games from him which I'd put down as a successful return. :scarf:

 

[Herts Green]

Back to the OP, surely the hateful Swan must be our worst signing. To actually spend money to bring such a poisonous character into the camp must rate as an all time stupidest decision, by him and the club.

In fairness to the Club and also to Dan McCaulay, Swan was very much a Shilton signing.

He had Captained Port Vale to promotion at our expense the previous season and Shilton thought he would do it again for Argyle.

Ironically, it was Swan's last ditch goal line clearance from Dalton at Vale Park which turned out to be a very significant moment in the season.

We didn't even need a CB, we needed to replace Marshall who had gone to Luton and we could have signed Forster from Gillingham for less than what we paid for Swan.

Instead, in between making Swan look slow and ineffective, Forster scored 2 goals at HP for Brentford on debut in a 5-1 thrashing in what turned out to be one of the worst seasons in memory.

One of my lowest Argyle supporting moments was that thrashing. Was it/is it our biggest ever home defeat, does anyone know?

Peterborough beat us 5-1 at home less than two years ago. What a shambolic performance that was.

 

[justanotherfan]

Who could forget Steve Maclean, a snip at £500,000?

Wish his daddy had a snip.

 

[kernow19]

lost 6-0 at home to Reading in Div 3South in 1956,

I was there!!! My first Argyle match and been hooked ever since. (Goodness knows why after that introduction lol)

 

[memory man]

Alan Peacock.

I do not seem to recall that Peacock cost Argyle a big transfer fee. He had been successful as a player but was badly crocked and had not really recovered from his injury before getting back into the game with Argyle. It was much the same with Alan Sealey, who had previously successfully played Division One football with West Ham. After a big injury, his return to football was short lived. In my time of watching Argyle, the biggest named signings, both then Internationals for their own countries, were Barrie Jones and Peter McParland, both very fine players and not blighted with past injuries

McParland was the one who came to mind when I saw this. He equalled our record fee of 13,000 (Neil Dougall was the first to cost that much) and although Peter played well, results were disastrous. I have spoken to him about it in recent months and he is at a loss to understand why it all went so wrong. As well as costing us a record fee he was our first ever £40 a week footballer and also the first to get a contract of more than 12 months. After eschewing several club houses, the club bought him a detached bungalow in Reservoir Road and then charged him a peppercorn rent.