One Game at a Time: Your Only Here For the Pasties
‘Ull. ‘ome May 4th Sponsored By On the Beach (Cancelled)
Here we go then.
With two successive away defeats, each as predictable in the way they unfolded as the many previous ones, we go into Star Wars Day and that most traditional of EFL things, a lunchtime shoot-out, with our Championship destiny still in our own hands. And even if we drop the ball, which would be ironic playing a side from egg chaser territory, our destiny still sits in the hands of the one team we gave an absolute tonking to in the sunlit uplands of the start of the season.
The positives? We are at home, it’s only a fortnight since we gave a stirring performance to beat the now ordained Champions of the division to win one-nil, and the home crowd will be sold out for the twenty-third time in the season. And we can lose and still stay up.
The negatives. We are not scoring goals, (one in the last two hundred and seventy plus minutes), we have been here before, playing a GNS side who need to win to make the play-offs (Blackburn, Speedie) rather than a side still calculating how quickly they can get to Gatwick, Heathrow or Luton for their end of season jollies, and its Hull. And Lord alone knows what Stansfield junior has printed on his undershirt in anticipation.
So, it might have been handy if, after the capitulation to new rivals Stoke, we could have clung onto a point at Millwall. We clung, that’s for sure, for eighty-three minutes. Waineo had a start to rest Hardie, which will look like a stroke of genius if he scores a brace tomorrow, Forshaw made the bench which means he might, with another week of untwisting his elastic band hammies, be able to start tomorrow. Heaven forfend, he might even do a whole half. Whitts is still trying for that elusive number twenty on the Championship scorers board, although it is now two goals in his last fourteen games, which scarily is still more than a quarter of our goals scored in that time.
Were we surprised at the scoreline at the New Den? No. Neither were we shocked by the manner of the goal. A cross punted in, their centre half Cooper, out muscling our newly deployed sub, Pleggy, and the header looping to just about the only part of the goal his namesake Cooper couldn’t reach.
That lost point is crucial. Its loss has taken away the threat to two sides above us that we could catch them with a draw if they lost their upcoming away games and would have removed from Birmingham the chance to draw and stay up if we do an MK on the final day at home and ship five goals.
But there you have it. The outcome so many felt would be a result based on our budget, a 21st place finish and another season of progress hangs in the balance. The only positive of the last two weeks has been Birmingham’s inability to gain more than two points from two successive trips to Yorkshire to play the inarguably, as they are both effectively relegated, two worst sides in the division.
The best way I can see to show what is involved tomorrow lunchtime is to refer back to the estimable Quizball, famed football quiz from the late sixties and early seventies (and not the failed Frank Skinner reboot), where team players, managers and supporters all pulled together to try and score the goals that would win them a one-off game using their brains.
Effectively there were four ways to score a goal. Route One is the hardest, a single chance to answer a tricky problem. Let’s call that beating Hull, the team with the third best away record in the league and still in with an outside chance of making the play-offs by winning at HP. We do that and Birmingham can beat Norwich nine-nil with a Stansfield triple hat-trick and it won’t matter a jot, although that might not be how the Hull City fans see it. Or for that matter either the Wednesday or Rovers fans if either of them lose.
Route Two, is we draw, but so do City (or they lose). Then the league table status quo is maintained and we can start planning for another season with whoever tops the vote in the latest running of the management stakes. That will be tense but we would all take it now.
Route three is we lose by less than four goals and City draw. Then that precious goal difference will keep us just ahead of the second city strugglers who can start planning for the visit of Burton Albion and Shrewsbury to their revamped stadium.
Finally, the simplest route. They lose, we lose. Bye bye brummies. Route four, the easiest way to safety.
Of course, the last course requires the co-operation of Norwich City. It would have been helpful if they needed to win to ensure their participation in the play-offs, but sadly barring Hull managing a massive goal difference swing, which in itself isn’t helpful, Norwich are nailed on to be in the end of season festival of finance that are the Play-Offs.
This might tempt some managers to field a weakened team. David Wagner has indicated that his squad are right up for the challenge and so is he. Of course, this is the same David Wagner who, as manager of Huddersfield (remember them) rotated virtually his whole side against their final league opponents with the play-offs in mind. His opposition that final game? Birmingham City.
As a result, the EFL introduced rules that prevent the wholesale change of the squad, in order to protect the integrity of the competition. So the maximum number of people that can be brought in from the last weeks subs bench of nine for Norwich for this week’s game is….all of them.
Of course, if Hull go gung-ho in the first half, and Norwich start shipping goals you could imagine the powers that be at Norwich will be choking on their Pinot Grigio.
Birmingham remain the bookies favourites to accompany the Yorkshire doomed sides. That said it would be a somewhat Argyle trait to have avoided the bottom three places for 45 out of 46 games only to slide into them at the last opportunity. It has been said multiple times that the Championship is the most competitive division in the world.
Consider for a moment then, Division 3 of the Romanian League in 1983/4. In a thirty-game season Merusul Deva were promoted with 38 points, seven ahead of second place UMT Timisoara. They themselves were only two points ahead of Minerul Ghelar who finished one point ahead of the bottom side on 28 points. Ghelar were relegated on goal difference and/or number of wins from the other eight sides who finished on the same number of points. Three points covered second place to sixteenth and last. Now that's a tight league.
Undoubtedly as the final round of this seasons Championship games comes to a conclusion, the tension, amount of time spent watching your mobile rather than the game in front of you, and the involvement of the crowd will become disproportionately absurd. The preponderance of medical emergencies in today's crowds mean there is every chance on such a stressful day, that at least one game will finish much later than the others. It is unlikely, as covered in a previous OGAAT, that the intervention by the chairman to declare the result on the big screen and negate the need for either side to tackle or shoot, as Jimmy Hill was accused of doing at Coventry to relegate Sunderland one season, is likely to occur.
Of course, the fact that scores are almost instantly communicated and reacted to might have helped Alan “Squeaky” Ball who managed to instruct his players to waste time in the corner, believing Manchester City, his charges, to be safe, when all the time they needed to score. Despite subbed Niall Quinns intervention, down went City. And out went Ball
Two years before the so called Cityitis bug struck to relegate Ball, Sheffield United had similarly imploded on the final day, when, despite being level, which was enough to see them safe, they chased a winner, believing one score to be against them, and so they needed a win. The inevitable happened. Brian Stein netted an injury time winner for Chelsea, and United went down, leaving Ipswich to survive despite losing to Blackburn. All for the want of a transistor radio and a non idiot to listen to it. Whatever happened to Ipswich?
Added time will also add to the confusion. Argyle can bear witness to the implications of this, having been the recipients of the infamous Jimmy Glass goal that relegated Scarborough whilst their fans were on celebrating their escape over a hundred miles away.
Hopefully though there will be no repeat of the Bryn the dog incident at Torquay, when the police dog decided that Jim McNichol was a danger to society, and the ensuing bite added seventeen stitches to McNicols leg, but also a vital four added minutes to the time. Just enough time for Paul Dobson to equalise the lead given to Crewe by David Platt (yes that one).
Torquay avoided the drop, and football once again proved Gary Linekers oft referenced motto.
Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase the ball for ninety minutes, and then a German Shepherd thinks your midfielder is made of Pedigree Chum, and you equalise in injury time.
To be fair, with McNichol, Bryn might have been right.
So, there we have it. All Argyle have to do is match the result of Birmingham and rely on the team who provided us with our goal difference cushion to turn up at St Andrews.
All this against the team who are the 98th out of 109 successful home opponents. Yes, they like it at Home Park. Hopefully we will start better than when we brought them back to Home Park in the FA Cup in 1976 and conceded after twenty-five seconds. And then scored an own-goal before succumbing four-one.
Route One would be great, but Route Four will do if we have to. The quiz idea was conceptualised by a Bill Wright (not that one) and whilst it may not have been the greatest quiz, his next effort was called Mastermind. And the theme to that is "Approaching Menace"
Will it be Star Wars Day or Scarr Wars Day? Phantom Menace ? or A New Hope?
Or could it just be so long and thanks for all the fish?
COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and Norwich)!
‘Ull. ‘ome May 4th Sponsored By On the Beach (Cancelled)
Here we go then.
With two successive away defeats, each as predictable in the way they unfolded as the many previous ones, we go into Star Wars Day and that most traditional of EFL things, a lunchtime shoot-out, with our Championship destiny still in our own hands. And even if we drop the ball, which would be ironic playing a side from egg chaser territory, our destiny still sits in the hands of the one team we gave an absolute tonking to in the sunlit uplands of the start of the season.
The positives? We are at home, it’s only a fortnight since we gave a stirring performance to beat the now ordained Champions of the division to win one-nil, and the home crowd will be sold out for the twenty-third time in the season. And we can lose and still stay up.
The negatives. We are not scoring goals, (one in the last two hundred and seventy plus minutes), we have been here before, playing a GNS side who need to win to make the play-offs (Blackburn, Speedie) rather than a side still calculating how quickly they can get to Gatwick, Heathrow or Luton for their end of season jollies, and its Hull. And Lord alone knows what Stansfield junior has printed on his undershirt in anticipation.
So, it might have been handy if, after the capitulation to new rivals Stoke, we could have clung onto a point at Millwall. We clung, that’s for sure, for eighty-three minutes. Waineo had a start to rest Hardie, which will look like a stroke of genius if he scores a brace tomorrow, Forshaw made the bench which means he might, with another week of untwisting his elastic band hammies, be able to start tomorrow. Heaven forfend, he might even do a whole half. Whitts is still trying for that elusive number twenty on the Championship scorers board, although it is now two goals in his last fourteen games, which scarily is still more than a quarter of our goals scored in that time.
Were we surprised at the scoreline at the New Den? No. Neither were we shocked by the manner of the goal. A cross punted in, their centre half Cooper, out muscling our newly deployed sub, Pleggy, and the header looping to just about the only part of the goal his namesake Cooper couldn’t reach.
That lost point is crucial. Its loss has taken away the threat to two sides above us that we could catch them with a draw if they lost their upcoming away games and would have removed from Birmingham the chance to draw and stay up if we do an MK on the final day at home and ship five goals.
But there you have it. The outcome so many felt would be a result based on our budget, a 21st place finish and another season of progress hangs in the balance. The only positive of the last two weeks has been Birmingham’s inability to gain more than two points from two successive trips to Yorkshire to play the inarguably, as they are both effectively relegated, two worst sides in the division.
The best way I can see to show what is involved tomorrow lunchtime is to refer back to the estimable Quizball, famed football quiz from the late sixties and early seventies (and not the failed Frank Skinner reboot), where team players, managers and supporters all pulled together to try and score the goals that would win them a one-off game using their brains.
Effectively there were four ways to score a goal. Route One is the hardest, a single chance to answer a tricky problem. Let’s call that beating Hull, the team with the third best away record in the league and still in with an outside chance of making the play-offs by winning at HP. We do that and Birmingham can beat Norwich nine-nil with a Stansfield triple hat-trick and it won’t matter a jot, although that might not be how the Hull City fans see it. Or for that matter either the Wednesday or Rovers fans if either of them lose.
Route Two, is we draw, but so do City (or they lose). Then the league table status quo is maintained and we can start planning for another season with whoever tops the vote in the latest running of the management stakes. That will be tense but we would all take it now.
Route three is we lose by less than four goals and City draw. Then that precious goal difference will keep us just ahead of the second city strugglers who can start planning for the visit of Burton Albion and Shrewsbury to their revamped stadium.
Finally, the simplest route. They lose, we lose. Bye bye brummies. Route four, the easiest way to safety.
Of course, the last course requires the co-operation of Norwich City. It would have been helpful if they needed to win to ensure their participation in the play-offs, but sadly barring Hull managing a massive goal difference swing, which in itself isn’t helpful, Norwich are nailed on to be in the end of season festival of finance that are the Play-Offs.
This might tempt some managers to field a weakened team. David Wagner has indicated that his squad are right up for the challenge and so is he. Of course, this is the same David Wagner who, as manager of Huddersfield (remember them) rotated virtually his whole side against their final league opponents with the play-offs in mind. His opposition that final game? Birmingham City.
As a result, the EFL introduced rules that prevent the wholesale change of the squad, in order to protect the integrity of the competition. So the maximum number of people that can be brought in from the last weeks subs bench of nine for Norwich for this week’s game is….all of them.
Of course, if Hull go gung-ho in the first half, and Norwich start shipping goals you could imagine the powers that be at Norwich will be choking on their Pinot Grigio.
Birmingham remain the bookies favourites to accompany the Yorkshire doomed sides. That said it would be a somewhat Argyle trait to have avoided the bottom three places for 45 out of 46 games only to slide into them at the last opportunity. It has been said multiple times that the Championship is the most competitive division in the world.
Consider for a moment then, Division 3 of the Romanian League in 1983/4. In a thirty-game season Merusul Deva were promoted with 38 points, seven ahead of second place UMT Timisoara. They themselves were only two points ahead of Minerul Ghelar who finished one point ahead of the bottom side on 28 points. Ghelar were relegated on goal difference and/or number of wins from the other eight sides who finished on the same number of points. Three points covered second place to sixteenth and last. Now that's a tight league.
Undoubtedly as the final round of this seasons Championship games comes to a conclusion, the tension, amount of time spent watching your mobile rather than the game in front of you, and the involvement of the crowd will become disproportionately absurd. The preponderance of medical emergencies in today's crowds mean there is every chance on such a stressful day, that at least one game will finish much later than the others. It is unlikely, as covered in a previous OGAAT, that the intervention by the chairman to declare the result on the big screen and negate the need for either side to tackle or shoot, as Jimmy Hill was accused of doing at Coventry to relegate Sunderland one season, is likely to occur.
Of course, the fact that scores are almost instantly communicated and reacted to might have helped Alan “Squeaky” Ball who managed to instruct his players to waste time in the corner, believing Manchester City, his charges, to be safe, when all the time they needed to score. Despite subbed Niall Quinns intervention, down went City. And out went Ball
Two years before the so called Cityitis bug struck to relegate Ball, Sheffield United had similarly imploded on the final day, when, despite being level, which was enough to see them safe, they chased a winner, believing one score to be against them, and so they needed a win. The inevitable happened. Brian Stein netted an injury time winner for Chelsea, and United went down, leaving Ipswich to survive despite losing to Blackburn. All for the want of a transistor radio and a non idiot to listen to it. Whatever happened to Ipswich?
Added time will also add to the confusion. Argyle can bear witness to the implications of this, having been the recipients of the infamous Jimmy Glass goal that relegated Scarborough whilst their fans were on celebrating their escape over a hundred miles away.
Hopefully though there will be no repeat of the Bryn the dog incident at Torquay, when the police dog decided that Jim McNichol was a danger to society, and the ensuing bite added seventeen stitches to McNicols leg, but also a vital four added minutes to the time. Just enough time for Paul Dobson to equalise the lead given to Crewe by David Platt (yes that one).
Torquay avoided the drop, and football once again proved Gary Linekers oft referenced motto.
Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase the ball for ninety minutes, and then a German Shepherd thinks your midfielder is made of Pedigree Chum, and you equalise in injury time.
To be fair, with McNichol, Bryn might have been right.
So, there we have it. All Argyle have to do is match the result of Birmingham and rely on the team who provided us with our goal difference cushion to turn up at St Andrews.
All this against the team who are the 98th out of 109 successful home opponents. Yes, they like it at Home Park. Hopefully we will start better than when we brought them back to Home Park in the FA Cup in 1976 and conceded after twenty-five seconds. And then scored an own-goal before succumbing four-one.
Route One would be great, but Route Four will do if we have to. The quiz idea was conceptualised by a Bill Wright (not that one) and whilst it may not have been the greatest quiz, his next effort was called Mastermind. And the theme to that is "Approaching Menace"
Will it be Star Wars Day or Scarr Wars Day? Phantom Menace ? or A New Hope?
Or could it just be so long and thanks for all the fish?
COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and Norwich)!
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