One Game at a Time: You’re Only Here for the Sky Cameras
What? You Again? Oh Go On Then. But make it early (H) February 17th
Can we play you every week? Because it damn well seems like it. As the late Brenda from Bristol would say, “What? Another One?”
But before that the small matter of a game against the Naked Riders Appreciation Society XI, currently the form side of those not being subsidised back to former glories, and once again demonstrating the benefit of supporting a manager over a period of time and being prepared to sell and invest.
Argyle entered the game with a new wing back pairing of Sorinola and Sousa, a return of Gyabi, but not Forshaw who had failed to shake off his injury. The other surprise was another consecutive appearance from the Lazarus of Championship defending Brendon Galloway. Five in a row was deserving of some kind of on field presentation you might have thought, and preferably before the game got underway to make sure he was fit enough to receive it. Or drop it on his foot.
It may have been the youngest Argyle side selected, but I haven’t had time to trawl through the oracle of Greens on Screen, but probably more attention was being paid to the City line up, missing O’Hare with injury and leading scorer Haji Wright, only on the bench, presumably resting up for his exertions against the stuttering Potters at the weekend.
In a tepid first half the wisdom of that choice was soon found to be debatable as Wrights replacement, Godden contrived to head not wide, but remarkably, well wide, from four yards when unmarked. It wasn’t quite Chris Porter levels of miss but it wasn’t far short.
In the second period Godden was thwarted by Hazards ankle from only slightly further out. Argyle were playing further forward and a pass from Devine released Randell who evaded the lunging Thomas to advance into the box, before cutting back perfectly for Morgan to rap in number eighteen for the season.
Coventry hit back, with their new Danish signing Torp continuing to show impressive passing range to release Simms. Hazard was unfortunate that his save bounced kindly for Simms to chest in the rebound. It would be a tragedy if this young City player never got to line up at least once alongside Edu in midfield.
Argyle, having swapped out their wingbacks, quickly regained the lead, when a fierce Miller cross shot compounded the hapless Thomas’s not especially good night when he deflected the ball past his keeper.
And as the clock ticked on towards the ninety seventh minute it looked like an excellent three points was once again being delivered at Home Park. Then a foul by Mumba, soft for sure, but in that awkward halfway house between corner and penalty box. Saturday saw Argyle build a wall that disintegrated. Wednesday saw no such problem, as there was no such wall.
In reality it was what I knew in my youth as a Subbuteo goal. The ball fired in low and after a ricochet from an attempted clearance the ball squirmed low past Hazards despairing hand. The beauty of competitive sport is that although everyone knows what should have happened after the goal, if everything were as predictable at that there would be no goals and therefore no sport. The joy of the last-minute equaliser for City spoilt the fact that this was a point won against a good side. The crowd and players were as frustrated as each other.
Media tycoon Sumner Redstone once opined, “Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes it’s built on catastrophe.” The loss of those two points will feel every bit of that catastrophe, but in truth will be part of the building of the next level of success as we learn as a team.
There will be no greater lesson than our next visitors, the seemingly ever-present Leeds United who arrive again, hot on the heels of another four goal away game, and this time having managed the feat in the regulation ninety.
The match which forms part of the Sky Argyle quota of fixtures will be a lovely early kick off, allowing the travelling fans to experience what it feels like most weeks for an away Argyle fan. With players coming back and some potentially feeling the effects of the recent heavy schedule there may well be a different feel for the team.
One thing is for sure, the regularity of our meetings with Leeds in such a short window has meant the traditional topics of a OGAAT have been well aired and mined. Step forward therefore a man who as well as reinvigorating Argyle has demonstrated to the wider football fraternity that you can do things differently in the game and not, as yet, completely implode. Leeds on the other hand have only recently recovered from a very different management style.
It is hard for many of us to accept that it is over twenty years since Peter Ridsdale announced his stepping down from the Leeds United Chairmanship. In his time since then he has spent time with Barnsley, Cardiff City, interrupted a walking holiday to briefly attempt to take over Argyle, and for the last eleven years or so had a modicum of success in that Preston have managed to maintain Championship status whilst only costing the Hemmings family about twelve million pounds a season.
Both Simon Hallett and Ridsdale arrived at their clubs as supporters who ended up running the whole shooting match. Ridsdale arrived as CEO of Topman, and became first the shirt sponsor and then a director, before he took on the mantle of Chairman. Indeed, he went from meeting Billy Bremner as a ten-year-old mascot to attending the great man’s funeral as his Chairman.
Ridsdale by his own admission is a man who stirs up mixed emotions amongst his chosen club’s fan base. Many associate him with some of their most enjoyable days, reaching the Champions League semi-finals in 2001 under the management of David O’ Leary. Many more cannot forgive the fact that in order to achieve those days of glory, in effect he mortgaged the club’s future income from maintaining those levels, and when they stumbled and failed to qualify for the footballing top table, the costs associated with maintaining the club and its playing staff were to prove unsustainable.
Ridsdale himself has argued that he left the club over a year before they were relegated, and his successor, the academic looking Economics Professor John McKenzie, who had only arrived as a director a few weeks before,was soon in the news when, attending his first Premier League Chief executives meeting, he fell asleep and was woken only when his head slipped off his hands and hit the desk in front of him. Leeds, Leeds, Leedzzzzzzzz.
If Ridsdale could indeed point to the lag between his departure and the eventual relegation to the Championship, there was no doubt that the legacy of the wage bills of players and the mortgaging of future incomes which turned out to not be forthcoming were very much his parting gift. Football already has a saying for financial mismanagement, and it is “Doing a Leeds”.
Unravelling the financial mess left behind was beyond the hapless Mckenzie, who, amongst other errors criticised the club for the number of company cars it had, whilst being chauffeur driven in his, and his drawing salary, fees and a consultancy fee whilst overseeing two rounds of redundancies in trying to reduce the eighty-million-pound debt burden.
McKenzie was also responsible for the sacking of future Argyle boss Peter Reid, after a farcical meeting in a Halifax hotel, pursued by around twenty cameramen. Reid was replaced by fellow ex-Green Kevin Blackwell. Very much the Baldrick to his bluff predecessors Blackadder.
McKenzies final act of folly was the sale of Harry Kewell to Liverpool for five million pounds, after previously turning down a bid of double that from the same club. Even worse, the club actually only saw around half the fee, the bulk of the rest being paid to Kewell’s agent.
That there were issues of costs being out of control are undeniable. Although the much-vaunted Seth Johnson story, where it was claimed he was entering salary negotiations hoping for thirteen grand a week may well be apocryphal. It was suggested the opening offer from Ridsdale was thirty thousand, and when that was met with a stunned silence immediately upped the offer the thirty seven grand a week. Ridsdale claims the story is nonsense. Johnson denies even being in the room. The fact remained he only played around sixty times in his time at the club, having been acquired for seven million pounds.
Danny Mills also told of the salary negotiations where, having played the World Cup due to Gary Nevilles injury, he was seeking a rise. A rumour that Middlesbrough were about to bid meant that he and his agent kept egging each other to push the asking price higher and higher, expecting to be beaten down in the negotiation. In the end they asked for sixty thousand a week, backdated and it was agreed. After all the tooling and froing, Mills then asked if he could also have the tropical fish tank in the board room. Ridsdale apparently agreed saying, “Why not, you have had everything else!”.
The five- year deal for Mills was agreed at the same time as the club was about to call in administrators. Mills was eventually shunted out to Middlesbrough, before ending up at Manchester City.
Ridsdale always bridled about the references made in coverage to the fish tanks at Leeds, pointing out they cost a few hundred pounds a year, a piffling amount in the total the club owed.
Leeds eventually plummeted down the divisions after Administration and took years to climb back. At one point T shirt sellers outside the ground sold T Shirts which said:
So was Ridsdale more sinned against that sinner? He would argue no-one complained about the deals when the club were winning leagues and enjoying European campaigns. He has a showman’s air, connected well with fans and was widely praised for his role after two Leeds fans were murdered in Turkey by Galatasaray fans. He has faced much public approbation, including one nineteen-year-old fan who confronted him for ruining his club at a time when said fan had not even been born.
His time at Barnsley did not go well, and in five years at Cardiff he would claim to have stabilised the club, finished the Stadium and brought in a fresh owner, but it was Vincent Tan!
It was also at Cardiff that Ridsdale was found to have channelled funds due to his company to his personal account, such that when he liquidated the Company, owing HMRC around a half a million pounds he and his wife were handed seven and half year bans from holding Directorships. He claims the ban was voluntary.
In the Argyle years he received credit for the fact that he knew how to play the rules and make sure the club survived. Some would argue without him we may well have gone to the wall.
So it is through him Simon had a club to buy. That he has done so and built an organisation that has now seemingly weathered two traumatic managerial poachings and still the club sits in a higher League position than before they happened.
Under him there is no danger of us ever “Doing a Leeds”
Indeed, more and more clubs must be casting an envious eye and wondering how they can “Do an Argyle”.
In the meantime we just have to assume Andrew Parkinson has upped the cotton wool budget as Brendon goes for six in a row.
COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What? You Again? Oh Go On Then. But make it early (H) February 17th
Can we play you every week? Because it damn well seems like it. As the late Brenda from Bristol would say, “What? Another One?”
But before that the small matter of a game against the Naked Riders Appreciation Society XI, currently the form side of those not being subsidised back to former glories, and once again demonstrating the benefit of supporting a manager over a period of time and being prepared to sell and invest.
Argyle entered the game with a new wing back pairing of Sorinola and Sousa, a return of Gyabi, but not Forshaw who had failed to shake off his injury. The other surprise was another consecutive appearance from the Lazarus of Championship defending Brendon Galloway. Five in a row was deserving of some kind of on field presentation you might have thought, and preferably before the game got underway to make sure he was fit enough to receive it. Or drop it on his foot.
It may have been the youngest Argyle side selected, but I haven’t had time to trawl through the oracle of Greens on Screen, but probably more attention was being paid to the City line up, missing O’Hare with injury and leading scorer Haji Wright, only on the bench, presumably resting up for his exertions against the stuttering Potters at the weekend.
In a tepid first half the wisdom of that choice was soon found to be debatable as Wrights replacement, Godden contrived to head not wide, but remarkably, well wide, from four yards when unmarked. It wasn’t quite Chris Porter levels of miss but it wasn’t far short.
In the second period Godden was thwarted by Hazards ankle from only slightly further out. Argyle were playing further forward and a pass from Devine released Randell who evaded the lunging Thomas to advance into the box, before cutting back perfectly for Morgan to rap in number eighteen for the season.
Coventry hit back, with their new Danish signing Torp continuing to show impressive passing range to release Simms. Hazard was unfortunate that his save bounced kindly for Simms to chest in the rebound. It would be a tragedy if this young City player never got to line up at least once alongside Edu in midfield.
Argyle, having swapped out their wingbacks, quickly regained the lead, when a fierce Miller cross shot compounded the hapless Thomas’s not especially good night when he deflected the ball past his keeper.
And as the clock ticked on towards the ninety seventh minute it looked like an excellent three points was once again being delivered at Home Park. Then a foul by Mumba, soft for sure, but in that awkward halfway house between corner and penalty box. Saturday saw Argyle build a wall that disintegrated. Wednesday saw no such problem, as there was no such wall.
In reality it was what I knew in my youth as a Subbuteo goal. The ball fired in low and after a ricochet from an attempted clearance the ball squirmed low past Hazards despairing hand. The beauty of competitive sport is that although everyone knows what should have happened after the goal, if everything were as predictable at that there would be no goals and therefore no sport. The joy of the last-minute equaliser for City spoilt the fact that this was a point won against a good side. The crowd and players were as frustrated as each other.
Media tycoon Sumner Redstone once opined, “Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes it’s built on catastrophe.” The loss of those two points will feel every bit of that catastrophe, but in truth will be part of the building of the next level of success as we learn as a team.
There will be no greater lesson than our next visitors, the seemingly ever-present Leeds United who arrive again, hot on the heels of another four goal away game, and this time having managed the feat in the regulation ninety.
The match which forms part of the Sky Argyle quota of fixtures will be a lovely early kick off, allowing the travelling fans to experience what it feels like most weeks for an away Argyle fan. With players coming back and some potentially feeling the effects of the recent heavy schedule there may well be a different feel for the team.
One thing is for sure, the regularity of our meetings with Leeds in such a short window has meant the traditional topics of a OGAAT have been well aired and mined. Step forward therefore a man who as well as reinvigorating Argyle has demonstrated to the wider football fraternity that you can do things differently in the game and not, as yet, completely implode. Leeds on the other hand have only recently recovered from a very different management style.
It is hard for many of us to accept that it is over twenty years since Peter Ridsdale announced his stepping down from the Leeds United Chairmanship. In his time since then he has spent time with Barnsley, Cardiff City, interrupted a walking holiday to briefly attempt to take over Argyle, and for the last eleven years or so had a modicum of success in that Preston have managed to maintain Championship status whilst only costing the Hemmings family about twelve million pounds a season.
Both Simon Hallett and Ridsdale arrived at their clubs as supporters who ended up running the whole shooting match. Ridsdale arrived as CEO of Topman, and became first the shirt sponsor and then a director, before he took on the mantle of Chairman. Indeed, he went from meeting Billy Bremner as a ten-year-old mascot to attending the great man’s funeral as his Chairman.
Ridsdale by his own admission is a man who stirs up mixed emotions amongst his chosen club’s fan base. Many associate him with some of their most enjoyable days, reaching the Champions League semi-finals in 2001 under the management of David O’ Leary. Many more cannot forgive the fact that in order to achieve those days of glory, in effect he mortgaged the club’s future income from maintaining those levels, and when they stumbled and failed to qualify for the footballing top table, the costs associated with maintaining the club and its playing staff were to prove unsustainable.
Ridsdale himself has argued that he left the club over a year before they were relegated, and his successor, the academic looking Economics Professor John McKenzie, who had only arrived as a director a few weeks before,was soon in the news when, attending his first Premier League Chief executives meeting, he fell asleep and was woken only when his head slipped off his hands and hit the desk in front of him. Leeds, Leeds, Leedzzzzzzzz.
If Ridsdale could indeed point to the lag between his departure and the eventual relegation to the Championship, there was no doubt that the legacy of the wage bills of players and the mortgaging of future incomes which turned out to not be forthcoming were very much his parting gift. Football already has a saying for financial mismanagement, and it is “Doing a Leeds”.
Unravelling the financial mess left behind was beyond the hapless Mckenzie, who, amongst other errors criticised the club for the number of company cars it had, whilst being chauffeur driven in his, and his drawing salary, fees and a consultancy fee whilst overseeing two rounds of redundancies in trying to reduce the eighty-million-pound debt burden.
McKenzie was also responsible for the sacking of future Argyle boss Peter Reid, after a farcical meeting in a Halifax hotel, pursued by around twenty cameramen. Reid was replaced by fellow ex-Green Kevin Blackwell. Very much the Baldrick to his bluff predecessors Blackadder.
McKenzies final act of folly was the sale of Harry Kewell to Liverpool for five million pounds, after previously turning down a bid of double that from the same club. Even worse, the club actually only saw around half the fee, the bulk of the rest being paid to Kewell’s agent.
That there were issues of costs being out of control are undeniable. Although the much-vaunted Seth Johnson story, where it was claimed he was entering salary negotiations hoping for thirteen grand a week may well be apocryphal. It was suggested the opening offer from Ridsdale was thirty thousand, and when that was met with a stunned silence immediately upped the offer the thirty seven grand a week. Ridsdale claims the story is nonsense. Johnson denies even being in the room. The fact remained he only played around sixty times in his time at the club, having been acquired for seven million pounds.
Danny Mills also told of the salary negotiations where, having played the World Cup due to Gary Nevilles injury, he was seeking a rise. A rumour that Middlesbrough were about to bid meant that he and his agent kept egging each other to push the asking price higher and higher, expecting to be beaten down in the negotiation. In the end they asked for sixty thousand a week, backdated and it was agreed. After all the tooling and froing, Mills then asked if he could also have the tropical fish tank in the board room. Ridsdale apparently agreed saying, “Why not, you have had everything else!”.
The five- year deal for Mills was agreed at the same time as the club was about to call in administrators. Mills was eventually shunted out to Middlesbrough, before ending up at Manchester City.
Ridsdale always bridled about the references made in coverage to the fish tanks at Leeds, pointing out they cost a few hundred pounds a year, a piffling amount in the total the club owed.
Leeds eventually plummeted down the divisions after Administration and took years to climb back. At one point T shirt sellers outside the ground sold T Shirts which said:
2003 Premiership
2004 Championship
2005 Sinkingship
2006 Abandonship
They could do well with those in Stoke.2004 Championship
2005 Sinkingship
2006 Abandonship
So was Ridsdale more sinned against that sinner? He would argue no-one complained about the deals when the club were winning leagues and enjoying European campaigns. He has a showman’s air, connected well with fans and was widely praised for his role after two Leeds fans were murdered in Turkey by Galatasaray fans. He has faced much public approbation, including one nineteen-year-old fan who confronted him for ruining his club at a time when said fan had not even been born.
His time at Barnsley did not go well, and in five years at Cardiff he would claim to have stabilised the club, finished the Stadium and brought in a fresh owner, but it was Vincent Tan!
It was also at Cardiff that Ridsdale was found to have channelled funds due to his company to his personal account, such that when he liquidated the Company, owing HMRC around a half a million pounds he and his wife were handed seven and half year bans from holding Directorships. He claims the ban was voluntary.
In the Argyle years he received credit for the fact that he knew how to play the rules and make sure the club survived. Some would argue without him we may well have gone to the wall.
So it is through him Simon had a club to buy. That he has done so and built an organisation that has now seemingly weathered two traumatic managerial poachings and still the club sits in a higher League position than before they happened.
Under him there is no danger of us ever “Doing a Leeds”
Indeed, more and more clubs must be casting an envious eye and wondering how they can “Do an Argyle”.
In the meantime we just have to assume Andrew Parkinson has upped the cotton wool budget as Brendon goes for six in a row.
COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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