One Revolt at A Time: You’re Only Here for the Matthews Turkeys
Nodge City (A) March 29th ( Happy Birthday, Imogen )
For all the time I have been writing these previews, I have never felt that striking a positive note would be a problem. In part that is because I am an optimist, mainly because it gives a much more enjoyable outlook on life than the alternative. Obviously last season’s epic performances made it a whole lot easier as well.
Also, I have in the past had a brief spell as a firebrand, where I was the ringleader of the “Daniel Out” Chants in 1977 (Carlisle at home, 0-1 jimmy Hamilton on his return) below the Directors box that were reported in the Sunday Independent (still have the back page somewhere), and also tried with almost zero success to start a fans movement to try and force an end to Dan MacAuley’s ownership.
The high spot of that campaign was a feature in one of the fanzines and finding the team bus open at Southend so leaving a bunch of my homemade leaflets in it, until the driver came and handed them back to me! And having a pre match pint with Rupert Metcalf.
So, from my perspective we currently have the best ever owner of our club (indeed possibly of any EFL club), and he took over from the second best in James Brent. Brent who saved, stabilised and then sold Argyle to the Halletts did exactly what he said he would. The man who bought the club from him has done exactly the same, and then some.
It has therefore been an International break to ponder, after a toothless one nil defeat at the hands of a robust but average Preston side resulted in a crowd turning more akin to the baying mobs of the French revolution than the past few seasons of noisy support.
Social media being what it is (which is a channel that amplifies the obnoxious and controversial pot stirring in order to drive their ad revenues) did what it did best, and it is a thin line between the wisdom of crowds and mob mentality. I am all for freedom of speech, but when the Preston fans join in the chants then someone somewhere is starting the wrong chant.
Toxicity in football clubs and their core fan base rarely accompany successful teams. In part that is obvious because when things are going well, no-one wants to start a manager out chant. Although it must have always been tempting at Alan Dicks’ clubs. At the same time the clubs that escape from their perilous League positions tend to be ones that pull together rather than tear each other apart.
I also have little time for those who resort to personal abuse, especially from the safety of their X account.
Argyle are not where we want to be in the league. We are however currently in the Division we want to stay in, and the person who has more invested in this than any of us is clearly a man who believes in riding out short-term fluctuations and backing the people who as a team will determine where we end up. Anyone who has listened to his many interviews, read his many articles, or simply engaged with him as a fan should understand that. He isn’t going to change a lifetimes successful philosophy on the back of a few chants.
So, for all those who have been calling for a bloodletting at the top of the coaching staff, Simon appears to be channelling his inner Keating.
“You say it best, when you say nothing at all.”
With all the clamour of the noisy, the in the knows with their pipeline to the heart of the dressing room, the keyboard warriors with their cast iron certainty of their correctness, I think it is telling that there has not been one sentence uttered on the security of Ian Foster. Which means he is staying.
Instead, we have the announcement on the progress with Brickfields, another plank in the structure that will be a successful long-term club, followed by pre match interviews from the club captain and star player. In particular, our talisman Morgan asking for unity and support.
You would have to be a strange kind of Argyle fan to want Ian Foster to fail. We are eight games away from a League finish as high as many in the crowd will ever have seen in their lifetime. An achievement should it come to pass that is not the result of one man, or one set of players, or even one set of owners.
If we know anything about the way the club is set up then we already have our dossiers for next season playing staff options, and yes there will be one for staying up, and one for having gone down. Because that’s the sign of a successful well run organisation.
For many, it seems they want to return to the recent successes, with goals at both ends and seemingly enough points to safely keep us in the sunlit uplands of lower mid table. The glorious Charge of the Light Brigade home wins against Stoke and ten-man Rotherham with injury time winners.
Mind you, the French General Bosquet, the Arsene Wenger of the French mid nineteenth century military summed it up as follows.
“C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre; c’est de la folie!” It is magnificent, but it is not war, it is madness. The military equivalent of the crowd chanting “Attack, attack. Attack, attack attack!”
In the classic Italian novel, The Leopard by Lampedusa, Tancredi Falconeri utters its most famous line “If nothing is to change, then everything must change.”
As we travel the width (and some of the height) of the country to rural Norfolk’s major city, Norwich, I am drawn to how apt that quote is given only a brief glance over the shoulder to September last year. Having just shipped four goals at Ashton Gate the empty vessels were in full voice.
We went into the home match against City with the Bristol City away following having been chanting unhappily over the selections and shape, performance and attitude of the team and the tactical nous of the manager. The team was set up wrong, the players were not committed. Some were simply not good enough, others past it and should be moved on. All down to the manager.
Despite this a sun kissed sell-out crowd saw a vintage performance for the ages from Argyle. Four up at half time, five before two late Idah replies, and a final flourish from “he who shall not be named” to leave the Canaries, in footballing terms “well plucked”.
That was then and this is now. Since then, City have regained some players, as well as some form, and now sit in the final play-off place, scoring eight without reply in their last two games. So that’s what spending close to a hundred million pounds gets you, which is what City have contrived to lose in aggregate over the last four seasons.
Argyle have an overall decent record at Norwich, but in only two post war seasons have they managed to do the League double. 1961/2 was the first but more memorable, as much for the style of the finishes was the Akos Buzsacky inspired 3-1 win at Carrow Road. Two sumptuous free kicks took the game away from City. In another sign of things changing the home win featured two Argyle goals from corners, alongside a fine finish from soon to be Tractor Boy David Norris.
Argyle will be without their joint record signing from Norwich, Bali Mumba, completing his two-game naughty step, and we await news on Forshaw, although his erstwhile midfield partner and January window signing Gyabi has been returned to Leeds with a damaged sticker on his hamstring.
Norwich will have the services of American Josh Sargeant for some of the game, having spent the international break in the treatment room. They will also have ex-Pilgrim Ashley Barnes, presumably setting off proximity alarms as the team coach passes Ascot, Newbury and Devon & Exeter racecourses on the way down. Apparently the striker is banned from UK racecourses for an unspecified failure to co-operate in a Horse Racing Authority investigation over alleged misdemeanours. So, odds on to score according to Ivan Toney.
With QPR playing Birmingham, Argyles place in the relegation league of nine could change for the worse unless they manage to cancel each other out (or Argyle win. Optimist, remember?). Gary Rowett returns to management at Birmingham, at least until the end of the season in the continued absence of Moany Tony, making it the Brummies fifth boss of the season, and they have gone from play-off challenge to relegation fodder. Maybe give him the Easter games and then make a change? The other games of consequence largely see cannon fodder against promotion hopefuls apart from the feathered friends derby between the Swans and the Owls.
Of course, a repeat of the 06/7 double (where the games both finished with the same positive 3-1 score for Argyle) would be as wonderful as it is unlikely. Then again, as I said. I am an optimist.
As Bernard M would have said. Bootiful, simply bootiful. Let’s hope we don’t get stuffed.
May all your chants be positive ones. Lets stick together, top to bottom. Well, not bottom but you know what I mean. Top to 21st or above.
COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nodge City (A) March 29th ( Happy Birthday, Imogen )
For all the time I have been writing these previews, I have never felt that striking a positive note would be a problem. In part that is because I am an optimist, mainly because it gives a much more enjoyable outlook on life than the alternative. Obviously last season’s epic performances made it a whole lot easier as well.
Also, I have in the past had a brief spell as a firebrand, where I was the ringleader of the “Daniel Out” Chants in 1977 (Carlisle at home, 0-1 jimmy Hamilton on his return) below the Directors box that were reported in the Sunday Independent (still have the back page somewhere), and also tried with almost zero success to start a fans movement to try and force an end to Dan MacAuley’s ownership.
The high spot of that campaign was a feature in one of the fanzines and finding the team bus open at Southend so leaving a bunch of my homemade leaflets in it, until the driver came and handed them back to me! And having a pre match pint with Rupert Metcalf.
So, from my perspective we currently have the best ever owner of our club (indeed possibly of any EFL club), and he took over from the second best in James Brent. Brent who saved, stabilised and then sold Argyle to the Halletts did exactly what he said he would. The man who bought the club from him has done exactly the same, and then some.
It has therefore been an International break to ponder, after a toothless one nil defeat at the hands of a robust but average Preston side resulted in a crowd turning more akin to the baying mobs of the French revolution than the past few seasons of noisy support.
Social media being what it is (which is a channel that amplifies the obnoxious and controversial pot stirring in order to drive their ad revenues) did what it did best, and it is a thin line between the wisdom of crowds and mob mentality. I am all for freedom of speech, but when the Preston fans join in the chants then someone somewhere is starting the wrong chant.
Toxicity in football clubs and their core fan base rarely accompany successful teams. In part that is obvious because when things are going well, no-one wants to start a manager out chant. Although it must have always been tempting at Alan Dicks’ clubs. At the same time the clubs that escape from their perilous League positions tend to be ones that pull together rather than tear each other apart.
I also have little time for those who resort to personal abuse, especially from the safety of their X account.
Argyle are not where we want to be in the league. We are however currently in the Division we want to stay in, and the person who has more invested in this than any of us is clearly a man who believes in riding out short-term fluctuations and backing the people who as a team will determine where we end up. Anyone who has listened to his many interviews, read his many articles, or simply engaged with him as a fan should understand that. He isn’t going to change a lifetimes successful philosophy on the back of a few chants.
So, for all those who have been calling for a bloodletting at the top of the coaching staff, Simon appears to be channelling his inner Keating.
“You say it best, when you say nothing at all.”
With all the clamour of the noisy, the in the knows with their pipeline to the heart of the dressing room, the keyboard warriors with their cast iron certainty of their correctness, I think it is telling that there has not been one sentence uttered on the security of Ian Foster. Which means he is staying.
Instead, we have the announcement on the progress with Brickfields, another plank in the structure that will be a successful long-term club, followed by pre match interviews from the club captain and star player. In particular, our talisman Morgan asking for unity and support.
You would have to be a strange kind of Argyle fan to want Ian Foster to fail. We are eight games away from a League finish as high as many in the crowd will ever have seen in their lifetime. An achievement should it come to pass that is not the result of one man, or one set of players, or even one set of owners.
If we know anything about the way the club is set up then we already have our dossiers for next season playing staff options, and yes there will be one for staying up, and one for having gone down. Because that’s the sign of a successful well run organisation.
For many, it seems they want to return to the recent successes, with goals at both ends and seemingly enough points to safely keep us in the sunlit uplands of lower mid table. The glorious Charge of the Light Brigade home wins against Stoke and ten-man Rotherham with injury time winners.
Mind you, the French General Bosquet, the Arsene Wenger of the French mid nineteenth century military summed it up as follows.
“C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre; c’est de la folie!” It is magnificent, but it is not war, it is madness. The military equivalent of the crowd chanting “Attack, attack. Attack, attack attack!”
In the classic Italian novel, The Leopard by Lampedusa, Tancredi Falconeri utters its most famous line “If nothing is to change, then everything must change.”
As we travel the width (and some of the height) of the country to rural Norfolk’s major city, Norwich, I am drawn to how apt that quote is given only a brief glance over the shoulder to September last year. Having just shipped four goals at Ashton Gate the empty vessels were in full voice.
We went into the home match against City with the Bristol City away following having been chanting unhappily over the selections and shape, performance and attitude of the team and the tactical nous of the manager. The team was set up wrong, the players were not committed. Some were simply not good enough, others past it and should be moved on. All down to the manager.
Despite this a sun kissed sell-out crowd saw a vintage performance for the ages from Argyle. Four up at half time, five before two late Idah replies, and a final flourish from “he who shall not be named” to leave the Canaries, in footballing terms “well plucked”.
That was then and this is now. Since then, City have regained some players, as well as some form, and now sit in the final play-off place, scoring eight without reply in their last two games. So that’s what spending close to a hundred million pounds gets you, which is what City have contrived to lose in aggregate over the last four seasons.
Argyle have an overall decent record at Norwich, but in only two post war seasons have they managed to do the League double. 1961/2 was the first but more memorable, as much for the style of the finishes was the Akos Buzsacky inspired 3-1 win at Carrow Road. Two sumptuous free kicks took the game away from City. In another sign of things changing the home win featured two Argyle goals from corners, alongside a fine finish from soon to be Tractor Boy David Norris.
Argyle will be without their joint record signing from Norwich, Bali Mumba, completing his two-game naughty step, and we await news on Forshaw, although his erstwhile midfield partner and January window signing Gyabi has been returned to Leeds with a damaged sticker on his hamstring.
Norwich will have the services of American Josh Sargeant for some of the game, having spent the international break in the treatment room. They will also have ex-Pilgrim Ashley Barnes, presumably setting off proximity alarms as the team coach passes Ascot, Newbury and Devon & Exeter racecourses on the way down. Apparently the striker is banned from UK racecourses for an unspecified failure to co-operate in a Horse Racing Authority investigation over alleged misdemeanours. So, odds on to score according to Ivan Toney.
With QPR playing Birmingham, Argyles place in the relegation league of nine could change for the worse unless they manage to cancel each other out (or Argyle win. Optimist, remember?). Gary Rowett returns to management at Birmingham, at least until the end of the season in the continued absence of Moany Tony, making it the Brummies fifth boss of the season, and they have gone from play-off challenge to relegation fodder. Maybe give him the Easter games and then make a change? The other games of consequence largely see cannon fodder against promotion hopefuls apart from the feathered friends derby between the Swans and the Owls.
Of course, a repeat of the 06/7 double (where the games both finished with the same positive 3-1 score for Argyle) would be as wonderful as it is unlikely. Then again, as I said. I am an optimist.
As Bernard M would have said. Bootiful, simply bootiful. Let’s hope we don’t get stuffed.
May all your chants be positive ones. Lets stick together, top to bottom. Well, not bottom but you know what I mean. Top to 21st or above.
COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
