2017 Autumn News

Sadly it is one of the dangers of social media. We (the club, and more importantly specific people in the club) get all sorts of abuse, much of which is personal and very unpleasant , but we have no right of reply. Pleased to say that this site remains a 'friendly' exchange of honest opinions-long may it continue.

 

Having worked within the City Council on the front line for 30 years lyndhurst I can promise you it isn't just you or Argyle who gets dog's abuse. No matter what you do for some people and how many extra yards you may take there are some who can't resist having a go whether justified or not. That's because they know you can't bite back. There are one or two though who might just deserve a pop or two given their attitude to the public at large.

 

Hmmmm Thanks, but who are the 'one or two'. It might just be that the 'public at large' are being a tiny bit sensitive? We all play to the Club's values and at the end of the day it is ll about kicking a bag of wind about-I just think that some some people take it too seriously-and i appreciate that it is 'more important than life and death'. Sorry, but these days it isn't.

 

I was referring to my ex colleagues with that comment but it does apply sometimes to a lot of organisations. Lets say some people treat the masses with a slice of contempt at times as if they were an inconvenience rather than a customer. I did find though that the sensitivity to a requests outcome depended a lot on whether you were saying yes or no. Having been around the block a few times and seen most things in my time I agree with you though that football should be a distraction rather than bigger than life itself. Some things in this world make me wince even now and I'm pretty cynical in attitude. This site though is mainly about football topics so it's hardly surprising that football is the one that raises the hackles most even if much more important stuff is going unmentioned.

 

This is more to life than Football, i use to live and die it.. now have different views, yes i don't want to see Argyle struggling. But some one has to go down and up . That is the excitement of football and what it is all about.
I am not so passionate about it any more, especially with the national team. and the wages and money in the top Divisions.. or a lot sport these days.. all tv and money now

 

Things have changed over the years...the call of big money has destroyed a lot of traditional sport.

1.....Football has taken off to another planet that most of us cannot understand (thank you SKY)....players demanding £200/300,000 per week....the days of testimonials to help a long time serving players allegiance, and to give him a little extra for when he retires, has long gone. 2 or 3 years at a club will bring top players expecting extra for their so called "allegiance" this day and age.....the Premiership and to a certain degree the Championship is only obtained by wads of money being available to a club.
Talented players are trawled up by the "big" clubs and disappear into a system that gives them little chance of first team football.....noticeable during the summer months that Chelsea have something like 25/30 players on loan to lesser clubs, who feed on the dregs of the big boys surplus players to bring them success....I could go on....but you know as well as me where that leaves PAFC, and that is at a level well below the Championship....in fact we are now noticing that maybe we have reach the limit of James Brent's financial commitment....not his fault that he isn't rich enough to pay the level that we need to do well in this division....we are now seeing that our summer "buys" don't quite reach the heights that we thought they might obtain.....freebies and other clubs cast-offs to be honest.

2.....Cricket, the County Championship hasn't paid it's way for decades...empty grounds on a late April and May days when most supporters had to work for a living couldn't be financed without other forms of the game propping it up....again the finance comes from TV....and terrestrial TV cannot compete, so the game doesn't get seen by the masses anymore....test matches and one day international quite often pass without realizing that they are happening....a few minutes here and there on Channel 5, seen quite often when your doing something else anyway just past buy....although Ben Stokes has publicised the sport quite well recently by showing his ability at a more violent form of "sport"....I say no more.

3.....Formula One is being slowly prised away from terrestrial TV....only every other race is now live on it....how long for. The cost of it is beyond some keen supporters when it's live in this country....becoming a rich mans sport.

4.....Rugby is hanging on with the 6 nations still available to us plus autumn internationals...but for how long.

5.....Tennis is still available on terrestrial TV....of course not everyones cup of tea....how much longer as the prize money gets bigger and bigger.

6.....Snooker found a new lease of life when colour TV started and we do see it still....but for how much longer.

7.....Darts is doing well on TV at the moment (one game that I excelled in my twenties) but again boring if you don't appreciate the game.

Money makes the world go around, and for sport to survive it needs it's share,....but football has shown that it can be taken over as a commercial enterprise for vast profits, and the pleasure can be taken away from the ,who finds the cost is beyond them, and it gets taken over by the prawn sandwich brigade who can afford the ransome size prices.

 

Gillingham...0-1...Portsmouth...F/T....that well known Argyle scorer Matthew Kennedy scores the winner in the 46th minute....what a shame we couldn't afford him or did he not want another stint at Home Park.

 

Lithuania...0-0...England... H/T...Kane (pen)

Slovenia...0-1...Scotland...H/T.

 

England win 1-0....couldn't break Argyle down let alone little Lithuania.

Scotland draw 2-2.....miss out on world cup....what a shame.

 

Weekend of no shocks then. England scraped a win against nobody, Scotland failed to qualify for something and Argyle lost. And the world is as it should be and all is well.....................

 

Ah but the our Vancouver Canucks Hockey Team won their first game of the season....so not all is bad...lol

 

England's 1-0 victory with a 27th minute penalty by Harry Kane has been described as rather dubious.

"Keith Hackett retired well known referee felt that it was never a penalty. Deli Alli went down too easily and he didn't see an offence.
The referee just jumped in too quickly when he should have taken time to consider whether he was certain of what he saw.

If Fifa is brave enough to adopt Video Assistant Refereeing (VAR) in Russia, this sort of penalty would never stand. A word in the officials ear from his off-field assistant would quickly rule it out. There should not be any soft penalties". (from an article in Telegraph Sport 9/10/2017)


England had 71% of possession.....20 shots on goal...only 4 on target...and 10 corners and could only score from a penalty.
Possibly up to 7 fringe players played....would they not be playing out of their skins to impress Southgate to get into his World Cup Squad next summer....well if they where it didn't show....lots of tippy tappy cross field passing without much penetration at all. The best we can expect is to get out of the group stage at best, and that might be doubtful without knowing who will be in our group

 

I watched the Gillingham-Portsmouth game in the absence of the Premier League!

The first 20 minutes were awful - Sunday League standard never mind League 2. After that, Portsmouth got on top but I'd say there were only 2 proper chances in the entire 90 minutes, the one Kennedy scored from and another for Portsmouth late on. Both sides could and should have had first half penalties but Gillingham hardly made a proper chance from start to finish.

Kennedy, now deprived of the healthy Plymouth environment, sported a silly mini-beard and a louche haircut requiring deployment of a hairband, but was far and away Portsmouth's best player. Good as he was for us last year, I'd say his influence was proportionately greater on the Portsmouth team than he ever was on ours. I'd like to know the back-story of how he ended up at Pompey and we ended up with Greg Wylde, One of the commentators did casually mention that Gillingham were up against it because some League one teams were paying individual players £7k and £8k per week wages.

On our worst form, we're as bad as Gillingham and on the rare flashes of our best form, we're better than Portsmouth were yesterday. Pick the bones out of that.

 

Toumani Diagouraga 6ft 2in, 30yr old French midfielder, signs for Argyle as a free agent....he was released by Leeds in August as surplus to requirements., length of contract not mentioned.

 

Wooperts, everyone has played for your lot. Even my Grandad had a couple of games..................

Have to say I wasn't expecting anyone else to be signed. Never heard of this one but he looks the part given his CV. Hopefully this will be a turning point for Argyle and he will prove to be the missing link we needed.

 

Actually he was in the RN. He was a stoker and they got trained in Pompey so I guess that is a clue. He was a Janner though. Not sure of the position he just told me he played away sometimes so I just assumed it was for you............

 

I didn't know about your injury problems Wooperts and the fantastic commentary you get with lower league televised matches didn't mention them as far as I remember. What they need is an expert like Steve Mcmanaman, who's certainly a big favourite down here in Plymouth after his tremendous punditry on our games against Liverpool last year. I fondly remember the fans welcoming him to Home Park for the replay with chants of "Mcmanaman is an anchor, Mcmanaman is an anchor", encouraging BT Sport to promote him from the analyser role to TV anchorman. At least I think that's what they sang.

Here we are without a recognised No 9 figure and, dependent on Threlkeld's injury, one full back. So we sign a defensive midfielder when we have Sarcevic, Ness, Songo'o (at least in Adam's mind) and Threlkeld (if he was fit and we had a right back). Still, he's a big strong lad with a track record in and above this league. Another Lilian Nalis I hope......