That’s a splendid picture taken from the Mayflower Stand. I’m rather partial to the elevated viewpoint myself and, if I’m at a game as a neutral, I’ll make every effort to place myself in such a position subject to cost and not being deemed totally anti-social. With Torquay United, if there’s no side view available for us, I’ll throw in my lot with the troops behind the goal and endeavour to find as good a viewpoint as possible.
Yesterday, because of seat allocations I found myself at pitch level at that end of Home Park for the first time since 1973. And on this occasion – so I’m reliably informed – Pelé wasn’t playing. Look carefully at that picture and you’ll see a yellow-DayGlo steward guarding the tunnel to the right. Well, I’m the brown blob adjacent to his left shoulder. I guess that’s an occupational hazard – it’s bound to happen sometime - but woe betide the poor sod who has a season ticket for such at seat at one of the bigger clubs. It would do my head in watching football from that perspective.
So, my thanks to those who have provided an account of our forward play in the first half. Even though I made an even more stringent effort than usual to concentrate on the game, much of it was followed through a forest of players and I struggled to discern a pattern. But, on reflection, we seemed to have the ball in their half a fair amount in the first forty-five minutes so I was pretty satisfied at the break. Much better in the second half of course. In fact, when it goes so well, there’s actually something satisfying from seeing the action from that angle, or from a hundred-foot crane or any-bloody-where to be honest. Who – when
they were in the Championship and
we were in the Conference (as were the standings on 2 January 2009) – would have thought we’d do the
double over them so quickly? And there we were longing to play Exeter again.....
And, as has been hinted already, a
proper local derby rather than one of those colourless, tepid affairs to which we’ve become accustomed. To be truthful, I tend to believe we should always, all things being equal, take
at least a thousand supporters to Argyle. I remember we had a pretty decent following down there in 2001/2002 although that was in stark comparison to the wretched affair of the preceding season – just a fortnight before Barnet – that was watched by a piddly crowd of 5,711, including a sullen few hundred from Torquay. Interesting, indeed, to compare figures with Exeter’s much-hyped visits last season: 1,667 for the JPT game and 2,230 for the league fixture. We came close.
And I came close to having a bad outbreak of "1969 Anguish" when they paraded
Mike Bickle at half-time (he who scored four in that 6-0 victory). Then, when a second old player was announced, it was a great relief it was
Garry Nelson rather than Norman Piper. Unfortunately Nelse was announced
purely as an ex-Argyle player – as opposed to being one of ours as well – and was only given the chance to utter a platitude about wishing Argyle the best for the rest of eternity. As for the ex-Plymouth Co-op milkman, Mike Bickle possesses a Plymouth accent which makes Gordon Sparks sound like an exponent of Received Pronunciation (well, not quite....).
Garry Nelson wasn’t named but the programme ran a feature about an
all-time Plymouth/Torquay XI – Wilmot; L Hodges, Green, Taylor, Uzzell; K Hodges, McCall, Hargreaves, Phillips; Binney, Tynan. The programme also had a cheery little
“5 facts about Torquay” item which included something about the Model Village “featuring 400 models, 300 metres of railway track and Danny Stevens’ house”. Ah, very good!
So, to the end of the game, and an opportunity to continue the
Sports Grounds of Plymouth Walk for the benefit of Jon and Chelston which took in a few extra sights on the way back to the station. Poor old Chelston had already been flagging during our pre-match amble around Devonport and had needed to be revived by a timely Ivor Dewdney when we reached Stoke. I do hope Chelston found a seat on the train home....
A wee bonus today when I headed to St Leonards to pick up my eye drops. The newsagent had a copy of
The Herald for me to devour. The match report – by their Argyle reporter – was actually used virtually word-for-word by the
Western Morning News with little input from a TUFC-angle. Nonetheless it’s worth scanning a few bits from
The Herald for your collective enjoyment:
And lastly, even though we didn’t quite give them the proverbial “hell of a beating” I’ll still take the wholly gratuitous opportunity to paraphrase that Norwegian bloke of all those years ago:
“Sir Francis Drake, Lady Astor, Judy Spiers, Don Arnold, Ivor Dewdney, Tom the Diving Janner, Sharron Davies, Michael Foot, David Owen, Wayne Sleep, Gus Honeybun, Robert Daniel, Harley Lawer, Dawn French, Scott of the Antarctic, the Pilgrim Fathers, Eddystone Lighthouse, Aggie Weston’s Sailor’s Rest, Angela Rippon....your boys took a hell of a beating!!!” One day I hope to give you my Exeter version that includes Fred Karno and Gerald the Giraffe.....
