To my surprise, we only have eight games to play in Lancashire and Yorkshire in our league programme because it seems much more than that, but throw in counties like Cheshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire and then you get the idea that, in a fixture list which brings home starkly the absence of derby fixtures like Swansea and bristol City, we’re going to be spending a lot of this season heading a long way north for our away matches.
Now, thanks to a League Cup Third Round draw which sends us off to Burnley for a tie which, on the face of it, offers little to induce an outbreak of “cup fever” to erupt any time soon, we face another long trip north.
I suppose after home draws against Swindon and Cheltenham (fixtures that are more of a derby than anything we’ll come across in the League this season), you can’t really moan too much about where the draw sends you in round three and I suppose things could be a lot worse, we could be Plymouth Argyle.
For Argyle, every away match is a trip north and most of them very long ones to the extent that their trip to City this weekend, which is very slightly longer than a trip from Cardiff to London, represents their shortest away trip of the season apart from their derby against Exeter. This goes part of the way to explaining why there will be a very impressive turnout of Plymouth fans at Cardiff City Stadium despite the imposition of, yet another, 12.30 kick off.
Plymouth had a pretty awful away record last season and have started with a couple of defeats this time around, but I’m not really aware of any historic long term trends which show that they’ve been traditionally weak on their travels in much the same way that, say, Newcastle, have had to be over reliant on their home form down the years.
So, Plymouth will come here on Saturday buoyed by finally getting off the mark in the league after beating Blackpool 1-0 last weekend following four straight defeats to start off – there was also a battling draw at Swansea in the League Cup on Tuesday before they succumbed on penalties.
City will be favourites on Saturday, no doubt about that, but Plymouth surely aren’t as bad as their first four matches suggested they are.Therefore, I expect a tough game in which I reckon we’ll have to show better finishing skills than we have done in most of our matches so far if we’re to win.
On to the quiz, seven questions about Plymouth Argyle dating back to the sixties with the answers to be posted on here on Sunday.
60s. What is the Cardiff City related link between Terry Wharton of Wolves, Ken Wagstaff of Hull and Plymouth’s Mike Bickle from this decade?
70s. Born in Exeter with a very non Devonian name, this player certainly had an interesting career which went on for a very long time. He faced a penalty taken by Pele, played for clubs from five different countries (England, Wales, South Africa, America and Portugal – for Sporting Lisbon) and while at a club with musical connections with Leeds, decided to switch to playing in midfield because he was so impressed by the quality of the one touch football his team was playing. So it was that, when he moved back to Devon to play for sides managed by a former Plymouth team mate, he played as a midfielder for a couple of local non league clubs into his fifties and made it to sixty before deciding to hang up his cricketing boots – who am I describing?
80s. MCC’s earthy response to an old jack! (4,8)
90s. He played for Cardiff and Plymouth in this decade and has been appointed as a caretaker manager on four occasions at three different clubs. In one of his four spells as a careaker, he eventually made it to “interim manager”, but only stayed in this role for eleven days before making way for someone else. His one other spell as a manager, for a current League Two club, lasted for eleven games with only one of them being won. Who am I describing?
00s. Ordinary man takes wide berth maybe?
10s. This man’s nomadic career has been a triumph for determination and patience I would say. Starting off at Colchester, he was released after playing six times for them while not scoring. He was loaned out to five different non league teams while with Colchester, before he signed permanently for a team once managed by Jan Molby. Loaned out twice more, there were signs of improvement in the second one, at Grays, but he was still released once more, so he next signed for Margate and it was here that he started to be noticed by bigger clubs. In fact, he ended up in the Premier League with a London club, but there was only ever the one appearance in the top flight for him when he came on as a sub in a 4-0 loss at Manchester United. Loaned out twice more without much success, he was predictably not retained and he struggled to make an impact at Southend before joining Plymouth where he rediscovered his scoring touch to some degree and he was snapped up by Yorkshire yo-yos. Again, he showed that he had more ability than he had displayed throughout most of his career and he next signed for a team that were better than their current division suggested they were. He played a part in getting them promoted and he was soon being loaned out again, but the clubs interested in him now were ones of a much higher standing than they used to be when he was struggling years earlier. His latest move, to an under achieving League One side did not go well and he seems to be playing little part in their plans for this season, but having played for nineteen different clubs (ten of them non league) over a fourteen year career, it may not be wise to write him off just yet. Included among his hundred plus career goals are two against the City which helped to complete a comeback win for his team after we had looked ro be comfortably ahead, but who is he?
20s. Which one time Plymouth player during this decade was linked to City as part of a possible swap deal this week?
Answers.
60s. The three of them all scored hat tricks, at least, against City within a three and a hakf week period. Wharton scored three times, with two of them coming from penalties, for Wolves in their 7-1 win over us on 21 September 1966, then on 8 October, Wasgtaff scored all of Hull’s goals in a 4-2 win at Ninian Park and, finally, Bickle scored four as Plymouth beat us 7-1 at Home Park on October 15. It should also be said that in between the Wolves and Hull matches, we were beaten 5-0 by Charlton at the Valley, but no one scored a hat trick that day!
70s. Peta Bala’c started his career at Plymouth where he played in the team which beat Santos 3-1 in a friendly game at Home Park in March 1973 with the Brazilian team’s goal being scored by Pele past Bala’c. In fact, Bala’c’s last competitive game for Plymouth had come a few months earlier in a 7-1 loss at Oldham and he was loaned out to Swansea before going to play in South Africa. Given the way his career had gone, it was surprising that, after a spell in America on loan for Sacramento Gold, Bala’c signed for Sporting Lisbon and played some first team football with them before returning to South Africa to play for Kaiser Chiefs where he decided to become a midfield player.
80s. Sean McCarthy.
90s. Kevin Nugent has been a caretaker manager at Swansea City, Leyton Orient (twice) and Charlton Athletic. He was made interim manager for eleven days during one of those two occasions with Orient and was manager of Barnet for a short while in 2017.
00s. Joe Broad was a member of Plymouth’s League Two title winning squad in 2001/02.
10s. Freddie Ladapo signed for Kidderminster Harriers following his release by Colchester, but it was the goals he scored for Margate that attracted the attention of Crystal Palace who signed him in 2016. The second revival of his career probably started at Plymouth and continued at Rotherham before he signed for Ipswich where his two goals off the bench helped turn around a game against City where they were 2-0 down, as they emerged 3-2 winners. Ladapo is currently with Huddersfield where he has yet to score in his twenty odd appearances for them.
20s. Centreback Dan Scarr was reported to be offered by Wrexham as part of a deal to take Calum Chambers to the North Wales club.
