Featured Club Of The Week

Welcome to my new feature to my blog, every week, I will write about a club voted for by my fans from twitter and facebook, for my first feature, Plymouth Argyle came top of the voting pile. Hope you enjoy!.

Quick Facts

Name: Plymouth Argyle Football Club
Founded: 1886
Nickname: The Pilgrims
Ground: Home Park (Capacity 18,000)
Gaffer: Carl Fletcher
Skipper: Simon Walton Defender/Midfielder
Divison: Npower League Two

Plymouth Argyle have had a very turbulent few seasons, having faced two consecutive relegation's the first being in the 09/10 season, being relegated from the Championship after six seasons in the division. The club then suffered a second relegation in their return to league one, but their story holds a lot more than just a poor season, financial woes built up at the club, and they were eventually docked ten points, ten points in which if they didn't lose, would have kept them in the division. The story of this football club goes beyond that, with players, fans, and everyone uniting to save the stricken club from the hands of the taxman. Players went around 9 months without full pay of their wages and still continued to play on despite having families to feed and probably having a chance to flee the sinking ship of Argyle.

The, then, manager Peter Reid, did his part for the club, selling off his FA Cup runners up medal to provide finance for the club to ensure its survival. This money meant that the club could still pay its basic bills such as heating, and some money also went to paying the younger players in the side, who also got hit hard with the crisis at Argyle. Several players sold their cars to help the stricken club, and even some talk of some players willing to sell their own houses to help the club stay afloat, this goes to show how determined the side was to stay out of the clutches of the taxman. This generous and amazing feat by players does show, passion, loyalty and team spirit is still in the game, the saying as 'theres no loyalty in football anymore' isn't true, this is one case where it shows loyalty is still in the game, I for one hope other players take note of this feat if their club ever gets in danger.

'Fans Reunited, Argyles demise touched alot of fans'

Yet, another amazing thing I noticed about Plymouths story was the fact, how many other football fans wanted to help the club, now, no football fan likes to see any club in threat of liquidation, even if they are your biggest most hated rivals, it's not good for the game. fans-reunited was set up to bring even more awareness of the plight and severity of the clubs problems to a wider audience, enabling people online to make donations to the club, I have hyperlinked the website in this paragraph if you want to check the site out and donate some money to the club. Below is a video of the fans reunited day in September, fans from clubs such as Brighton, Charlton and Norwich and many more joined forces to support Argyle, in the game vs Macclesfield.

Dave Weeks a Plymouth Argyle supporter was at the game this day and he says. 'It started off with a fans fest. It was £25 to get in and that bought you, a ticket, pint and a pasty. The event also included,  a few sing songs and James Brent (the man who wants to take over) as guest speaker. Then I got into the ground, to see shirts of Brighton, Charlton, Newport, Portsmouth, Norwich, Bristol City and Arsenal all around. A Falkirk fan even flew down here. There was also a few other teams fans here too but I can't remember who, when it was 2-0, the party began!'

Yesterday, was the clubs 7th month in administration and there seems to be light at end of the tunnel with a deal to be apparently struck between the investors and administrators by the start to mid October, perhaps a shining light at the end of the tunnel for the fans of Argyle, after many months of day-to-day fear of liquidation and facing being thrown out of the league all together is slowly starting to become less, hopefully a deal can be thrashed out over the next few weeks to ensure off and on the pitch survival and the club can strive on and recover from the poor league start of the season under new manager Carl Fletcher.

Peter Reid will always be remembered for his hard work at Argyle

Peter Reid's sacking was a sad and controversial one perhaps. But football is a results based business, and sadly his time as manager seemed to be at an end, but he has left behind a legacy which will be remembered for generations as he was a major figure in Argyles survival, and his contributions will never be forgotten by fans, he truly is and always will be a legend at Home Park.