Jimmy Abdou and Realistic Expectations

For the above comment, perhaps it's because those who live far away, and I did until a while ago, cannot attend for obvious reasons as often as they would wish too and were envious of the Plymouth fans who could attend H.P. with ease . I say past tense because for me it was some years ago when Argyle were , for example, playing in The Championship under Ian H for example, how I wished I could easily attend. However I did when I could and enjoyed the rare atmosphere beloved by ex-pats.

For other reasons I had to return to N.Cornwall and now cannot attend for other reasons hardly at all even though I have a ticket to attend, I miss that atmosphere and yes it's often grim especially in the last 4 years when I have been able to attend ,however the thrill of hope and a change for the better does not leave me, call me silly I know but I have supported Argyle from home and far away, please don't play the far-always being too critical of the 'home' fans , there is envy evolved and PERHAPS a misunderstanding of why many far too easily avoid H.P. unless it was the big match against Premier opposition.

Other than that it's the middle of the night and I am about make a welcome mug of tea, sleep follows soon I hope as the wake up later in the early starts associated in trips to Derriford....and I do not mean I am visiting The Duchess ........

Phil.

"same old Argyle, knocking on the door of the premiership"

Thai green wrote:

For the above comment, perhaps it's because those who live far away, and I did until a while ago, cannot attend for obvious reasons as often as they would wish too and were envious of the Plymouth fans who could attend H.P. with ease . I say past tense because for me it was some years ago when Argyle were , for example, playing in The Championship under Ian H for example, how I wished I could easily attend. However I did when I could and enjoyed the rare atmosphere beloved by ex-pats.

For other reasons I had to return to N.Cornwall and now cannot attend for other reasons hardly at all even though I have a ticket to attend, I miss that atmosphere and yes it's often grim especially in the last 4 years when I have been able to attend ,however the thrill of hope and a change for the better does not leave me, call me silly I know but I have supported Argyle from home and far away, please don't play the far-always being too critical of the 'home' fans , there is envy evolved and PERHAPS a misunderstanding of why many far too easily avoid H.P. unless it was the big match against Premier opposition.

Other than that it's the middle of the night and I am about make a welcome mug of tea, sleep follows soon I hope as the wake up later in the early starts associated in trips to Derriford....and I do not mean I am visiting The Duchess ........

Phil.

I think we're on crossed wires here. My question wasn't simply about exiles having a go at the local support and their attendance or lack of but rather the differences in how the locals and exiles perceive the club. Exiles tend to be more reliant on internet forums for the latest gossip whilst the locals get the word on the street so to speak. Both forms of gossip can be inaccurate of course.

Without doubt there's certainly a lot of apathy in Plymouth as far as the club is concerned and not without good reason, we've been let down too many times. Our recent venture into the 2nd tier was no different.

After our 2nd promotion in 2004 there was a real belief around Plymouth the club meant business. Unfortunately the highest attendances for 40 years and record profits wasn't enough to invest in the team. The then manager got sacked followed by months of firefighting Pulis-ball and property development came to the fore, same ol' Argo and we lose 3000 supporters. Meanwhile the word on the net is Angry_S in Oz, Somerset_Farmer, some bloke in Bermuda amongst many others and the ambitious Newell telling everyone to 'trust in Stapes'. Many exiles swallowed it whilst many of the locals preferred to listen to the cabbie The same still happens today with 'trust in Brent' & 'support Fletch' yet these same people rarely visit Home Park, it's not their money and more importantly it's not their time that's being wasted on the current poor product.

FWIIW I accept John is one of those exiles who has been closer to the club over the years and has called it right many times in the past. I seem to recall he was very vocal against the purchase of the freehold and questioned whether football was the main priority of the then board (either that or my memory's playing tricks). His OP seems to be a u-turn which makes it very difficult when he's telling me I need to re-evaluate my expectations which are set low enough to begin with.

Apologies for rambling on & on & on and still probably not getting my point across. Hope the trips to Derriford are going well.

Coxside, any crossed wires will be my fault probably for reading your post whilst half asleep, I always try to make a defence of exiles as I know most fervently support argyle from afar, you make your point well if I may say so, certainly not rambling on as you say. I believe both our views are worth putting in here and we should be making them.

Thanks for the kind words at the end, all ok, not helped by the ongoing turmoil and mess at Argyle !

You have a good memory, CG!

I was most definitely against the freehold purchase, even if I understood the thinking behind it, precisely because it would expose us to new owners with uncertain motivations - that fear came to pass, in a big way.

I don't think it helps to recall how "right" or "wrong" individuals have been in the past, however. We're all influenced by the people we hear titbits from, but I always ask myself this:-

"Why has this person just told me what he has told me?".

From that position, I always try to listen to as many people as possible and then draw a synthesis of opinion - that seems to help a more realistic conclusion come to light.

In my view, the freehold purchase was a Rubicon moment for the club, because it told the fanbase that the club had taken it's eye off the team and placed it on the infrastructure of the club instead. Both were important targets, but we chose the bricks and mortar, rather than adding to Holloway's budget. We know what happened next. It could have been the right decision, but it wasn't.

At the end of the 2007-08 season, we were already seeing attendance revenues beginning to struggle to balance with player costs, but the freehold purchase fed the perception of many, in the City and elsewhere, that the team would have to look out for itself from now on, and that perhaps we'd hit the top of the curve.

That probably killed off the growing enthusiasm from a greater proportion of the non-fan population of Plymouth and the surrounding area to make Home Park a destination on a Saturday afternoon - they saw the club taking a turn for the worst and decided on other leisure pursuits instead.

You may remember Tyhee Slim, who used to post long pieces (like me...) on PASOTI during the good times, in which he'd remind us of previous bubbles of success, which were always popped by some localised error (like letting Tony Waiters go) and that he feared we'd do something similarly foolish to ruin all our good work.

He called that one, didn't he?

So, the OP isn't a U-turn - it's a somewhat downbeat assessment of where we really are right now, and what we as a fanbase may have to accept as a new reality for the next couple of seasons.

History tells me never to listen to one person, or trust in their perspective - you have to see the whole picture and look at the long term, as much as you can.

With the endless stream of useless, outclassed and self serving rubbish that has passed through the Argyle board room over the decades and is still incumbent now it's amazing that the fan base has held up as well as it has. Just imagine what the fans reaction would be if we actualy had some class and ambition in the board room.

I thought John's post made sense. When we climbed two leagues to the CCC nothing much changed at the ground. It didn't look or feel any different to how it was previously apart from more bums on seats.

Argyle has always come across as amateurish to me, as if the club itself doesn't believe it can or should succeed.

When we were getting our act together on the pitch, this never manifested itself off the pitch. It was still a nightmare to get tickets or info from the club, the ground to my knowledge was only used once for a concert when it could've been marketed as a venue to gain vital income and there was never the push for investment that might have seen us challenging more regularly.

I know that the 16k or so that started going regularly was not a bad average, but imagine if we had the funds to make a signing that got the pulses racing? That showed ambition?

I know of several people who went regularly for half a season to see us play some of the bigger clubs, but the novelty soon wore off because it became evident that the bigger clubs had better players and we weren't able to compete.

The board needed to show that they were doing their bit and trying to keep the momentum going to keep the existing fans, but more importantly were attracting new fans.

I don't know what the average gate was in league one the previous season but I would think it wasn't too far off the average we were getting in the CCC.

The people who have a season ticket every year and are turning up week in week out to see us even now are admirable, but there is an element who seem to belittle new fans as plastics or love pointing out they didn't go to the game at home to Rochdale five years before, instead of recognising that these Johnny come lately fans were the ones needed to get anywhere. There will always be the core of fans who go through thick and thin, we get reminded of it enough by Messrs Newell and Webb, but they actually seem happy to be one of the 5k turning up 29 games in a row, like w badge of honour.

These 5k will always be there, along with another 5-6000 who go fairly regularly in good times, but it's keeping this second band of fans plus attracting the occasional fan for big games that is the hard task. These fans need to be won over. Whether it's fireworks or cheerleaders or a 20 goal a season striker, something needs to make them sit up and take notice and get them out of their comfy chair at home watching man utd and over to Home Park. Then they need to be entertained sufficiently to make them go again, and for me only a winning team will regularly do that.

If there is some Sky type razzamatazz pre-match and at halftime even better, they might take the kids. Playing Rory Fallon probably isn't going to work quite as well.

Whilst the club was in profit, which was great, this is where it should have been a fantastic selling point to investors. 15k+ every week, doing ok in the second tier but needing the funds to go one step further and challenge for a place in the premier league.

I have a feeling w similar thing happened under Dave Smith. I can't remember many big signings so it was basically the same team, more or less, playing as the season before.

Right now we already know that Fletchers job is safe and that he isn't up to the job so once again needs an experienced mentor or director of football, so I wouldn't go banking on crowds rising too much this season, whereas getting rid of Fletcher for w well known manager might have persuaded people to start going again, even if Fletchers shortcomings have already consigned this season to another one of struggle.

A fair and sensible (what no expletives or vitriol) summary Jock (good grief you must be on something this morning)

I think that everybody has bought it to the don't expect too much this season idea John. I personally don't think that anybody was expecting to be challenging for a top two slot this year, it would have been a miracle. The trouble with your post is that you are basically saying that we are on course for where we should be given our circumstances. I am afraid that that is utter rubbish. Last year everybody realised why we were in a relegation battle. To be sucked into another one and then told that Brent is going to do the hard thing is too much to bear right now. Brent and myself are poles apart on how the club should be run, I personally don't think he is running it, he has taken his eye off the ball, allowed a rookie manager to sign too many really poor players and here we are again fighting for our lives. Brent should have capped the size of the squad, we should have bought Jamie Cureton then Brenty wouldn't have had to use some of the money that the council used to buy the ground to give us some cash whilst we prop the club up as it flounders towards the Blue Square Prem. you mention ambition, well there is non at the moment, zilch, nada, zero. Brent's plan is to get the debts paid, I am not sure if he really understands the consequences of dropping out of the whole of the football league. Argyle are not being run in a professional way, it is amateur, we the fans can see this we just look at the league table.

Dougie wrote:

A fair and sensible (what no expletives or vitriol) summary Jock (good grief you must be on something this morning)

My anger is diminishing daily and being replaced by apathy.

If the club can't see what is going on and is happy to have hangers on and celebrity fans amongst the 5000, rather than sort out the club with the same enthusiasm and professonalism as goes into James Brent's other businesses, then I can't really be bothered anymore.

I would bet good money that it takes a long while for this Director of Football to be identified, pursued and actually unveiled at Home Park, in which time we could be much deeper in the shit than we already are. Then he will need to stamp his authority on Fletcher or work miracles almost instantly to avoid another 6 months of crap.

Maybe Colin Sexstones appointment will lead to a shake-up of the club from top to bottom and questions asked about who these people are wandering around with their lanyards wherever they want. If they have no role at the club then bugger off. If Newell is to be given an official title then get on with it. People can then make the decision if they want to spend their money on a club with him in an official capacity.

When the DOF arrives I don't think it will take long to see if Fletcher is carrying on regardless or if an experienced head is calling the shots, and if it is the former then appoint them manager with Fletcher as the assistant. I won't be holding my breath though.

I agree with Iggy (not sure about Jamie Cureton tho')

GJ, surely the DOF is waiting in the wings and will be announced by next week. Shirley.....

Greenskin wrote:

John_Lloyd wrote:

Remember Jimmy Abdou?

He formed a useful part of our midfield in the 2007-08 season, playing most of the games as we transitioned between the Holloway and Sturrock eras and while he rarely quickened the pulse, he always did a sterling job for the team. I liked him.

But we let him go to Millwall, a division below us at the time, because he wanted a longer or better contract.

No-one was really that fussed about his departure, but I've kept an eye on him whenever Millwall have popped up on the telly and he's done the same job for the Lions - quietly effective, rarely drawing the eye, but getting the job done.

He was the fan's Player of the Year at the Den last year, and there he was on the Football League show again this weekend, playing a full 90 as Millwall reached 6th in the Championship with a 2-0 win away at Blackburn.

Remember being in the top six of the Championship? Yes, I know - I'm sorry...

So, what's the point of mentioning a player like Jimmy Abdou - a one season midfield metronome?

I don't really know why - but seeing him at that level now, after he left us to go down a league for a better contract than we were offering, seems to encapsulate the frustrations and circularity of the last five years.

We thought we were better than Jimmy Abdou, but he has proved to be better than us.

Perhaps if more than 13k in a City of a quarter of a million had been turning out to see Argyle when he played for us, we might have been in a better position to offer him a more attractive contract. We may have been able to offer more of that 2007 team a better contract and keep building on the amazing progress that had been made in the five years before that.

To be clear, I am not blaming the supporters for the failure of the last five years, but I do wonder what more could have been done in the 2006 - 2007 period to prove to the long-term naysayers that there was something worthwhile going at Home Park and that it was something that more people should want to be a part of.

Plymouth - we're the 13/14th largest town in the country - blah, blah, blah. It proves that mere population size just doesn't equate to a real bedrock support, even when the team is doing well. The City never really turned up, just when it was needed most.

So what? Well, I'd say that means that the expectations of our fans need to reflect reality. The owners of Argyle will always come to the same conclusion. They always have.

Recent history confirms what old history already told us - Plymouth couldn't support a top tier club. It struggles to support a second tier club. It should be able to support a third tier club. We're currently told it can't support a fourth tier club. That is truly shocking, but it shouldn't be a real surprise, given the utter chaos the New World regime left us - and James Brent with - a burden of historic and epic debts to be repaid over the next five years that probably accounts for two thousand bits of our ticket income every Saturday.

In which case, Argyle fans may need to prepare for a very long, slow and painful crawl towards self-sustainability, almost certainly dependent on stop-gap funding of the type James Brent has been forced into already this season.

That means the fanbase has to manage it's expectations radically, even though we will be frequently fed PR lines of "competitive budgets" and "play-offs being a reasonable target", in order that we keep up a modicum of interest in what actually happens on the pitch on a Saturday afternoon.

After the incredible damage done in 2010-2011, our continued existence is an achievement, but real improvement is only an ambition. Expecting more, quickly, is to buck the trend of history.

There is little point in tub-thumping, or demanding instant, or even gradual success. Our progress over the next few months and years will be glacial, at best. We need to get used to that.

It's all a matter of balancing our costs against the expectations of future club incomes, the level of which is mostly in our hands.

We know that Carl Fletcher and the coaching staff are doing their best and we know that they're falling short at the moment.

I still have a sense that there is a decent team on the edge of emerging from the brittle and fragile performances of the last few weeks, but that doesn't pay the bills when we don't win for a month or two.

James Brent has to do that instead. As has every owner in Argyle's long history when the population doesn't believe in the club and where it seems to be headed at that moment in time.

We know that James Brent did a good thing in saving our club, at some personal and financial cost to himself. We also know that he expects to reap some rewards from that exposure at some point, by developing the land around the club, so that it can perhaps balance the books - both his and it's own.

That's fine - I'm OK with that, so long as we can see some evidence that the club will benefit in some meaningful way as well.

That's how the modern world has always worked - the risk-takers build something and the populace either joins in, or it doesn't.

So, he needs to assess the true costs of management change against the realistic expectation of a long term benefit in doing so. He believes in Carl Fletcher and his team and he doesn't seem to be affected by short-termism - he looks to the long term instead. That makes some sense to me (and it's a rarity in football circles) and I'm inclined to agree that the course we're on is still a safe one, even though it's a tough journey at the moment.

Retaining is always cheaper than recruiting and all we REALLY need to do this season is avoid relegation - that is perfectly achievable with the current set-up, perhaps now to be aided by a wise old head upstairs.

What happens next season is more problematic. Another season of mordant toil in the lower reaches of the fourth tier will not set the tills ringing for season ticket renewals, lanyard or not. But our costbase should be lower next term and so a smaller number of ST holders may well just about balance the books.

It's a hard road ahead, but one day, perhaps, we will be good enough for a Jimmy Abdou to sign for again.

That's worth holding on for.

Utter rubbish.I switched off at the "history told us" bit.If you'd researched your history properly,then history would have told you that at one time Aryle were getting bigger gates than Southampton,Ipswich,Norwich,Coventry in times way gone by and Swansea,Cardiff,Blackpool and Burnley in more recent times.A travesty of a post from an allegedly respected supporter.Tub thumping,establishment bullshit.

Well said Greenskin............... for the 100th time ffs !!!!!!
ps Some of us only had to see Abdou play a couple of times to recognise his worth to a team.

Greenskin wrote:

BTW,something else factual about Millwall.They've just moved into 5th place in the championship.Average gate last season 11484.Lower than our average gate in the first 4 seasons of our last stay in the championship.

Well said that man AGAIN !!!!
You'd think they'd listen by now

Czarcasm wrote:

Firstly, it seems a bit wierd penning a piece like that, then posting it both here and over at HQ Pyongyang.

It was bound to get two different reactions, but maybe that was the intention...

As far as JL's take on things that the course we're on "is still a safe one". Well, all that does is demonstrate to me that having intellect doesn't necessarily equate to being able to grasp the blindingly obvious.

Hear ! hear !

Johl Lloyd wrote..........

I'm more than aware of the relative attendances of the club in our history - I'm proof reading Steve Rhodes's next book on the 1960's team, so I know full well what the City has generated in the past. I'm focusing on that 2006-08 period, when we were already beginning to lose money on attendances versus wages. It told the board that we couldn't continue to keep that squad together when they started asking for wages commensurate with a top six side, while the attendances were sliding.


Did you also tell them what I was screaming on Pasoti ?
ie To show that they were fans, not greedy wannabes, by promoting the club's potential and selling cheaply to someone with the cash needed to make a difference ? Some cash backed ambition would have filled Home Park in a play off run under Holloway.
They wanted to keep their fingers in the pie, as was eventually shown by the massaging of the figures,through selling players, the conning of the Japs and then by bringing in the Big Time Charlies.
Unless he was telling lies, Peter Jones told me that Stapes had promised Holloway he'd seek investment in the autumn of 2007, to 'go for it'. When Holloway found out he'd done nothing, the game was up.

Greed, nothing more nothing less.

Now we have a disinterested owner looking to make a few bob out of asset stripping the club. He has further compounded the mess by listening to and rewarding self promoting dimwits. This in turn has fostered the bucket rattling superfan culture, with many lying and cheating to get the position and recognition they crave. Nauseating. Truly nauseating.................... and yet it will still be the fault of the stay away janners.

ps we'll soon have more superfans and various committee members than actual supporters

If Argyle ever get a crowd of 10,000 again it'll be 6,000 more than the club deserves.

shonbo wrote:

I agree with Iggy (not sure about Jamie Cureton tho')

My point is that to get out of this league we need quality not quantity, Cureton has banged in 15 goals for city this season and was bought with a lower budget than ours and a lower gate sustains his wages, players like that shouldn't be out of our reach. I seriously think that Brent has capped the wages we can pay a player but not the size of the squad, it baffles me.

punchdrunk wrote:

I see on Pasoti the lobotomized masses are in agreement with Goebe...cough Lloyd

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Aviva till the end

I think the fans that use ATD seem to be far more passionate and not so understanding of the acceptance that we will always be a small minded unsuccessful club.

Tringreen wrote:

ps we'll soon have more superfans and various committee members than actual supporters

Forgive me for a little bit of selective quoting, but this throw away line really stood out.

I always look at Abdou - Millwall and Sinclair - Swansea, combined with Holloway - Blackpool in utter despair.

You can only blame poor management at Home Park from the top for the relative successes of us and each of these.

SirCumfrance wrote:

Tringreen wrote:

ps we'll soon have more superfans and various committee members than actual supporters

Forgive me for a little bit of selective quoting, but this throw away line really stood out.

Ha ha ! It's often the most 'obvious' of situations that escape notice.

Is it a westcountry mentality thing, or is there really, something in the water ?

FWIW I would have held onto Abdou I always rated him.

I see that Fallon is giving the usual promises and commenting of how much he loves Aberdeen following his two year lay off....he's after a new contract now!