What a team

That team would not have got us promoted, lets not fool ourselves into thinking it was an all conquering argyle side.
I recall a few games where we flattered to desieve Banrsley away for sake of argument we only started playing when 3 down ! holloways teams always have a good run then go on a dire run.

Doumbe & Hayles were weak areas in that side.


Now if we'de gone and spent some cash...................that would be a different matter.

Sensiblegreeny wrote:

I agree it's expensive for little in return Iggy but I still don't see where you would get all these extra people to go for less cost to get in.     Are you seriously telling me that another 6000 people would go if it was £10?     There is absolutely no evidence to suggest they would in this league.     The only time we have ever gotten those sorts of numbers were when the club was on a run and looking like being promoted.     Any other time and numbers have often been less than now.     People turn out for very important matches and then don't for the next one and that's the sort of support history we have.    

Every club without a history and with no obvious ambition has been the same. Take a look at the record books, it's not a situation particular to Argyle . With Hull now cementing their fanbase in the top flight and in an appropriate stadium, Plymouth is the largest city club never to have been there and followed suit.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Yea Man wrote:

I guess the novelty of playing the big teams wore off for some, but you also have to take into account that the cost of attending a football match was starting to become too much for some.

People were probably more willing to attend during the championship years as you were guranteed to see a decent team.  Once we started falling down the leagues people stopped coming because a lot of people can't see the logic in paying £24 to watch a league one/two match when we were paying around the same to watch a Championship match.

Some people can still afford to attend and good for them but a lot of people no longer can justify spending the money on watching two poor quality teams.

If the ticket prices were reduced then the attendances would grow.

I completely disagree.

If you half prices then you have to double attendances. That would have needed a 26000 seat stadium back then. Impossible. Price is not that important a factor when it comes to watching a successful team and often nothing more than a handy excuse for not watching a crap one.

More didn't come because or a variety of reasons not the least of which is that they couldn't because Home Park was too feckin small to get them in on the big occasions that came along.

Consider the 3000 seats set aside for away fans; were they full every week? No. Then factor in ticketing arrangements. The vast majority of our seats were occupied by season ticket holders who had nabbed the prime locations: covered seats near the halfway line and behind the goal. What remained were mostly at the front (in the rain), on the Mayflower (in the rain) or scattered hither and thither (and often in the rain). If you weren't a committed fan and you turned up to be separated from your friends, get soaked in the rain and then had to watch a Godawful boring but functional 0-0 performance by Pulis's binary hoof merchants while it all happened would you go back? Many didn't and the scars left by the Pulis Approach, even if it was successful after a fashion, run very deep.

The problem is that we all see the experience through our own eyes and it is all evaluated by in the light of own personal experiences. The quality judgements made by us as long-term Argyle fans are hugely different to those made by the casual attendee who largely expects to be sat with friends and family, be entertained and stay dry and comfortable while it happens. And if you don't supply that they find somewhere else, the cinema or theatre or something, to go.

Sorry,that just isn't true.The last 4 gates of the Pulis season were as follows;

13494
15871
13486
15921

The first 4 gates in the first Holloway season were;

15964
14507
12138
11665

They actually started slumping after the first two matches of the Holloway era,which would hardly suggest that a Pulis hangover was responsible.And the last two matches before Pulis took over attracted gates of 10460 and 11829,so it would appear to be rather an unfair attribution in laying blame at his door.And anyway,surely the predominant feeling [if indeed the football was as indigestible as you suggest] would have been one of relief and joy,accompanied by an attitude of "lets give the new bloke a chance"? In his second spell at Stoke,gates increased from 16800 in first season to 26800 in his last,which demonstrates what the vast majority of people really will pay for when the choice is between functional football which gets results and other styles which don't.

There's a lot of old ooey talked about how wonderful and entertaining a side Hollloway's team was. What I remember from that time is lots of grumbling about us hoofing it long up to Hayles and SEB all the time and with them being not the tallest we rarely won a header and then lost possession. I don't recall any outstanding Home Park performances at all. That said we were a very good away side and a 1-0 win at Palace was about as good a performance as I ever saw from us away from home even if the score doesn't sound much like it.

What I suggest those attendance figures listed above show is a huge tailing off in season ticket sales following the Pulis season. People came back a few times to see if it was better and more entertaining. It wasn't. And they stayed away as a result.

The good years.. #sighs#

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

By the way that great team had Gary Sawyer at left back and 2 players, Hayles and Nalis, who didn't have much left in the tank.

They were the three that would have needed replacing. How much money would a top level CCC striker, central midfielder and left back have cost?

Hayles and Nalis may have been old, but they were fantastic senior players. Not much left in the tank but they were evidently important cogs in a top half side.

Sawyer was the weakest link in the side, but he had a solid aerial game, was difficult to beat and made up for his lack of attacking prowess with defending.

If we had got to the end of that season with the team still in tact, we could have had Premiership millions to replace those players with. Moving into December 2007, we were sat 4th in the table in the Championship.

The likes of Kevin Gallen came in and could have replaced Hayles without much expenditure. Sawyer could have been easily replaced, with Dickson if not anyone else. Nalis slightly more difficult but it wasn't the end of the world.

Norris, Halmosi, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake. Those were the difficult ones to replace, the ones that cost us. The sales that were made at Boardroom level that Ian Holloway evidently could not tolerate - and to be fair, me neither.

Elias wrote:

That team would not have got us promoted, lets not fool ourselves into thinking it was an all conquering argyle side.
I recall a few games where we flattered to desieve Banrsley away for sake of argument we only started playing when 3 down ! holloways teams always have a good run then go on a dire run.

Doumbe & Hayles were weak areas in that side.


Now if we'de gone and spent some cash...................that would be a different matter.

Timar came in and McCormick featured strongly in that dominant side.

From memory

------------------McCormick

Connolly -- Timar -- Seip -- Sawyer

Norris -- Buzsaky -- Nalis -- Halmosi

----------SEB ---------- Hayles


That was our strongest side.

However I am not sure if this was ever fielded as a team, due to injuries, suspensions etc.

We also had Larrieu, Lee Hodges, Jimmy Abdou, Dan Gosling, Mathias Doumbe, Rory Fallon, Jermaine Easter and Kevin Gallen drifting in and out of the side.

I genuinely think a play-off place beckoned if we'd have kept that side in tact, and after that it becomes a lottery.

A lottery that Burnley, Blackpool Swansea, Watford and Palace have won in recent years, smaller or similar sized clubs to us.

So how much would it have cost the club to keep them?

Those 3 all were all sold to their new clubs for biggish transfer fees and would have secured a huge increase in salary too.

If I guess that they were collectively on £10k* per week here and £50k* per week when they moved on then it would have cost the club an extra £2m* per year just to keep them and the side would not have been strengthened one bit. Factor in the approximate £8m* we got for selling them and that's a £10m* investment right there. Or one year's worth of turnover. For three players. Which is a lot of money for a club already running at a loss.

I would have preferred those players to stay. I was as dismayed as anybody when they all left. I'd've loved to see that side stay together. I'd've loved to see how that season panned out. I'm sure that we all would.

But how much hard cash was required for it to happen and to see the side strengthened? A minimum of £10m* that's for sure and nobody anywhere was even hinting at threatening to stump up that sort of money.

Why not? Because the stake was too big and the outcome too uncertain to justify it.





*All figures pure guesswork and chosen for indicative purposes but they won't be that far out.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

So how much would it have cost the club to keep them?

Those 3 all were all sold to their new clubs for biggish transfer fees and would have secured a huge increase in salary too.

If I guess that they were collectively on £10k* per week here and £50k* per week when they moved on then it would have cost the club an extra £2m* per year just to keep them and the side would not have been strengthened one bit. Factor in the approximate £8m* we got for selling them and that's a £10m* investment right there. Or one year's worth of turnover. For three players. Which is a lot of money for a club already running at a loss.

I would have preferred those players to stay. I was as dismayed as anybody when they all left. I'd've loved to see that side stay together. I'd've loved to see how that season panned out. I'm sure that we all would.

But how much hard cash was required for it to happen and to see the side strengthened? A minimum of £10m* that's for sure and nobody anywhere was even hinting at threatening to stump up that sort of money.

Why not? Because the stake was too big and the outcome too uncertain to justify it.



*All figures pure guesswork and chosen for indicative purposes but they won't be that far out.

Your figures are meaningless because the period required to keep those contracted players was a maximum of 5 months,not 1 year-there would have been no need to pay the 40k per week [which is probably a gross exaggeration anyway] extra to those players as suggested above.Just face up to the truth.It was a disastrous decision taken by a discredited board of directors,either through faint heartedness or potential personal gain,depending on how cynical your point of view may be,from which the club has never recovered.And the deeper truth is that it's always been the same and always will be while a group of under funded local professional/businessmen are in charge of the club.I've no idea how long you've been a supporter but, as i think i stated yesterday,during my time Argyle have fecked up 4 different situations of promise and with each passing one,the sickening sinking feeling of what comes next becomes ever more of an inevitability.It's like fecking Groundhog day.

Going by my figures it would have cost the club £10m without them coming in at all (and I have already explained where the figures, guessed as they are, have come from).

Freathy wrote:

Best team we ever had.  What a midfield! It had everything - creativity and flair in spades, skill, distribution, pace, and the ability to shoot from 35 yards!    That team would have taken us to the Prem absolutely no doubt about it - but staplewallet had other ideas. And now we're bottom of L2 with superfans.

You were still a misery guts back then, though!  

think youll find we offered ebanks more than wolves did and he still joined them.

the players knew that better players WERENT going to be bought and left.  

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

So how much would it have cost the club to keep them?

Those 3 all were all sold to their new clubs for biggish transfer fees and would have secured a huge increase in salary too.

If I guess that they were collectively on £10k* per week here and £50k* per week when they moved on then it would have cost the club an extra £2m* per year just to keep them and the side would not have been strengthened one bit. Factor in the approximate £8m* we got for selling them and that's a £10m* investment right there. Or one year's worth of turnover. For three players. Which is a lot of money for a club already running at a loss.

I would have preferred those players to stay. I was as dismayed as anybody when they all left. I'd've loved to see that side stay together. I'd've loved to see how that season panned out. I'm sure that we all would.

But how much hard cash was required for it to happen and to see the side strengthened? A minimum of £10m* that's for sure and nobody anywhere was even hinting at threatening to stump up that sort of money.

Why not? Because the stake was too big and the outcome too uncertain to justify it.





*All figures pure guesswork and chosen for indicative purposes but they won't be that far out.

#

There is all assuming that Argyle paid SEB what Wolves ended up paying him, what Ipswich ended up paying Norris, what Everton paid Gosling, what Hull paid Halmosi and QPR paid Buzsaky.

I have no doubt whatsoever such a policy would have crippled the club financially.

However none of these players were publically unhappy at Argyle. None handed in a transfer request. The club was not obliged to do that, so that is a strange hypothetical scenario that didn't need to happen.

All the club had to do was reject the offers and keep the status quo. If the players became unhappy do what Fergie did with Ronaldo - 1 more season and you can go. 1 more season to achieve the unthinkable with this team.

Ebanks Blake was slightly different. A £1.5m release clause meant he was ripe for the plucking. However - £1,500,000 is good money to find a replacement, with a bank of players in the lower leagues, the Prem adolescents and places like Hungary to scout.  

The policy to sell Norris, Gosling, SEB and Hayles that window was far too much of a burden. 3 cast iron first teamers, and a much involved 4th player who was getting better and better. These deals were all concluded within two months of Holloway leaving.

The selling of Peter Halmosi, Nalis leaving, the injury to Timar, the loss of Paul Connolly, the loss of Abdou, the Luke McCormick crash - all decisions and events that occurred from February 2008 - October 2008.  

This means that within 12 months of Ian Holloway leaving, and describing his position at Argyle as untenable, we had lost: Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, David Norris, Peter Halmosi, Dan Gosling, Barry Hayles, Lilian Nalis, Paul Connolly, Jimmy Abdou, Luke McCormick - and Kristian Timar was out with a serious skull injury.

So let's look at the dominant side of 2007-08 form the position of Christmas 2008.

----------------------McCormick--------------------------

Connolly ----- Timar ----- Seip -----Sawyer


Norris ----- Buzsaky ----- Nalis ----- Halmosi

------- Ebanks-Blake -------- Hayles


Larrieu, Doumbe, Abdou, Gosling, Fallon, Easter


To say that team was comprehensively gutted and destroyed is an understatement. Within 12 months, all those seasons working up had been undone. All Holloway's personal squad building was history.

And of what was left, Seip was banished due to personal issues with the manager - and the only one left was a left back who was clearly the weakest member of the team in the first place.

Incredibly saddening times, looking back. All that potential and we squandered it. The Stapleton Board chose to sell the players, spruce up the financial accounts and try to offload their shares in the club - leaving a total mess on the pitch behind them.

I agree with much of that.

I don't think it was as easy to keep some of them as you suggest though and if we had been able to force them into honouring their contracts is a pressed man ever as good as a volunteer? Could we have denied Gosling the move to PL Everton, or Halmosi to PL-bound Hull? We did keep Norris as long as we could and forced him to stay to the point of him striking to get the move he had been offered.

SEB's contract meant that there was nothing to be done to stop him once Wolves put their bid in and I find it hard to believe that we offered him a better wage than Wolves did.

But years of work turned into dust inside 12 months? Certainly.

And I still contend it would have cost £10m or so to keep the team together and even more to add to it.

I was shouting on the farm from the minute we were promoted that the board, who claimed to be running the club, 'by fans, for fans', should have been marketing and looking to sell the club at a reasonable price to someone with enough cash backed ambition to make a difference. 16k plus average crowds were enough to show the potential of a club with no top flight history and a huge catchment area.
The Stapleton board got greedy and wanted to cash in on their tiny investment. They didn't want to let go.They got lucky with Pulis clearing out the deadwood and making us hard to beat. It was painful but effective and Holloway then added the gloss. They both knew the board was outclassed at that level. Had we been a Norwich or Southampton, clubs with a history, the 20k would have turned up but we're not. They blamed dwindling attendances but as anyone knows, clubs with no top flight history are all the same and the punters won't come unless they feel something big is happening once the novelty of the 2nd tier has worn off. We are not unique in that.

Love

The one trick pony.

ejh wrote:

Elias wrote:

That team would not have got us promoted, lets not fool ourselves into thinking it was an all conquering argyle side.
I recall a few games where we flattered to desieve Banrsley away for sake of argument we only started playing when 3 down ! holloways teams always have a good run then go on a dire run.

Doumbe & Hayles were weak areas in that side.


Now if we'de gone and spent some cash...................that would be a different matter.

Timar came in and McCormick featured strongly in that dominant side.

From memory

------------------McCormick

Connolly -- Timar -- Seip -- Sawyer

Norris -- Buzsaky -- Nalis -- Halmosi

----------SEB ---------- Hayles


That was our strongest side.

However I am not sure if this was ever fielded as a team, due to injuries, suspensions etc.

We also had Larrieu, Lee Hodges, Jimmy Abdou, Dan Gosling, Mathias Doumbe, Rory Fallon, Jermaine Easter and Kevin Gallen drifting in and out of the side.

I genuinely think a play-off place beckoned if we'd have kept that side in tact, and after that it becomes a lottery.

A lottery that Burnley, Blackpool Swansea, Watford and Palace have won in recent years, smaller or similar sized clubs to us.

replaced by:


Stack


Doumbe Seip Cathcart Barker

Clark Summerfield Duguid mackie

Fallon Gallagher

On taking over the club brent had been told by those close to him, that Argyle could self sustain back to the Championship. Without the added burden of debts that much is true, once the right manager is found. He added that he'd then pass on the baton to someone better equipped to provide the extra investment necessary to go for the Premier League.

Whether he was sincere or not is open to conjecture but the principle sounds fine. If the stadium were as with the Trust WG proposal and the club was not saddled with too much debt, it would be an attractive proposition to the right people and if the price was right.
Sadly, greed and football naivety always seems to get in the way with Argyle.

Elias wrote:

replaced by:


                     Stack


Doumbe      Seip        Cathcart     Barker

Clark            Summerfield Duguid  mackie
 
              Fallon    Gallagher

I feel sick. And it was Jim Patterson at Left Mid to begin with, only £300k. Steve Maclean £500k, Walton £750k, Folly £200k, Gow £200k.

Bradley Wright Phillips £10k a week, Emile Mpenza £10k a week. Arnason, Fletcher, Damien Johnson on god knows how much.

All those shite loans, Richard Eckersley and the like, David Gray, David Button, Alan Judge, Kenny Cooper, Darcy Blake, Shane Lowry - in and out through revolving doors.

These guys wouldn't have made it onto Holloway's bench. These were the replacements, the signings that put us into administration.

A horrific downward spiral.

up until may 2008 the team has 'personality' since then its been a revolving door.
david button wasnt that bad, david gray a solid player 1st time around like judge.

lowry should have been on a season long loan.

damien johnson was a desperately bad choice, way too much money fee 330k and wages 500k a year 2 1/2 year deal    

fletcher cost a bomb too !