Tradition

Tradition is pretty important to us football fans, isn't it?

From our little corner of Footballworld we passionately support our team but what is it that we are actually supporting?

Argyle, like most of the other clubs, was formed a long time ago to provide an outlet for our talented performers to display and test that talent against others. Along the way it also provided an entertainment spectacle for the locals to watch that talent get tested.

To that end various norms were adopted: team name; colours, location and so on. It is those that we have come to support.

But where are we now? The team is mainly composed of imports from elsewhere with a scant smattering of local talent. The backbone of the team is now provided by old sweats from anywhere we can get them who, on arrival at least, have the barest inkling of club history and no affinity for the city beyond it. Argyle, to them, is just a career move, another step on the ladder whereas to us it is far, far more than that.

For our part Argyle has gone through many evolutions. Owners, managers, players all come and go with few of them leaving any lasting impression. The club itself has changed the kit we wear many, many times: we've had predominantly green, predominantly white, stripes (both green & white and green & black), we've had green with whites sleeves and green with a band across the chest and that's just in my memory. Before that we had halved shirts, black with green trim, green with black trim.

Even the shade of green has shifted as we have gone along. There's what I used to refer to as Argyle green, a much brighter version hidden between black stripes, a very dark green, a lighter very dark green and various other shades too.

We've had white shorts, black shorts and green shorts; green or white socks (I don't recall any black ones but I wouldn't be surprised...). The club badge on the shirt has even been changed with incredible regularity and I've not even considered the myriad of away kit options: white, yellow, champagne (!), light blue, dark blue, orange, black... There's probably others.

If there is one thing, easily achievable, that I would like to see the club do it is settle upon the very basic things that label us as Argyle: shade of green, kit design, change colours and badge design.

There's been so much change over the years that there is no tradition in any meaningful sense to go back to so why not start again?

Argyle could easily petition its season ticket holders and the affiliated supporter groups could easily petition their members so let's settle on a shade of green - and stick to it. Let's set up a competition to design a new badge - and then stick to it. Let us settle on a kit template for both home and away kits and stick to it. Let's settle on change colours and stick with them.

It wouldn't be hard to achieve. It wouldn't cost much to find out. It would engage supporters and help us to feel that it is our club still/again*.

It would not win us a single point or score us a single goal. It would have as much effect on our future results as last month's horoscopes did but for all of that it is important because it goes to the heart of what it means to be a football club.

And after that we could set about using Argyle as a platform for more local talented players to perform on but that is much harder, but no less desirable, to achieve.

We should not ever lose sight of why Argyle was formed to start with or why we all decided to pin our colours to the club's mast. Settling once and for all on some core identifiers would be a reminder to us all of what it is all, really, about.




*Delete as appropriate

Wholeheartedly agree SFD, great post.

SFD, too much common sense and too many simple, basic ideas that would benefit the club, fans and the general situation we (PAFC) is at this moment in time.

You're banned.

That kit we wore to Wembley was pretty awful and had nothing to do with Argyle tradition or history. However it will be forever in my memory as "the kit we wore when we won our one and only game at Wembley".
Maybe I'm getting old but I gave up worrying about football kits when I was 14. A football kit is just something else to blame how 5hit the team is, "god that shirt with the wrong shade of green is a curse" (forgetting the fact that we won at Wembley in an absolute shocker of a shirt.

It would be a pretty drab world, if like Man City, our kit never changed much from year to year and fair enough the club get it wrong, but it ain't so bad really. Is it?

Different people have different ideas as to "what it's all about"-would the 12000 extra fans that Reading have picked up over the past 10 years or so really care much if they were once called the Biscuitmen or have heard of Kerry Dixon? Would there also not be an argument that a football club has a responsibility to their paying public for putting out the best possible team on the pitch, notwithstanding where the players came from? Personally I couldn't really care about whether the team is composed of local players or not-much rather watch Paul Mariner, Tommy Tynan or Ebanks Blake than Owen Pickard or Paul Adcock, no disrespect to them. Not saying that Argyle shouldn't maximise the playing potential of Plymouth and the surrounds of course-some very good players have been local boys, in my time Trebilcock, Piper, Reynolds, Foster, Harrison, Evans, Wotton etc have had pretty distinguished careers but that in itself has not been enough to get the club to the heights that many of us feel should have been achieved. We dipped out on the best one in Trevor Francis and indeed it seems to have got increasingly more difficult in recent years to keep the best local players from the bigger clubs even before they are near first team selection, as the cases of Gallagher, Jones etc would suggest. An area which would need much debate before becoming a pillar of club policy IMHO.

Fully agree about the more peripheral aspects of club tradition though.

i hate stripes and black shorts n white socks far too ugly

Tradition tends to be more important to older people and the older you get the more important it becomes. Your average 10 or 12 year old going to their first game probably couldn't give a feck what shirt we played in 30 years ago.

The things that I most identify with and cherish about Argyle are Semper Fidelis, The ship of the Pilgrim Fathers on the badge and the green, white and black team colours.

It may sound strange but my most vivid Argyle memory after many hundreds of games home and away is the incredible smell that used to pervade the Demport and Lyndy in days of yore, a mixture of smoke, pasties, bovril, beer and the closer you got to the toilets, piss............magnificent.

Sure beats things like the arsenal walking out for an FA Cup Final with just one (I think) English player....

The ever changing kit/ coloiurs thing is purely money/income driven.

Football has changed and money is king. No longer can a club 'do a Wimbledon', unless they have a very wealthy owner.

Everything, including loyalty, integrity and honesty can be bought and sold. I'm really rather out of love with the game and Argyle in particular.

It is easier to feel that way from a distance, I guess.

ps still enjoy a few pints, a pork chop and PL on the big screens...................but can take it or leave it. Just as happy with a decent rugby game these days. They are now facing the same financial challenges but at least the referees are still in charge and players don't feign injury................well, not often.

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as it seems fitting to the thread theme, cardiff fans have won their battle with vincent tan and will revert back to their traditional colours of Blue, nickname of Bluebirds and will have a new club badge which the bluebird will feature heavily along with vincent tans input.

good to see it

I don't object to us signing players from Timbuctoo if we want to. I just would prefer them to be the icing on the cake rather than the spine of the team.

Argyle primarily represents Plymouth but there's also a powerful Cornish connection and beyond that across south and west Devon - even north Devon. This is as it should be. Argyle represents not just the city but the wider region.

And I'm happy to acclaim players like Mariner, Tynan, Larrieu, Friio etc who were wonderful for us and there'll always be players like McCormick or Nelson who are kind of adopted locals. That's fine too.

But Argyle should be finding, developing and playing local lads not as a last resort but as a preferred option. There's no reason not to and it wouldn't take very many players to move on for a decent fee, like Dan Gosling did, for it to be financially viable but that's all long term planning and, I admit, difficult to achieve.

As for the rest I really don't object too much to whatever the choice made might be. I was disappointed when we moved to dark green and I was disappointed when we moved away from it. I guess fundamentally I'm not that keen on changing such things but looking back we have tried so many different things all seemingly on some sort of whim: we've even had one white sleeve and one green, the Wembley abomination and green & green (!) stripes...

Maybe we should incorporate them all? One white sleeve, a band across the chest, stripes on the back...

I look at teams like the Roverses of Bristol and Blackburn and their distinctive kits with a little envy and my heart leaps a little at the news that Cardiff are blue again and that the bluebird is back on their badge despite having no affection for any of the three whatsoever and having a simple kit template has never stopped Newcastle from selling their shirts; it wouldn't stop us either.

But I'm easy. I'd go with the flow. I guess that we all feel most kindly towards the kit we saw first so for me that's green shirts with white sleeves like a green Arsenal but I was also rather keen on the Kemp-era green and white stripes or going back into the depths of time green and black halves which was where we started - and you can't get more traditional than that!

They're all here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Here's my 1-2-3:

1. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
2. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
3. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] or [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The away kit should be: [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

looking at that link it looks like the green has hardly changed at all until that honking 2001 strip came in.
Said it before and say it again, it's too dark, under floodlight you could forgive a commentator for thinking we were playing in black and white.

Love to know why they founders chose a gopping colour like green to have the club play in

AstiSpumante wrote:

Tradition tends to be more important to older people and the older you get the more important it becomes. Your average 10 or 12 year old going to their first game probably couldn't give a feck what shirt we played in 30 years ago.

The things that I most identify with and cherish about Argyle are Semper Fidelis, The ship of the Pilgrim Fathers on the badge and the green, white and black team colours.

It may sound strange but my most vivid Argyle memory after many hundreds of games home and away is the incredible smell that used to pervade the Demport and Lyndy in days of yore, a mixture of smoke, pasties, bovril, beer and the closer you got to the toilets, piss............magnificent.

Similar to my thoughts. Always remember Semper blaring out whilst the players were announced- I now get into Home Park about 2 mins before kick off (pub time) so don't know if its played anymore (I know that god awful electric guitar version gets played at start of second half)?

I remember the smells, the incline going up to the Lyndhurst and sitting on the bar that ran along the front of the Lyndhurst (and Demport) behind the fencing.

Chemical Ali wrote:

AstiSpumante wrote:

Tradition tends to be more important to older people and the older you get the more important it becomes. Your average 10 or 12 year old going to their first game probably couldn't give a feck what shirt we played in 30 years ago.

The things that I most identify with and cherish about Argyle are Semper Fidelis, The ship of the Pilgrim Fathers on the badge and the green, white and black team colours.

It may sound strange but my most vivid Argyle memory after many hundreds of games home and away is the incredible smell that used to pervade the Demport and Lyndy in days of yore, a mixture of smoke, pasties, bovril, beer and the closer you got to the toilets, piss............magnificent.

Similar to my thoughts. Always remember Semper blaring out whilst the players were announced- I now get into Home Park about 2 mins before kick off (pub time) so don't know if its played anymore (I know that god awful electric guitar version gets played at start of second half)?

I remember the smells, the incline going up to the Lyndhurst and sitting on the bar that ran along the front of the Lyndhurst (and Demport) behind the fencing.

It is-about half of it anyway, then the PA man starts announcing the teams. Some say that Semper should be replaced with a more modern effort but not for me-I love it, as much a part of Argyle as green shirts and would support any resistance to changing it.

Chemical Ali wrote:

AstiSpumante wrote:

Tradition tends to be more important to older people and the older you get the more important it becomes. Your average 10 or 12 year old going to their first game probably couldn't give a feck what shirt we played in 30 years ago.

The things that I most identify with and cherish about Argyle are Semper Fidelis, The ship of the Pilgrim Fathers on the badge and the green, white and black team colours.

It may sound strange but my most vivid Argyle memory after many hundreds of games home and away is the incredible smell that used to pervade the Demport and Lyndy in days of yore, a mixture of smoke, pasties, bovril, beer and the closer you got to the toilets, piss............magnificent.

Similar to my thoughts. Always remember Semper blaring out whilst the players were announced- I now get into Home Park about 2 mins before kick off (pub time) so don't know if its played anymore (I know that god awful electric guitar version gets played at start of second half)?

I remember the smells, the incline going up to the Lyndhurst and sitting on the bar that ran along the front of the Lyndhurst (and Demport) behind the fencing.

Me too, the urinal at the Demport end of the mayflower, used to stand at the front by the railings, not that I miss the smell,my old man took me to a big match for my first game (fecked if I can remember who we played sadly but I was young) and I got passed over the top so I stand at the front, loved it from the off. That's the biggest loss to Argyle these days the antiseptic atmosphere, sterility apart from a few little oasis of energy. When everybody in the ground was singing there's nothing like it, the banter in the crowd, proper good day out. Shuffling in and out nowadays is plain dull.

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I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but the strip above is about my favourite over the years.

Chemical Ali wrote:

AstiSpumante wrote:

Tradition tends to be more important to older people and the older you get the more important it becomes. Your average 10 or 12 year old going to their first game probably couldn't give a feck what shirt we played in 30 years ago.

The things that I most identify with and cherish about Argyle are Semper Fidelis, The ship of the Pilgrim Fathers on the badge and the green, white and black team colours.

It may sound strange but my most vivid Argyle memory after many hundreds of games home and away is the incredible smell that used to pervade the Demport and Lyndy in days of yore, a mixture of smoke, pasties, bovril, beer and the closer you got to the toilets, piss............magnificent.

Similar to my thoughts. Always remember Semper blaring out whilst the players were announced- I now get into Home Park about 2 mins before kick off (pub time) so don't know if its played anymore (I know that god awful electric guitar version gets played at start of second half)?

I remember the smells, the incline going up to the Lyndhurst and sitting on the bar that ran along the front of the Lyndhurst (and Demport) behind the fencing.

On a calm day you can still smell the rotting bullshit from the directors box

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

I don't object to us signing players from Timbuctoo if we want to. I just would prefer them to be the icing on the cake rather than the spine of the team.

Argyle primarily represents Plymouth but there's also a powerful Cornish connection and beyond that across south and west Devon - even north Devon. This is as it should be. Argyle represents not just the city but the wider region.

And I'm happy to acclaim players like Mariner, Tynan, Larrieu, Friio etc who were wonderful for us and there'll always be players like McCormick or Nelson who are kind of adopted locals. That's fine too.

But Argyle should be finding, developing and playing local lads not as a last resort but as a preferred option. There's no reason not to and it wouldn't take very many players to move on for a decent fee, like Dan Gosling did, for it to be financially viable but that's all long term planning and, I admit, difficult to achieve.

As for the rest I really don't object too much to whatever the choice made might be. I was disappointed when we moved to dark green and I was disappointed when we moved away from it. I guess fundamentally I'm not that keen on changing such things but looking back we have tried so many different things all seemingly on some sort of whim: we've even had one white sleeve and one green, the Wembley abomination and green & green (!) stripes...

Maybe we should incorporate them all? One white sleeve, a band across the chest, stripes on the back...

I look at teams like the Roverses of Bristol and Blackburn and their distinctive kits with a little envy and my heart leaps a little at the news that Cardiff are blue again and that the bluebird is back on their badge despite having no affection for any of the three whatsoever and having a simple kit template has never stopped Newcastle from selling their shirts; it wouldn't stop us either.

But I'm easy. I'd go with the flow. I guess that we all feel most kindly towards the kit we saw first so for me that's green shirts with white sleeves like a green Arsenal but I was also rather keen on the Kemp-era green and white stripes or going back into the depths of time green and black halves which was where we started - and you can't get more traditional than that!

They're all here: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Here's my 1-2-3:

1. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
2. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
3. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] or [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The away kit should be: [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Dunno where the pics have gone... They were there!

They all look the same to me!

mouldyoldgoat wrote:

They all look the same to me!

They all look has cross has each other.

Wot th fok do tht mn?

I wish we could play more Cornish and Devon young players. Unfortunately the rich Premier League clubs can now cherry-pick the most promising teenagers, and local kids who don't immediately play like Lionel Messi get abused (just to pick one example from recent history, remember the constant moaning that Luke Summerfield had to put up with). It's a results-driven business; if a manager picks a team full of promising young players who don't click straight away, he'll get sacked and replaced with someone who brings in experience.

Ultimately the players we as fans identify with are those who give everything for the team. Just because (say) Peter Hartley has no particular connection with the city of Plymouth or the surrounding area, that doesn't mean he can't be proud to represent it.

A team should be a mixture of youth and experience. Large and nippy, local and imported. Used to be that you had to have at least one Scot and a ginger headed player.

Cornish Chris wrote:

I wish we could play more Cornish and Devon young players. Unfortunately the rich Premier League clubs can now cherry-pick the most promising teenagers, and local kids who don't immediately play like Lionel Messi get abused (just to pick one example from recent history, remember the constant moaning that Luke Summerfield had to put up with). It's a results-driven business; if a manager picks a team full of promising young players who don't click straight away, he'll get sacked and replaced with someone who brings in experience.

Ultimately the players we as fans identify with are those who give everything for the team. Just because (say) Peter Hartley has no particular connection with the city of Plymouth or the surrounding area, that doesn't mean he can't be proud to represent it.

I thought the frustration wasn't with Summers himself, but the fact that between the board and the manager we were in a situation where we were playing him at a level two leagues above his ability.