Tradition

Mock Cuncher wrote:

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.

and he was a total bellend aswell.

Good thread, a subject close to my heart. My two-penneth (OK, £4.60th )....

Certain things should remain unchanged at a club and largely, compared to other clubs, Argyle is relatively unchanged. The badge goes back a long way, so too the primary colours, and although we started as Argyle Athletic Club it went very quickly and we've always been in the same place. Compare that to Woolwich Arsenal, Manchester United's original colours and the number of badge changes at Leeds to name but three. Argyle have largely stuck to tradition.

Given we've had the name, the badge, the colour green, Semper for so long these things, for me, have maybe been with us too long to change now. They have become our identity.

To have a debate however where everything is up for discussion wouldn't be a bad thing, so long as it was with the intention of making a clear commitment to stick to what was agreed for, say, 10-20 years. I reckon the upshot would be pretty much what we had now though......

Name. I don't think there'd be much call to be anything but Plymouth Argyle. We couldn't very well geographically change our name to anything but Plymouth and being the only Argyle in football makes us very identifiable.

Colours. Green, black and white. After the colours of the city crest I guess Angry. But what would we change to? That'd stay the same i'm sure.

Shade of colour. Needs sorting, and bleddy well sticking to. I like the dark green, since we switched Yeovil have come on the scene and we're no longer the only green team. Theirs is light, ours is dark, again it helps us with a bit of uniqueness. I do however accept it's not universally popular and as a fair individual who respects democracy, if more people wanted a lighter shade, so be it. A commitment to the vivid green (almost electric green if there's such a thing?) of the Tynan Umbro era might yet make us distinct so long as we used it boldly. Which brings me onto......

Kit design. As Tring observed it's a commercial world and identity/tradition doesn't seem to hold much water these days because continuity doesn't sell. If a discussion were to be had for us to stick to a basic kit template (solid, stripes, quarters, Hibs style etc.) then it's got to be for a set period and a long one at that. Within any agreed template seasonal 'tweeks' are still possible to appease the commercial pressures (trim, pinstripes, collars etc.). It might work. Thing is if we choose a bold green we have to use it, it's no good going for vivid green then only using it sparingly. It's why I so detest the choice of kit for next season. If (and I accept opinion is divided) dark green is our unique 'brand' (and I don't like that word either) then why dilute it to the extent that it's the third color (square inch for square inch) on the kit? It makes no sense. So if the consensus is a vivid green, it has to be full green or 'Hibs' shirts surely.

Badge. I don't imagine a great clamour for change, but I wouldn't be adverse to reinstating our original badge, the city arms. It nods to a history far longer than Argyle's and certainly roots us in our setting more firmly than a ship that came into port for repairs en route to America.

Semper. For me if we changed it, certainly to anything that wasn't an old established classic, it'd be open to being changed to the 'whim of the times'. For example the ill-fated and ill-judged 'simply the best' change. It sounds outdated now, let alone 10-20 years time. Semper wouldn't change I feel if a debate and vote were held, and neither should it.

Local talent. Ideally yes, we should produce our own players and it would help root the club in it's community. Trouble is times have changed and the new rules on academy clubs would blow any commitment to fielding primarily local players out of the water. Clubs can pillage our youth set-up for negligible compensation so unless we set up an academy of our own, to protect our own, it would be pointless. And we're not about to do that any time soon.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

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

Given the recent away kit announcement I thought that this was worth a bump.