Great Jannerisms at Argyle games

A nostalgia thread, in the face of much hand-wringing about where it all went wrong and who might next f**k it all up!

Some of the best laughs I've had at Argyle have come at away games when I've been left incredulous at the 'challenged' nature of some of the Argyle faithful. A couple that spring to mind:

- Argyle playing at Cambridge in an important relegation game many years back. Janner 1 is listening to the half-time scores on the radio to see how other teams in the struggle are getting on and relaying back to the crowd. Janner 2 turns to Janner 1 and says ''ere meht, how's Cambridge doing?'

- Argyle at Brentford and the fans giving the opposition goalkeeper a bit of stick. Goalie reacts and gives the Argo fans the finger, riling them up. Janner at the back gets exasperated and lets rip with 'I'll be seeing you, keeper - I lives in London!' He realises he's been a prize doughnut and puts his head in his hands with embarrassment...

Once heard a fan give John Sims some terrible stick for not being on the end of a cross that Sims had actually put in the box himself. And someone once berated Brian Johnson for not having the foresight to read a ball which had been sliced 20 yards away from it's target. There was also the bloke in front who was not pleased with the ref on one particular day and shouted "Come on ref, you black............[obviously going to say bastard but thought better of it].....orphan!" The ref wasn't actually black, presumably he was referring to his garb. Slightly away from Argyle, my late father [who was a life long Pilgrim, so maybe not so far away from Argyle in fact] was watching Germany play on TV a few years ago and Schweinsteiger wasn't having the best of games. The old man said "Don't rate that bleddy Schweinsteiger much, he's crap". The split second after he finished the sentence, Bastien duly smacked one right into the top corner from 35 yards and I duly pissed myself laughing. Took the old man a while to live that one down, bless him.

The gallows humour needed to be a life long Argyle fan(probably applies to all lower league/perennial losers) is part of the attraction for me and I suspect many others. Wouldn't winning every week and every cup become a bit boring after a while ?.................I strongly suspect we'll never know.

At Wimbledon a couple of seasons back and it is 1-1 or 0-0 (I think although I had been consuming) and we're entering injury time. Argyle get free kick on the half way line. Cue much encouragement from the crowd to get forward, last chance saloon and all that.

Centre halves in the box as you would expect. Two Argyle players stand over the ball deliberating what to do and seem to be in some discussion. Whilst this is going on the obligatoary "Come on you Greeeeennnnsss" has rung out three times. As it dies down to almost silence a lone janner shouts out...

"come on Argyle, we're not Barcelona, put it in the feckin mixer!"

Ball gets duly lobbed in with no threat whatsoever and cleared.

Having a piss at half time one day in the smelly bogs behind the old Lyndhurst, two blokes slightly along the stall were doing likewise. The announcement came from the bloke over the tannoy- "Ladies and gentlemen, our special half time guest today is the one and only Ernie Edds [Argyle winger of the 1940's and 1950's}".Conversation went as follows;

1st bloke; Who did he say that was?

2nd bloke: Oh, it was Curly Heads. Whoever the fecking hell he was.

1st bloke.; Bet he was better than the twats they've got out here now though.

2nd bloke. [Laconically] Yeah.

Both carry on pissing.

You probably had to be there to appreciate it fully but it was a superb piece of Pete and Dud type dialogue, made the day for me and they were right about the twats on the field.

2002 and Sturrock was trying to upgrade the promotion side for the next level. We'd signed some moderate useful journeyman midfielder on loan called Grant Smith, can't remember who from. One of my mates in the Msyflower called out "OK Grant when are you signing on?" and got "eeeee dunt want to come yerrrr" from someone a few places away.

General Janner football phrases/chants/insults from the 70s/80s were far better than today's dross. They didn't even need to be particularly obscene.

One that always sticks in my mind is after a game where one of the opposition had been stretchered off with a potential broken leg. Walking out after the game and we saw the bloke being wheeled out by St Johns staff. As he was being lifted in to the van my mates Uncle ran over, pointed and told him quite casually..."you're going home in a Devon Ambulance".

Czarcasm wrote:

General Janner football phrases/chants/insults from the 70s/80s were far better than today's dross.  They didn't even need to be particularly obscene.

One that always sticks in my mind is after a game where one of the opposition had been stretchered off with a potential broken leg. Walking out after the game and we saw the bloke being wheeled out by St Johns staff. As he was being lifted in to the van my mates Uncle ran over, pointed and told him quite casually..."you're going home in a Devon Ambulance".

Ha! Dry as a bone.

Innocent Egbunike wrote:

Czarcasm wrote:

General Janner football phrases/chants/insults from the 70s/80s were far better than today's dross.  They didn't even need to be particularly obscene.

One that always sticks in my mind is after a game where one of the opposition had been stretchered off with a potential broken leg. Walking out after the game and we saw the bloke being wheeled out by St Johns staff. As he was being lifted in to the van my mates Uncle ran over, pointed and told him quite casually..."you're going home in a Devon Ambulance".

Ha! Dry as a bone.

There was a time when Devon ambulances had a spate of wheel loss - someting to do with dodgy wheel nuts if I remember accurately. Can't link it to a time or place but late '80s feels about right. "You're going home in a 3 wheeled ambulance" was definitely sung on the terraces at around that time.

A NYD away game at Birmingham when John Bond was their manager. They had just spent a lot of money on the CB Paul Hart who was making his debut. Argyle broke down the right wing and Hart and A.N.Other converged on the Argyle player (I'm thinking it was Nelson but it would've been the wrong wing for him...). Said Argyle player gets out of the way and the 2 Brummies clogged each other resulting in Paul Hart breaking his leg. After lengthy on-pitch treatment he was stretchered off and some wag in the crowd bellowed out "Happy New Year from Plymouth Argyle!". At the time it was very funny (but at the time we didn't know he was that badly injured).

Also a bald goalie during an Easter fixture (John Shaw? Bristol City?): "Who's the easter egg in goal?"

Do you remember when Southend showed an interest in Rory Fallon, only for Fallon to turn them down because he felt that God wanted him to stay at Argyle?

At the next game, as the players trotted out for the pre match warm-up, Fallon appears, to be greeted by a punter on the Mayflower Terrace shouting, in his deepest Morgan Freemanesque voice: "RORY - THIS IS GOD SPEAKING. GO TO SOUTHEND. I REPEAT: GO TO SOUTHEND."

Cheltenham away (90's?).

To the tune of one nil to the Arse en al.

"I'm me, and I know you are".

Brilliant!!

Regularly on the Mayflower a wag would shout at the start of a match


"Linesman, how is your misses with my kids?"


But one Tuesday night, a bit worse for wear, it came out as

"Linesman, how is my misses with your kids?"