Daily Update

Argyle have new shirt sponsors! WH Bond & Sons, an "agricultural-based family business", will be the Pilgrims' main sponsors for the 2011-12 season, with "Bond Timber" appearing on the front of the shirts. What's more, the Bonds family have paid for the interim 'off-the-peg' Puma kit which the Greens will wear until the 125th anniversary strip turns up at some point in September. A (fairly amateurish) illustration of the temporary kit has also been released, which looks none too shabby. The Bonds logo certainly is an improvement on the red Ginsters splodge.

There's plenty about WH Bond & Sons on the official site, including a brilliant picture of Reidy and the Riddler leaning on a pickup truck, in a pose reminiscent of something out of a Wrangler jeans advert. Basically, the deal appears a good one for a League 2 club with the added bonus that the Bonds family are staunch Argyle supporters.


The other main development from this morning's press conference was the announcement that Dave Jones has been made Chief Executive. Oddly, there's no mention of this appointment on the official site. Jones, who was previously chief financial officer at Southampton, has been working with Peter Ridsdale at Home Park since the Greens enter administration back in March.

There's a new interview with Peter Ridsdale and on Argyle World. The main point of interest is a quick glimpse of what appears to be the interim away kit, which the Riddler is shown holding up a picture of during the press conference. It's this shirt, with a black version on the Bond logo on the front. The club did say that the stand-in away kit would be a different colour to the final version, so presumably we're not having a white away kit post-September. Ridsdale's main points in the interview are:

• It's brilliant to be focussing on a football-related matter, rather than finance. (This seems a pretty financial issue to me but, hey, what do I know?)
• Bonds have the option of a second year if all goes well
  
• He's looking forward to watching the new team - the spirit in the camp is excellent, apparently
• Please buy a season ticket
  

There's also a brief interview with Chris Bond who, make no mistake, is a proper Argyle fan.


Argyle are playing there third and final pre-season friendly at Home Park this evening, against Truro City. The Pilgrims started the match with the following XI:

Jake Cole; Andre Gurreri, Stephane Zubar, Ladji Moukana, Robbie Williams; Luke Daley, Carl Fletcher (C), Conor Hourihane, Joe Holt; Tom Hitchcock, Joe Mendes.

Here's a bit on the three trialists (in bold above):

• Conor Hourihane, a 20-year-old central midfielder, who is available on loan from Ipswich Town
• Joe Holt is another young midfielder, who has previously made the bench for Wigan Athletic
• Joseph Mendes, aged 20, is a French striker who scored 1 goal in 13 appearances for Grenoble in Ligue 2 last season. Grenoble ended up finishing 20th and were relegated.

With around three quarters of the match played Argyle are leading 2-1 after initially falling behind to a Les Afful goal. A deflected Carl Fletcher effort drew the Pilgrims level, however, before Hourihane made it 2-1 after linking nicely with fellow-trialist Mendes. Simon Walton, Jared Sims and Jordan Copp have all made appearances as second half substitutes. Walton is currently captaining the team, which is something you can file under "sights I thought I'd never see".

If you want to read all the Argyle news without clicking on a load of links, why not head over to Greens On Screens' Daily Diary?