The Opposition: Aldershot Town

Founded: 1992

Manager: Dean Holdsworth (since January 2011) 

Record transfer fee paid: Undisclosed (Marvin Morgan, 2008) 

Final league position (2011-12):  11^th, Football League Two 

Previous seasons: 

2010-11: 14^th, Football League Two 

2009-10: 6^th, Football League Two 

2008-09: 15^th, Football League Two 

Top scorer (2011-12): Danny Hylton (16 goals)

Pre-season results: 

4^th August: Woking 2, Aldershot Town 1

1^st August: Aldershot Town 0, Portsmouth 1

Last time out: Wolverhampton Wanderers 1, Aldershot Town 1 (Wolves win 7-6 on penalties)

Head-To-Head: Argyle won 9, lost 4, drawn 4 

Most recent meeting: Argyle 1, Aldershot Town 0, 9^th April 2012

Capital One Cup Fever!

Argyle's reward for their 3-0 victory over Portsmouth is a somewhat less than mouthwatering second round tie away at Burnley, which will be played during the week commencing 27th August.  As a result, Carl Fletcher's men face a 200 mile trip to Oxford for the away game on Saturday 25th, followed by the midweek cup tie at Turf Moor, a mere 311 miles from Home Park, before taking on Northampton at the Theatre of Greens on September 1st.

Considering the seeding system, it's hard to see how the Pilgrims could have got a worse draw.

The New Guys - Jamie Lowry

Who is he?

A versatile midfielder, who can also fill in at right full-back.

Where’s he come from?

Chesterfield, for whom he made 125 appearances between 2006 and 2012, scoring 11 goals.  Newquay-born Jamie also made 10 appearances on loan at Crewe Alexandra last season, the eventual League Two play-off winners.

Hmmm.  Sounds good.  What’s the catch?

Lowry did his cruciate in a match against for Chesterfield against Hereford in October 2009.  The injury sidelined him for the best part of 18 months and he’s only made 13 league appearances since his return in March 2011.

Ah.  I see...

It’s not necessarily as bad as it sounds – both Paul Wotton and Simon Walton recovered from similar injuries and they managed to rack up 90 appearances between them last season.  Plus Lowry is still relatively young (25) for a central midfielder, despite having played more than 100 Football League matches.

Did Crewe not want him back?

They were very keen to offer a permanent deal after Jamie was released by Chesterfield at the end of last season, before getting cold feet after their medical team had a look at his knee.  Let’s hope they were being overly cautious.

Yes, let’s.  How’s that going so far?

Well...he twisted an ankle in the pre-season game at Truro and is out until November. Which could happen to anyone and is in no way connected to his knee.  So there.

Elsewhere in League Two

Results for the other League Two clubs from the first round of the Capital One Cup:

Birmingham 5, Barnet 1
Ipswich 3, Bristol Rovers 1
Sheffield United 2, Burton Albion 2 (Burton win 5-4 on penalties)
Cheltenham 1, MK Dons 1 (MK Dons win 5-3 on penalties)
Chesterfield 1, Tranmere 2
Dagenham and Redbridge 0, Coventry City 1
Exeter City 1, Crystal Palace 2
Bristol City 1, Gillingham 2
Northampton Town 2, Cardiff City 1
Oxford 0, Bournemouth 0 (Oxford win 5-3 on penalties)
Port Vale 1, Burnley 3
Rochdale 3, Barnsley 4
Peterborough 4, Southend United 0
Torquay United 0, Leicester City 4
Stevenage 3, AFC Wimbledon 1
Watford 1, Wycombe Wanderers 0
Doncaster 1, York City 1 (Doncaster win 4-2 on penalties)
Carlisle 1, Accrington Stanley 0
Aldershot Town 1, Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 (Wolves win 7-6 on penalties)
Notts County 0, Bradford City 1 (AET)
Fleetwood Town 0, Nottingham Forest 1
Blackpool 1, Morecambe 2
Hull City 1, Rotherham 1 (Hull win 7-6 on penalties)

Argyle 3, Portsmouth 0

Woof.

Argyle progressed to the second round of the League Cup (a rare event indeed), beating beleaguered Portsmouth 3-0 at Home Park.  Johnny Gorman opened the scoring on the stroke of half-time to give the home side a deserved lead, before late strikes from Paris Cowan-Hall and Nick Chadwick helped paper over the cracks of a sometimes nervy second half performance.  Pompey, who were reduced to putting out a virtual youth team, battled gamely throughout but rarely threatened, a couple of long range efforts aside.

Baggo Report

BBC Report

The New Guys - Rene Gilmartin

Who is he?

A 25-year-old goalkeeper, capped at U-19 and U-21 level by the Republic of Ireland.

Where’s he come from?

Gilmartin arrives at Home Park after being released by Watford at the end of last season. The 6ft 5in Dubliner made seven league and cup appearances in his two years at Vicarage Road.

And before that?

Rene signed for Walsall in 2005 and made his debut as a 17-year-old, eventually racking up 38 appearances for the Saddlers.  He rejected the offer of a new contract to make the switch to the Hornets in 2010.

Watford, eh?  Isn’t that Scott Loach fairly handy?

Indeed he is.  With the England U-21 ‘keeper firmly established as the first choice between the sticks, Gilmartin found his opportunities at Vicarage Road to be few and far between. A handful of cup appearances for Watford during 2010-11 were followed by two loan spells last season, at Yeovil and Crawley.

And now he’s joined Argyle?

Yep.  Fletch and Ro had already had Gilmartin scouted, with the writing on the wall for the big Irishman at Watford.  After receiving a glowing reference from former Yeovil teammate Paul Wotton, they snapped him up at the start of July.

The New Guys - Paris Cowan-Hall

Who is he?

A sprightly forward, who can play up front or wide on the right.

Where’s he come from? 

Woking, where he scored 11 goals in 27 appearances during a title winning campaign that saw the Cards promoted to the Blue Square Premier.

And before that?

Cowan-Hall started his senior career at Portsmouth, where he made a solitary appearance in a pre-season friendly. A couple of loan spells at Grimsby were blighted by illness and injury, before Pompey got rid after their relegation from the Premier League in 2010.  Trials at several Championship and League One clubs followed, before a short-term deal with Scunthorpe resulted in a substitute appearance in a Championship fixture against Watford.   The Iron then sent our man out on loan at Rushden and Diamonds, his boyhood club, where he scored one goal in three appearances. With no new deal forthcoming from Glanford Park, Paris opted to drop down the leagues and sign a one-year contract with Woking, then of the Conference South.

Any fee involved?

No transfer fee, although compensation is owed to Woking due to his age (21).

What’s he like?

Quick, but also good in the air for a player of his size (5ft 8).  At Woking Cowan-Hall played predominantly as a centre-forward, but Carl Fletcher is likely to deploy him on either side of a front three.

Weekend Update

It's been a quiet week at Home Park, with the players off on their holidays, although the club has apparently been doing a healthy trade in memberships (season tickets).  James Brent, for one, is in an optimistic mood as thoughts turn to next season.


Negotiations are ongoing between Carl Fletcher, Romain Larrieu and James Brent regarding the current management team's future at the club.  All of the signs appear to be positive despite a BBC Sport article, published on Monday, which had a go at creating a load of drama around one standard non-commital Fletch response (the stat about Le Keeper being fourth in the all time appearances list is also wrong; he's actually 21st).


On a not-completely unrelated topic: Paul Groves has been appointed as Bournemouth's permanent manager on a two-year deal.


Here are a few interesting bits and bobs from the local press:

• The side that faced Santos at Home Park back in 1973 are planning a reunion (Friday).
• Carl Fletcher almost passed on signing Maxime Blanchard (Friday).
• An interview with Young Player of the Season, Luke Young (Thursday).

Nominations are now open for the Plymouth Argyle Supporters Board (PASB).  A leaflet, with all of the details, is available on the club site, while Thisisplymouth.co.uk have a piece on the subject.


Finally, there's a fascinating, three part 50 minute interview with Carl Fletcher, Romain Larrieu and Kevin Nancekivell on Argyle World, looking back at the whole of the 2011-12 season.  It's just the sort of thing that the club should do more of, and well worth the £4 monthly Argyle Player subscription.


Here are a few choice quotes:

Carl Fletcher on pre-season worries:

I think we doubted [that the club would start the season] once we got back for pre-season, and nothing had changed.  I think we kind of expected to go away, come back and at least see some kind of movement.  Literally nothing had changed at all...that was the worst time.

On the players' strike threat in the run-up to the Burton game:

We were the only ones left who could have actually done something...if it was the staff or anyone the administrator would have been “great, go on, you go on strike and we’ll just sack you, we don’t have to pay you again.”... Miraculously, they were able to find some more money for us.  Makes you wonder why they didn’t do it in the first place.

On Guilfoyle and Ridsdale: 

There was no relationship between the players and the administrator.  The only one who would ever tell us anything was Ridsdale.  To be fair to him, he did come down on a fairly regular basis and say [what was happening]...whether true or not, at least he was telling us something.

On the takeover:

I think everyone thought we’d get taken over, spend loads of money, gets loads of players in and that would be it, done.  We were very realistic, the club wasn’t run like a football club before and you need to take time to get the wheels turning again.  It’ll still take time now.

On the style of play:

Where we were, there was no way we were suddenly going to come out [and play attractive football]. It would have been great if we’d gone “yeah, we’ll pass the ball around, brilliant, we’ll look really pretty and everything like that.”  We’d lose every game; that was no good for us...on our worst days we were fit, we were solid and we were hard to beat.

On the recruitment policy:

We try and bring the right characters in, that’s the main thing.  If you get people who are idiots – we don’t want them.  It just disrupts everything; if someone’s an idiot he might drag a couple with him, then you get splits in the group...we’re very lucky that we got some real good characters.

On the doubters:

There’s nothing nicer than sticking two fingers up at people who doubted you... it takes strong people to stick [to their guns] like James Brent – he stuck behind us and has put his faith in us with his football club, and we know the people who have stuck by us through thick and thin......we appreciate the ones who stuck with us when things aren’t going right.  We stayed up, and we’re all getting twenty, thirty messages on our phone; we didn’t get that when we lost at Rotherham.

Romain, on the same topic:

I remember coming back Monday morning and watching the Football League Show and one of the pundits said “now they’ve got an owner, they just need a manager.”  I remember that very well, and I thought “yeah, you’ll be eating your words in a minute”.  He was probably looking for a job.

As I said, there's much, much more (another 49 minutes worth, in fact) on a varied selection of topics - Shrewsbury, Stourbridge, Bristol Rovers, Rotherham, Oxford, Nance's playing career, Romain's clean sheets, receiving their backpay over five years - it's all in there.

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

Merci, Romain

Yesterday marked the end of an era for Plymouth Argyle.  Much has happened during the past eleven and a half years at Home Park; three sides of the ground redeveloped, two championships, two relegations, seven months in administration, seven different full time managers, numerous players and directors in and out of the door. And through it all one goalkeeper - Romain Larrieu - has been at the club, an ever-present in constantly changing times.

There are few one club men in football, especially in the modern era; it’s quite possible that there will never be another Argyle player who spends more than eleven seasons with the club.  Of course, the chances are that ‘Le Keeper’ will remain at Home Park next season as Carl Fletcher’s number two but, for many, it’ll be an odd feeling to see an Argyle teamsheet without the name ‘Romain Larrieu’ listed amongst the starters or the substitutes.

There’s a nice tribute piece by Rick Cowdery on the official site, along with some pictures from Ro’s time at the club.  And the image that accompanies this article about yesterday's match is oddly touching.

Romain Larrieu In Numbers

• 4,169 days between first appearance (vs Bristol City in the LDV Vans Trophy, 5th December 2000) and last appearance (vs Cheltenham Town in Football League Two, 5th May 2012) 
• One month - the length of Romain's initial trial contract
• 314 starts and four substitute appearances
• 86 clean sheets
• Two championship medals (Division 3 champions 2001-02, Division 2 champions 2003-04)
• Two loan spells away from the club, at Yeovil Town (2006-07) and Gillingham (2007-08)
• 161 different Argyle teammates
• One Player of the Season award (2008-09)

Romain Larrieu at the Greens on Screen database

Le Testimonial

BACK IN 2012!

Argyle Outsider is currently on hiatus and will return in 2012.

Plymouth Argyle 0, Crewe Alexandria 1

Argh.

Argyle lost 1-0 to Crewe at Home Park this afternoon to drop to the bottom of League 2 and the foot of the Football League pyramid. The Greens have now played more than 300 minutes since they last hit the back of the opposition's net, in which time they have conceded 6 goals. Furthermore, with only five games of the season played, the Pilgrims' goal difference has already reached -9.

All of this will, of course, only make the inevitible resurrection all the sweeter. Ahem.

The official site's match report can be found here.

Plymouth Argyle 0, AFC Wimbledon 2

Oof.

Argyle lost 2-0 at home to AFC Wimbledon this evening, their third straight defeat at Home Park in the last seven days. After having the best of a goalless opening period the Greens, much like on Saturday, conceded a quickfire double just before the hour and were unable to find a way back into the game.

A full match report is now available on the official site.

Daily Update

Ominous injury news - both Robbie Williams and Carl Fletcher are set to miss tomorrow's home game against AFC Wimbledon. Left-back Williams is also likely to miss Saturday's trip to Gillingham due to a heel problem, whilst Fletch is rumoured to be looking at a couple of weeks on the sidelines with a thigh injury.

But enough of this football nonsense! What is the latest on the takeover saga, I hear no-one ask. Well, in the aftermath of Saturday's Save Our Club meeting, the Argyle Fans' Trust have this afternoon released an interesting letter which has been emailed to all of the involved parties, including Brendan Guilfoyle. In the letter, which you can read here, the Interim Steering Committee have stated that, should a situation arise where Bishop International have the funds to complete the deal but the Football League refuse to grant their approval due to Peter Ridsdale's upcoming trial (for fraud), the Trust would be willing to buy the football club for £1. An unlikely outcome, perhaps, although the Guardian's Matt Scott appeared to hint last week that Ridsdale's appointment with judge and jury is a factor in the League's deliberations over whether to approve the proposed BIL/Riddler ownership structure.

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?

League 2 Round-Up - Week Two

Rotherham, Gillingham and Southend are the early pace-setters in League Two, with all three sides picking up six points from their opening two matches of the 2011-12 campaign. The Millers sit top on goal difference after their 4-1 victory at Home Park, followed by the Gills and Luggy's Shrimpers, who both picked up 2-1 away wins against Crewe and Accrington respectively.

Elsewhere, bookie's favourites Crawley Town picked up their first ever league win, overcoming Macclesfield 2-0, a feat matched by AFC Wimbledon who picked up a great win away at Dagenham. Torquay put one over their old boss Paul Buckle, beating Bristol Rovers 2-1 at the Memorial Stadium, while Bradford recovered from their opening day defeat to Aldershot by picking up a useful point away at Oxford.

Cheltenham beat Swindon 1-0, whilst Port Vale ran out 3-1 winners over Barnet. Shrewsbury were held to their second consecutive 1-1 draw of the season away at Burton Albion, Northampton won 1-0 away to Aldershot and Hereford were smashed 3-0 at home by Morecambe.

Weekend Update

Around 800 supporters attended the Argyle Fans' Trust's Save Our Club meeting at Plymouth Pavilions on Saturday morning. All the reaction, feedback and key points are covered in the relevant thread on PASOTI. If you don't fancy trawling through all of that, the main gist of it seems to be:

• According to Guilfoyle, Bishop International originally wanted a 14 day extension to the exclusivity agreement, but P & A have only granted them a week
• Brenda doesn't believe that there will be any problem obtaining the Football League share The League have posed four questions and their lawyers will review the answers next week
  
• The Contigency Plan will not get the four weeks they are requesting, should they be called upon
• Graham Clarke brought a small boy on to the stage to ask Brenda to give James Brent the time he would need. This didn't go down well with Guilfoyle, nor many of those in the audience (judging by the response on PASOTI)
• Guilfoyle said that whoever buys the club will be taking on £2.8m debts, a £1.2m trading loss for this season and £300k owed to the Plymouth Argyle Supporters Training and Development Trust
• Apparently Heaney will use some form of bridging finance to fund the deal, while he waits to free up the rest of the cash from another property deal

Peter Reid's post-Rotherham thoughts are now available on the BBC Sport website, as are the 'highlights' of the Greens' 4-1 defeat.

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?

Plymouth Argyle 1, Rotherham United 4

Ouch.

Argyle fell to their first defeat of the season this afternoon, losing 4-1 to Rotherham at Home Park. The Pilgrims took the lead through debutant Will Atkinson in the 49th minute, before two strikes from Gareth Evans, on 52 and 59 minutes, put the Millers in front. Adam Le Fondre added two more late on for the visitors to inflict a heavy loss on Peter Reid's young side.

The match report is now available on the official site.

Daily Update

Brendan Guilfoyle tonight released a statement (yes, another one) claiming that Bishop International have assured him that the takeover will be completed next week. The statement, which you can read in full here, seems to indicate that Heaney and friends will have the required cash in place by Tuesday, while Peter Ridsdale needs to get Football League approval (which they have so far refused to provide) by end of play on Friday.

Kevin Heaney has finally given an interview on the subject of the Argyle takeover, which is available on thisisplymouth.co.uk. Amusingly, the Herald are continuing to publish a tremendously unflattering photo of the Truro City chairman alongside almost every story connected with the proposed takeover - this one is no exception. Anyway, according to the Heanster (as no one calls him) there is no problem with getting the cash in place and it's the pesky creditors and Football League who are causing all the delays. Which raises the question of why Bishop International refused to provide £250k to pay the August wage bill? They wouldn't try and deliberately increase the chances of liquidation so that they could pressurise the Football League into approving the deal, would they?

Everything seems set for the Trust's Save Our Club meeting tomorrow at the Plymouth Pavilions. The meeting, which will be addressed by Peter Ridsdale and Brenda, amongst others, is scheduled to get underway at 11.30am.

Some football news! Winger Will Atkinson has signed on a season long loan from Hull City and will go straight into the squad for the match against Rotherham United at Home Park. Speaking of which, after "scouting" the Millers against Leicester City on Tuesday night, I suspect that the Pilgrims will be in for a tough game tomorrow afternoon. Rotherham, who eventually lost 4-1 after a second half hat-trick from Foxes youngster Jeff Schlupp, impressed in the first half of the Carling Cup tie and troubled a defence that contained Paul Konchesky and £5m ex-Reading man Matt Mills.

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?

Daily Update

The BBC are reporting that the Argyle staff and players have agreed to defer their wages for the month of August at the request of administrator Brendan Guilfoyle. This now means that the staff have received one full pay packet since January, whilst the players have are yet to be paid in full in 2011. The move should, theoretically, keep the liquidation wolf from the door for a few more weeks, and Brenda seems to have reverted to his standard line that he has been "assured that the money to complete the deal will be available next week." Which is in no way inconsistent with taking the preferred bidder to court just over 24 hours ago.

Speaking of which, both the Herald and the Guardian have published pieces on the rapidly deteriorating situation at Home Park. They don't make pretty reading.

Plymouth Pavilions has been confirmed as the venue for the Fans' Trust Save Our Club meeting. Peter Ridsdale and Brendan Guilfoyle have both confirmed their attendance, Kevin Heaney is yet to reply to his invitation, while Peter Reid has sent his apologies - apparently he has a football match to prepare for. The meeting gets underway at 11.30 on Saturday morning.

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?

Daily Update

Firstly, the football news. There are post-Carling Cup interviews with Matt Lecointe and Peter Reid up on the official site, and another match report available from the Evening Herald. Thisisplymouth.co.uk are also reporting that the loan deal for Hull winger Will Atkinson is all but completed.

Meanwhile, on the takeover front, it appears that we are rapidly approaching the endgame. Here, in a handy timeline form, are the key events that have unfolded over the last 24 hours or so:

Yesterday Evening:

• Brendan Guilfoyle appears on ITV's The Westcountry Tonight. Backs the Bishop International deal as the only realistic path forwards. Also appears to insinuate that the James Brent backed contingency plan is unable to provide the £240,000 needed to meet the August wage bill.
• Argyle Fans' Trust ISC chair Chris Webb posts on PASOTI. Explains that it is not a case of Brent not having the cash, but rather that he is unwilling to immediately hand over a quarter of a million pounds to the administrator without first securing agreements with the secured creditors.
• Chris also reports that several of the team behind the contingency plan had spoken to Peter Ridsdale after the Millwall game. The Riddler was "more confident than ever that KH [Kevin Heaney] would complete" next week and was planning to accompany Heaney to a meeting with secured creditors Lombard in London on Wednesday.

This Morning:

• The Plymouth Herald report that staff and players will be asked to sign an agreement to defer their wages for August. The Herald also notes that Lombard have rejected an offer to settle the £2.1 million debt secured against Home Park.
• Then, a massive U-turn. It emerges that P & A are taking Bishop International to court, this afternoon, to try and forceably extract the money for the August wage bill. According to a statement from the administrators, "The move follows a lack of response from Bishop international Limited to a request last week from the joint administrators for funds to pay August wages for players and staff and confirmation that they can complete the purchase by the middle of this month."

This Afternoon:

• BBC Sport journalist Matt Slater tweets that Brendan Guilfoyle has released a statement, apologising to James Brent for any confusion caused by his Westcountry interview. Graham Clark, former Trust ISC chair, posts the complete statement on PASOTI.
• P & A's application to the court in Manchester to force BIL to cough up is rejected.

So where does all of this leave us? On the brink, would be the short answer. Today's events seem to suggest that Brenda is desperately trying to rid himself of Heaney and co and frantically scrambling to mend fences with James Brent. However, any deal with Brent would take time to complete (two or three weeks at a minimum), and it appears that Guilfoyle's boss at P & A, Jeremy Priestly, is unwilling to take on the liability for August's wages. It's hard to think of a time when liquidation seemed more likely. Indeed, some (usually fairly optimistic souls) such as Contingency Committee member and fund raising supremo Ian Newell appear convinced that the club is about to bite the dust. Others, such as the Beeb's Matt Slater, seem more optimistic, sensing that there is still a good chance for the Brent/Trust deal to succeed.

In light of these developments, the Trust is organising a Save Our Club meeting for Saturday morning. The venue is still to be confirmed, although Plymouth Pavillions seems the most likely candidate. Keep checking the Trust website for details. If you can't attend, but still want to help, how about donating to the cost of the venue hire (£2000, if it turns out to be the Pavillions)? You can do this by using the "Donate" button on the top right of any page on PASOTI. This is still labelled "Sponsor Le Keeper", but all donations will now go to the Trust.

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?

Plymouth Argyle 0, Millwall 1

Argyle exited the League Cup at the first round stage (yet again), losing 1-0 against Millwall at Home Park. By all accounts the Championship side were deserved winners although a young Plymouth XI, shorn of the injured Carl Fletcher and Warren Feeney, were far from disgraced. Peter Reid handed debuts to apprentices Jordan Copp and Matt Lecointe, who both came on as second half substitutes.

The match report is now available on the official site.