As a child I was always really into football but I was brought up in a non-sporting family in the middle of a non-football county (Somerset) and so my football-related activity was limited to reading loads and loads of football magazines, covering the walls of my bedroom with pictures of footballers, obsessively keeping records of results and scorers and playing endless Subbuteo football tournaments against myself. Then, when I moved away from home to go to university I ended up in places where football wasn’t a big deal. It was only when I pitched up in Plymouth in July 1992 that I was finally in a place where there was a proper football team.
I remember that not long after we moved to Plymouth my wife and I were walking in Central Park when a bunch of guys in training kit came running towards us. Out in front of them was the manager and as they passed us my wife looked at me and said with a tone os surprise “That’s Peter Shilton” (who if you don’t know was a very famous England goalkeeper). Shilton had fairly recently taken up his first, and only, appointment as a club manager.
Anyway, after a few months I finally got myself to Home Park to see Plymouth Argyle play (they lost to Huddersfield) and from that point onwards I was hooked (I’ve hardly missed a home game since 1993 which means that I will have been to something like 300-350 games). At one time I actually used to write the match reports for the official club website and even helped out with online commentary (usually my role was to be the side-kick to the main commentator although I did also get the odd stint doing the full commentary). My first full season as an Argyle fan was 1993/94 and this was rather a momentous season for Argyle as Shilton built a team that played attractive passing football and scored absolutely shed-loads of goals. They reached the play-off semi-finals only to fall to a depressing defeat (at Home Park) in the second leg to Burnley. That season Argyle played great football but they also let in too many goals and missed out on what should have been a straightforward promotion.
The following season (1994/95) everything went badly wrong. Players got injured, the squad fractured (thanks Peter Swan) and Shilton was eventually sacked following disagreements and highly-public fallings-out with the Chairman. It was a horrible season and ended in relegation.
“Peter Shilton’s Nearly Men” is a new book written by Argyle fan Paul Roberts that describes this whole period at the club, from just before we moved to Plymouth to the relegation that followed Shilton’s departure. It’s a great read for any Argyle fan who recalls that era, being based on lots of research including extensive interviews with the players and other figures at the club at that time. It took me right back to that era – one that in some ways is still fresh in my mind but in other ways seems like ancient history. It was good to be taken back to that periods, not only to remember the football but also to recall the other memories that I have of my first couple of years in Plymouth.
Tim O'Hare 