Plymouth Argyle Football Club - Pilgrims

Plymouth Argyle History

2006-07 Season

11th in the Championship
League Cup: 1st round: Walsall h. 0-1
FA Cup: 6th round: Watford h. 0-1

Highlight:
3-2 win at Sunderland, 12/8/06

Low Spot:
0-4 defeat at Burnley, 3/4/07

Good:
Lilian Nalis
The French midfielder enjoyed his best season yet in English football and showed himself to be one of the few Championship midfielders who can combine graft with craft.
Sylvan Ebanks-Blake
Ten goals marked an acceptable return for the young striker signed from Manchester United but it was his pace and the intelligence of his movement that suggested he might well have an exciting future in the game.
Needs to keep his head down and keep working hard but this was very promising.

Bad:
Cherno Samba
It is possible that being the best Championship Manager forward of the past few years has gone to Cherno's head. No sooner had he notched as a sub in his first appearance of the season than he was in front of the television cameras talking about his England ambitions.
Slow down a minute, Cherno. England ambitions? Next time choose something a bit more feasible. Like scoring a second goal before the season is over.
The three defeats out of three during his loan spell with Wrexham left them perilously close to losing their league status as well.
Nick Chadwick
Tries hard but has he got the quality? Two goals was a meagre return and injuries also hampered his progress. Needs to show a marked improvement next season.

In Brief:
This was a pleasing campaign overall for Argyle as Ian Holloway led his side into a comfortable mid table position and also took them on a decent cup run.
The club won their opening two away games and also won three games on the bounce in late September, early October.
Regular defeats meant that there was never any real possibility of making the play offs but wins over Peterborough, Barnet and Derby took them to a quarter final meeting with Premiership strugglers Watford in the FA Cup.
Argyle were desperately unlucky to lose by the only goal in a game they mainly dominated.
This disappointment was somewhat eased by a splendid run of five successive wins at the end of the season which saw the club climb into the top half of the table.
As far as effort and commitment go there were few more honest squads around the division than Plymouth's and with just a little more individual quality the club could be poised to make a play off bid.
Having said that the same probably goes for most of the clubs in the Championship.

Plymouth - Club History

Plymouth Argyle Football Club was formed in 1886 by former pupils of the local schools who wished to continue playing football in an organised team. The club was originally called Argyle Athletic Club and became Plymouth Argyle in 1903 when the club turned professional.

Plymouth gained entry into the Football League as original members of Division Three in 1920.

The following season another division was introduced which led to the creation of North and South sections of Division Three. Only the champions of these sections were granted promotion to Division Two and Plymouth suffered badly under this remarkably harsh system.

In each of the first six seasons of Division Three South Argyle finished as runners up and then finished 3rd and 4th before finally capturing the championship, and promotion, with something to spare over Brentford in 1930.

Argyle stayed in Division Two until 1950 when they suffered relegation back to Division Three South.

Two seasons later the club again won the championship of that division and the following season, 1952-53, the Pilgrims managed a 4th place finish in Division Two as well as progressing to the 5th round of the FA Cup, although to then lose at home to Gateshead was a huge disappointment.

Plymouth were relegated again in 1956 and became members of Division Three in 1958 when the north and south divisions were finally merged. The club won the title of this division in its first season to climb back into the second division.

The Pilgrims almost made it through the 1960's in the second division but suffered another relegation in 1968. The highlight of this period was reaching the semi finals of the League Cup in 1965. Argyle knocked out two first division sides, Sheffield United and Stoke City, before losing narrowly in both legs of the semis to another, Leicester City.

In 1974, as a third division club, Plymouth repeated this feat, winning away from home at Burnley, QPR and Birmingham before facing Manchester City for a place at Wembley. Argyle managed a 1-1 draw at Home Park before losing the second leg at Maine Road 2-0.

The following season, 1974-75, Plymouth won promotion to Division Two as runners up but could only stay at that level for two seasons before once again suffering relegation.

It would be nine seasons before Plymouth regained a place in the second division but once again managed an outstanding cup run as a third division side.

Despite finishing only 19th in Division Three in 1983-84 Argyle won through to the FA Cup semi finals. They put out first division West Brom in the 4th round and won a 5th round replay at second idvision Derby County to meet Watford at Villa Park in the semi finals.

Argyle lost to an early goal despite spending the last quarter of the game pounding the Watford penalty area.

Plymouth won promotion to Division Two in 1986 as runners up and managed six seasons before being relegated again in 1992. Although the introduction of the Premier League at that point meant the Pilgrims nominally stayed in Division Two they had actually dropped back to the third tier of English football.

Having missed out on promotion in the play offs after finishing 3rd in 1994 Argyle collapsed to suffer relegation to the fourth tier of English football for the first time in 1995.

The club won promotion at the first attempt after a play off victory over Darlington but dropped back to the basement in 1998.

After three disappointing seasons in the middle reaches of this division Plymouth revived under Paul Sturrock and collected 102 points in claiming the Division Three title in 2002.

In 2004 Argyle also ran away with the Division Two title and currently look secure in the Championship. Whether they can go on to establish themselves in the higher reaches of the Football League remains to be seen but the suspicion remains that Plymouth Argyle have the potential to be a more prominent club than they have so far managed in their modest history.

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