Doubt it if there’ll be many, or any, doing this on Christmas Day, but, for anyone who fancies it, here’s the usual quiz with questions on our upcoming opponent going back to the 60s.
60s. Born on the south coast quite a long way from Plymouth, this member of a footballing family was a good enough defender to have played First Division football for the team his elder brother had won a Division One winner’s medal with. He played just short of a hundred league games for his first club and just over a hundred for his second one where he first started to suffer with the back problem that would curtail his career – wearing a different shade of the colour he wore at his first club, his second club were on the rise during the four years he played for them, but he had moved on to Plymouth before they finally reached the First Division, His two years with Argyle saw his injury getting worse and he was to miss more games than he played before calling it a day– his one encounter with City as a Plymouth player saw his team beaten heavily, but he was to win a battle with City just under a decade later before what was probably the biggest achievement of his career eleven years later, who am I describing?
70s. Born in a place which sounds Liverpudlian, but is, in fact on the other side of the country, the highspot of this midfielder’s career came when he was barely twenty. Signed by a side he’d enjoyed a victory over on the way to said highspot almost entirely on the basis of what he’d done against them, he never established himself in the top flight at his second club and signed for Plymouth making just over a hundred league appearances in his three years with them. His two encounters with City as a Plymouth player saw him having the better of things, but the season ended with us, just, staying up and them being relegated. Next up was a move north to wear amber before a foreign interlude in a joyous depression to the east before a return to England to finish his career in a northern county which only had one Football League club at the time, but can you name him?
80s. Bit convoluted this one, but who is the Plymouth midfielder who, by the sound of it, may have taken David Dundas’ advice when he played?
90s. I’m a goner if I stay in the National Union of Educators says midfielder! (6,5)
00s. In 2009. a Plymouth player was loaned to Blackpool and was given permission to make his debut for them in a match against Argyle a week later. The game ended 2-0 to Blackpool with the loaned player scoring one of the goals and afterwards he said the following about the game and the Plymouth manager;-
“I’m delighted to have scored. I was training on my own at Plymouth. I’ll never play for that man again, and he’ll never pick me. Yes, we have had a big fallout but Blackpool have given me a chance and I want to take it”
The Plymouth captain at the time rezponded with;
“……………. playing for Blackpool should never have happened. It made the whole club look like a Mickey Mouse club, and players take that to heart. At the end of the season, if we get relegated by one goal, that’s going to affect the livelihoods of 30-odd players here and people working at the club.”
A couple of years later, the loaned player was awarded £70,000 in damages from Blackpool following a dispute about bonuses.
Who was the player concerned and, for bonus points which count for absolutely nothing, who was the manager involved and the captain who called Plymouth a Mickey Mouse club?
10s. Defender connects Love will tear us Apart vocalist and the victim of a sniper’s bullet during a battle over two hundred years ago, but who is he?
20s. He scored thirteen goals in sixteen matches for Plymouth earlier in this decade, but, despite being fit for most of the year, he has only scored twice (both in the same game) in 2023, who is he?
Answers:
60s. Southampton born John Sillett was on the books of his home town club just like his father Charlie and his brother Peter had been, but he never played a senior game for them and made his breakthrough at Chelsea, the club his brother had won the First Division title with in 1955. John was transferred to Coventry in 1962, but his four years there were injury hit and the same was true of his time at Plymouth before he retired in 1968. In March 1967, John was in a Plymouth team beaten 4-1 at Ninian Park, but when he went into management, his 1976 Hereford team were Third Division Champions ahead of second placed Cardiff – Sillett’s biggest achievement though has to be as joint manager of Coventry’s only ever major trophy win when they lifted the FA Cup in 1987.
70s.Mickey Horswill was barely out of his teens when he was a member of the Sunderland team that beat Leeds 1-0 in the 1973 FA Cup in one of the competition’s biggest ever upsets in a Final. Sunderland beat Manchester City on their way to winning the cup and that club signed him and Dennis Tueart pretty soon afterwards, but while the latter had a long and distinguished career with the Maine Road club, Horswill barely played as he found the rise in standards a hard jump to make. Horswill moved to Plymouth in 1975 and during 76/77 was in their team for a 2-2 draw at Home Park and a 1-0 win at Ninian Park, but it didn’t save them from relegation and he moved on to Hull not long afterwards. Horswill played in Hong Kong for Happy Valley for a while before finishing his career with a season at Carlisle.
80s.David Dundas, who is entitled to be called a Lord apparently, had a hit in 1976 with a song called Jeans On. Lee Cooper is a jeans company from around that time which, it appears, is still trading today, while Leigh Cooper was a long serving Plymouth midfielder from this decade.
90s. Ronnie Mauge.
00s. Marcel Seip was the player who fell out with Plymouth manager Paul Sturrock and Carl Fletcher was the captain who was not pleased with the decision to allow Seip to play against Plymouth for Blackpool.
10s. Curtis Nelson – Ian Curtis was the singer with Joy Division and Horatio Nelson was shot during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
20s. Three or our years ago, Luke Jephcott looked to be Wales’ centre forward in waiting, particularly after a prolific spell during the 20/21 campaign, but since then he’s been released by Plymouth and is still awaiting his first goal for St. Johnstone, the club he signed for in the summer.