A Pilgrimage with Plymouth

A brief overview of Plymouth Argyle.

The club was formed in 1886 as Argyle FC and have played at Home Park since 1901, the stadium currently has a capacity of 17,800. Argyles highest league position was 10th in the Championship during the 2007-08 season, but have played in League 2 after back to back relegations from the Championship and League 1 in 2009-10 and 2010-11, this means that the 2016-17 season will be their 6th consecutive season in League 2. After losing to Wycombe in the play off semi finals in 2014-15 and then losing in the play off final against AFC Wimbledon last term, the club are looking to go one better and finally achieve promotion out of the league. The club are now debt free since being seconds away from being put out of business and going into administration in 2011. Plymouth is the largest city in England to have never hosted top flight football. Will this change? Only time will tell.

Plymouth appoint Woodgate as their new manager

Plymouth have appointed 20 year old Kane Woodgate as their new manager after the resignation of Derek Adams.

This is his first job in the professional game and becomes the youngest manager in the Football League by some distance.

When asked by by BBC Devon whether he thinks that he is the man to lead Plymouth out of League 2 he replied "I may have a lack of experience but I feel that I can take us to promotion this year and hopefully get the good times flowing at the club".

He was also quizzed about transfer targets he said "I have a few targets in mind and am trying to get players signed in early for the start of pre season".

The Home Park club start their League 2 campaign at home to Luton Town.

Ben Sheaf becomes Kane Woodgates first signing at Plymouth Argyle, signing on loan for the season from Arsenal.

Sheaf is a very versatile defender and can play at centre back or right back.

When asked about the signing Woodgate said "I am very happy to get this one over the line quickly as we did as there were a few teams sniffing around before he signed for us".

The 18 year old has been on the books at Arsenal from 2014 after he was signed from West Ham.

Healey signs on

Rhys Healey becomes the second signing for Plymouth in this transfer window, the striker signs on a season long loan from Cardiff City.

Healey has made one appearance in a Cardiff shirt since signing in 2013 from Connah's Quay and has had loan spells at Colchester United and Dundee in recent years.

When speaking to BBC Devon, Kane Woodgate described him as "a player who can score goals from anywhere and will be crucial to the side this season".

Woodgate has also put Jakub Sokolik, Jordan Slew, Jake Jervis, Nathan Blissett and David Ijahaon the transfer list.

Packwood signs for Plymouth

Former Birmingham City right back Will Packwood has signed for Pymouth on a free transfer.

Packwood 23, has signed a 2 year deal with the club and posted his delight of signing for the club on Twitter "Absolutely ecstatic to finally sign for @Only1Argyle, can't wait to get back onto the pitch".

The American hasn't made an appearance in a professional game since Playing for Cheltenahm in the 2014-15 season.

Jake Jervis has signed for Walsall for a fee of around £75k.

He was deemed surplus to requirements at Home Park and has been sold with immediate effect and has signed a 1 year deal with the Sadlers.

Everyone at the Herald would like to wish Jake good luck at his new club.

FourFourTwo League 2 Season Preview

One week until the start of the season and we have done our annual season preview for League 2.

Accrington Stanley
Manager: John Coleman
Last season: 4th
Predicted position: 20th
Key player: Seamus Conneely

Barnet
Manager: Kevin Nugent
Last Season: 15th
Predicted position: 21st
Key player: John Akinde

Blackpool
Manager: Gary Bowyer
Last Season: 22nd (L1)
Predicted position: 4th
Key player: Danny Philliskirk

Cambridge United
Manager: Shaun Derry
Last Season: 9th
Predicted position: 5th
Key player: Scott Wharton

Carlisle United
Manager: Keith Curle
Last Season: 10th
Predicted position: 6th
Key player: Nicky Adams

Cheltenham Town
Manager: Gary Johnson
Last Season: 1st (NL)
Predicted position: 22nd
Key player: Scott Brown

Colchester United
Manager: John McGreal
Last Season: 23d (L1)
Predicted position: 9th
Key player: Brennan Dickenson

Crawley Town
Manager: Dermot Drummy
Last Season: 20th
Predicted position: 17th
Key player: Mark Connolly

Crewe
Manager: David Aretll
Last Season: 24th (L1)
Predicted position: 12th
Key player: Alex Kiwomya

Doncaster Rovers
Manager: Darren Ferguson
Last Season: 21st (L1)
Predicted position: 1st
Key player: James Coppinger

Exeter City
Manager: Paul Tisdale
Last Season: 14th
Predicted position: 16th
Key player: Lee Holmes

Grimsby Town
Manager: Marcus Bignot
Last Season: 4th (NL)
Predicted position: 18th
Key player: Danny Collins

Hartlepool United
Manager: Dave Jones
Last Season: 16th
Predicted position: 24th
Key player: Sean Kavanagh

Leyton Orient
Manager: Danny Webb
Last Season: 8th
Predicted position: 14th
Key player: Liam Kelly

Luton Town
Manager: Nathan Jones
Last Season: 11th
Predicted position: 11th
Key player: Cameron McGeehan

Mansfield Town
Manager: Steve Evans
Last Season: 12th
Predicted position: 8th
Key player: Jake Kean

Morecambe
Manager: Jim Bentley
Last Season: 21st
Predicted position: 23rd
Key player: Peter Murphy

Newport County
Manager: Graham Westley
Last season: 22nd
Predicted position: 19th
Key player: Alex Samuel

Notts County
Manager: Kevin Nolan
Last Season: 19th
Predicted position: 13th
Key player: Jorge Grant

Plymouth Aryle
Manager: Kane Woodgate
Last Season: 5th
Predicted position: 3rd
Key player: Graham Carey

Portsmouth
Manager: Paul Cook
Last Season: 6th
Predicted position: 2nd
Key player: Eoin Doyle

Stevenage
Manager: Darren Sarrll
Last Season: 18th
Predicted position: 15th
Key player: Jack King

Wycombe Wanderers
Manager: Gareth Ainsworth
Last Season: 13th
Predicted position: 10th
Key player: Aaron Pierre

Yeovil Town
Manager: Darren Way
Last Season: 19th
Predicted position: 7th
Key player: George Byers

Pre season review

Torquay United 1 (Reid 80) Plymouth Argyle 1 (Garita 14)

Tiverton 0 Plymouth Argyle 2 ( Healey 20, Garita 70)

Truro City 0 Plymouth Argyle 3 (Healey 54, Taylor 68, Carey 74)

Saltash 0 Plymouth Argyle 1 (Taylor 53)

All in all it was a very good pre season even if we have only played 4 games, all of our goals bar one was scored by a striker so hopefully my strikers can find some form and start scoring straight away in the league

One criticism I have is that even though we won we 3 out of 4 games, we should be scoring a lot more goals. 1-0 against Saltash is quite disappointing as they are 7 leagues below me but I did play a weakened side due to the fact we are playing our first game of the season 6 days after.

Targets for the season

English Football League 2

I am hoping to achieve promotion to League 1 via automatic promotion, I feel that I have a very strong squad to compete with the likes of Doncaster, Blackpool and Portsmouth who I would say are our main rivals for the title/promotion.

FA Cup
I reckon we can reach the 3rd round of the FA Cup, we have a strong enough squad to compete in League 1 so I won't be too fazed if we draw a team from League 1. I wouldn't mind getting beyond the 3rd round as we can get some added cash for the club but it will be hard as the teams from the Championship and Premier League enter and have a bit of added quality.

EFL Cup

I am being very hopeful of getting to the 2nd round but due to the fact that we've been drawn against Cardiff City in the 1st round we could struggle even if it is at home. Hopefully Cardiff get complacent and we can get a good result in front of our fans.

Checkatrade Trophy

I don't hate any cup competition more than I hate this one, the Football League have completely messed up a fairly good lower league trophy by adding Premier League U23 teams into mix. But saying that it is a trophy we can win, I will play a mix of non first team players and U23/18 players to play in the competition. We have been drawn in a group with Newport, Northampton and Swansea U23s. I would like to say we can easily reach the Quarter Finals of the competition.

Good start to this mate, looking forward to the season. Good luck.

ScottT: Thanks mate, hopefully Accrington can turn a few heads;). Really enjoying your Colchester story at the moment!

Monthly Preview- August

So the new football season is upon us and the fans of Plymouth are gearing up for what could hopefully be a promotion season.

Our first game of the season is at home to Luton which will be a very tough game and will also be in front of the Sky cameras. Luton are a very dangerous side with a lot of pace and power in their team. Their key player is Cameron McGeehan who is a tricky winger who has an eye for goal, the 21 year old scoring 12 goals last season for the hatters and I am confident we will be seeing him progress up the football pyramid. Danny Hylton is another player who could hurt us, he is a very good striker in League 2 and knows where the net is. They also have one of the best managers in the league with Nathan Jones at the helm, even though he is only 43 years old he has a wealth of experience coaching already at Yeovil Town, Charlton and Brighton.


The 2nd game in the month is at home to Cardiff City, I feel that if our boys put in 110% we can come away with a shock victory against the Championship side, we've also got to be realistic that it will be a very tough game against a side that have a lot of experience. I reckon Cardiff won't take us seriously at all and will play a weakened side, I hope Neil Warnock shows us a bit of respect considering he is an ex Argyle manager!

After Cardiff we travel away to Carlisle which will be our longest distanced away game of the season. They have a very experienced manager in the shape of Keith Curle. I think that we have the quality to see off Carlisle and hopefully can bang in a couple goals.

Our 4th game of August comes in the form of another away trip, this time to Notts County. I reckon they’ll be a tough team to break down and they will give us a run for our money. A team with a few ex Premier League players including Alan Smith and Jon Stead. A team managed by Kevin Nolan who is looking to have a better spell with the Magpies after his disastrous reign at Leyton Orient.

After Notts County we are back at the Theatre of Greens to face a Mansfield side who will have larger than life Steve Evans in their dugout. Their manager man in my eyes is ex Birmingham striker Matt Green who is in his second spell with the Stags, he is a player who has a good eye for goal and always gets in the right positions. The good thing for us is that he is out of favour with Evans right now.

One of our biggest games of the season comes quite early on in the shape of an away trip to the sunny seaside town of Blackpool. They’re going to be a team who will challenge us all the way for the title and to get 3 points over them could be vital come the end of the season.

Our last game of the month is away to Swansea U23s in the Chekatrade trophy. As mentioned in the season targets I will be playing a mixture of players in the first team who aren’t getting many minutes and members of our U23/18 squads.

I'm with Scott on this a good start, best of luck! Will be a long campaign but confident you'll be celebrating come the end of it!

Good start to the story, good luck with the upcoming season! Hopefully you can come out on top at the end of it!

Plymouth ran out comfortable 2-0 winners in the 1st round of the EFL Cup at home to Cardiff City. More to follow.