Plymouth Argyle 1-0 Aldershot
Home park
09/04/12
Att: 8,677 (334 shots)
Mid table mediocrity
The fixture list is usually really horrible to us. This is shown by the fact that since we returned to the Football League we haven't played on a Saturday in Torquay. In fact we didn't in our solitary season with them in the Conference. With this in mind I was grateful back in August when seeing the fixture list. We may not have visited Plymouth on a Saturday but at least it was a Bank Holiday Monday during the Easter holidays. This was joined up by the fact that I'd never been to Home Park before.
We arrived early in Plymouth to be greeted by grey skies, but I held on to the hope that the weather wouldn't be similar to the past couple of games. After looking around the centre of Plymouth I made my way to the ground. Home Park opened in 1893, but has been redeveloped in 2001. The only remaining feature of what was once there is the Grandstand (opened in1952) but even this has been readied in case of further redevelopment as the old paddock at the front has been stripped of crash barriers. The other three sides are those that were redeveloped. We were housed in the Barn Park which has decent facilities, but is cramped with just under 350 fans, let alone 2,500! I imagine the other two redeveloped sides are like this as well. They all join together in the common sweeping “bowl” desingn. Without the Grandstand this ground really wouldn't be that good. The capacity is 16,388.
Before the players came out was rather funny. The Argyle fans had made a big flag to go up, but it started making it's way around the ground. This obviously wasn't meant to happen as from a distance it looked like the fans were pulling the flag away from one another in a mini fight. Argyle are currently near the drop zone in League two but this win means they are more or less safe. A good achievement considering the financial situation they were in (are they still in it?). They took the lead early on after a shot from the wing took flight off of Anthony Strakers foot and over the head of Jamie Young. Aldershot then threw the proverbial kitchen sink at them. In the second half alone we hit the post, had free goals disallowed and missed a couple of sitters. We simply didn't get the rub of the green. Argyle knew this was there day as they found their voices in the last ten minutes.
This signalled an end to our (slim) play off hopes, but after the situation we were in a couple of months ago I don't care. We can look forward to another season in the basement division of the football league.
We arrived early in Plymouth to be greeted by grey skies, but I held on to the hope that the weather wouldn't be similar to the past couple of games. After looking around the centre of Plymouth I made my way to the ground. Home Park opened in 1893, but has been redeveloped in 2001. The only remaining feature of what was once there is the Grandstand (opened in1952) but even this has been readied in case of further redevelopment as the old paddock at the front has been stripped of crash barriers. The other three sides are those that were redeveloped. We were housed in the Barn Park which has decent facilities, but is cramped with just under 350 fans, let alone 2,500! I imagine the other two redeveloped sides are like this as well. They all join together in the common sweeping “bowl” desingn. Without the Grandstand this ground really wouldn't be that good. The capacity is 16,388.
Before the players came out was rather funny. The Argyle fans had made a big flag to go up, but it started making it's way around the ground. This obviously wasn't meant to happen as from a distance it looked like the fans were pulling the flag away from one another in a mini fight. Argyle are currently near the drop zone in League two but this win means they are more or less safe. A good achievement considering the financial situation they were in (are they still in it?). They took the lead early on after a shot from the wing took flight off of Anthony Strakers foot and over the head of Jamie Young. Aldershot then threw the proverbial kitchen sink at them. In the second half alone we hit the post, had free goals disallowed and missed a couple of sitters. We simply didn't get the rub of the green. Argyle knew this was there day as they found their voices in the last ten minutes.
This signalled an end to our (slim) play off hopes, but after the situation we were in a couple of months ago I don't care. We can look forward to another season in the basement division of the football league.