Argyle are in financial turmoil and sit rock-bottom of the Football League, but Fans Reunited demonstrate solidarity in adversity
At Home Park on Saturday fans of clubs across the country will gather, not for the unmissable spectacle of rock-bottom Plymouth Argyle playing Macclesfield Town, but for "Fans Reunited" to demonstrate solidarity with the fight to keep Argyle alive. The day reciprocates the first Fans United, held in 1997 and initiated by the then 14-year-old Argyle supporter, Richard Vaughan, in support of the bitter battle for the future of Brighton and Hove Albion, whose owners had sold the Goldstone Ground for a retail park with no alternative in place.
Since that landmark modern exposure of owners acting in their own financial interests, dozens of clubs have fallen insolvent, as Argyle still are, or into teetering states of near-collapse. Every time, the fans have rallied to help salvage them. At the Fans United day in January 2005, supporters wearing the scarves or shirts of some 70 clubs including Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Newcastle United, Hull City, Grimsby Town and Stockport County, assembled at Wrexham's Racecourse Ground, which was also then threatened with being property-developed out of existence.
At the end of a week that saw the deep unpleasantness of some Leeds United fans making taunts about the Munich air crash and some Manchester United fans referencing the stabbing of two Leeds fans in Istanbul in 2000, Home Park will host the best sentiments of football support. There is a recognition in this campaign, backed for years by Brighton fans, now secure in their new Amex Stadium, that support for a club is an accident, usually of inheritance or geography, but all clubs are alliances to cherish.
At Plymouth, the drawn-out agonies of six months in administration form the familiar, depressing narrative of a shattered club, 125 years old this year, being hawked to businessmen who see opportunity in its old bones. The administrator, Brendan Guilfoyle, is expected to favour the bid of James Brent, chairman of property developers Akkeron Group, with confirmation that the former Leeds chairman Peter Ridsdale has stepped down from his position of Plymouth's acting chairman.
Argyle's broader story is that following years of admirable progress by a local group of owner-directors, a new group of investors with little previous connection to Plymouth unleashed grand visions, allied to an eye for profit. Sir Roy Gardner, formerly the chairman of Manchester United when it was a stock market plc, in partnership with an investor in Japan, Yasuaki Kagami, said when they took over, in July 2009:
"In a reference to Plymouth's illustrious maritime history, the Partnership will establish a 'New World' for Plymouth Argyle, targeting Premier League football within five years and expanding e-commerce operations based around the club's brand."
The plans included expanding Home Park to 40,000 capacity, and the local council put public money into the bid for Plymouth to be one of England's World Cup cities had Fifa awarded the FA a decisive vote for 2018, rather than the two it ultimately received.
Plymouth awoke from the end of the World Cup dream to find that the club was around �13m in debt and the directors had been finding or making loans to limp on day to day. Administration became a necessity, 10 points were deducted, Argyle were relegated from League One, and two years after the "New World" ambition to soar to the Premier League, Argyle are bottom of the Football League with just one point from nine games, and have sacked the manager Peter Reid, which many saw as heartless but Ridsdale argued was necessary.
On the Save Argyle Fans United website, the organisers are asking fans to: "Cast aside your rivalries for the day and unite as fellow football fans, around a proud 125-year-old member of our footballing heritage."
Businessmen eyeing Plymouth Argyle as a "brand" opportunity have always landed on its wide potential catchment area ? which means, in plain words, the old club is a long way from any other. Fans who see it as a famous football club to be saved know that only too well, but will nevertheless be making the long journey, from all over the country, in the name of solidarity, on Saturday.
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