Having not seen Argyle live, or on telly so far this season I decided to take a trip up town to the Hoop & Grapes to meet some of the lads to either enjoy or moan about the Portsmouth match. The day started on an optimistic note, you would of thought at my age I would of learnt by now.......and slowly went down hill,except for one moment of luck. The Hoop & Grapes is not my favourite watering hole.....looks okay from the outside....but goes downhill once you enter the bar....small with no room to walk through....with just a few tiny tables to sit at......whilst at the bar you will not find any well known tap names to choose from......the only lager they had on tap yesterday was a Japanese one, that is in their own words a "dry" taste........and at £4-75p a pint.....well it is Central London and not far from the tourist trap of St Pauls Cathedral......which you can join the queues to have a look round....if you don't mind the £16 that they will charge you.....although they do say during services and prayer times you can come in without paying.....which I think was very good of them, (Jesus & the moneylenders come to mind)....but I digress as Frankie Howard would of said. We had hired the room upstairs to watch the match.....we where only allowed in there 15mins before the game started......we had to find out how to turn the screen on ourselves.....after awhile of total failure to get the Sky channel.....someone found the Landlord.....after a few more minutes wasted the screen told us we didn't have the correct Sky card loaded.....it was down stairs in the crappy small bar telly, the Landlord was losing his rag by now and phoned up Sky, they said they would look into it......the Landlord replied that he had a room of thirty plus people waiting to watch the match, can we sought that out later....they asked him for the card number....which he told them......and hey presto we had a picture.....just as the game kicked off. That moment of luck that I mention awhile back came on twenty minutes, when the Portsmouth full back chested the ball down for a perfect pass for Hourihane to poke it in the net. Upto then Argyle had had the best of the chances and things looked promising for a win. The rest is history and it was never that good again.....but we didn't lose....Sheridan,Owers and Hourihane said they where happy with the result.......but I didn't see too many happy faces in our crowd feeling one point at home was a success. Most of us were also gobsmacked that Sky made Hourihane man of the match.....most of us thought "the tank" Agyemang was the most dangerous player on the field and showed good ball skills for such a big man....and left a few floundering players in his wake. The sponsers made Young their man of the match.....I and others felt that they had been watching another match. My view was that Berry did some good work down the wing and also Nelson and Reid played well.....McCormick made one very good save and did everything required of him.....including ignoring the Pompey crowds chanting. I have problems understanding what Hourihane brings to mid-field....he hasn't missed a match yet this season, but I see mid-field as totally lacking the linking ability from defence upto attack......the management seem happy but I cannot see why....three wins out of eleven played and 19th in the league......and away to Hartlepool next week......who in their last few games are scoring goals for fun. Just to finally cheer me up South East Railways had started weekend maintenance work on the Charing Cross/Orpington line.....the train zig-zagged all over the place and took 25 mins longer to get me home on a normal 30 mins journey. Ps.....we were all wondering what this Hayes fellow brings to the team that Chadwick couldn't supply.....that's other than goals of course ?
its funny how things look differently 'in the flesh' compared with 'on the telly'. I went to the match as always and then watched the first hour again once I got home (sad I know). For me Young was the outstanding player on the pitch followed closely by Hourihane- I think you probably had to be there to appreciate Young's range and accuracy of passing especially out to the wide areas. Virtually every thing went through him when we had possession and the midfield just looked so much better with him in it. Agyemang was certainly a threat but only on a few isolated occasions but i would defo have him in the argyle side ahead of any of the other 'strikers' I agree , i have no idea what hayes is supposed to be good at because as yet he has done nothing to justify his inclusion. Small crumbs of comfort but the consensus at half time was that it had been the best half of football we had soon at HP for a very long time-i guess this says more about how poor the fare on offer has been for a while. a point was a fair result and I expect both teams will be top half come the business end of the season. trying to decide whether to make the trip to Hartlepool- now that really is a 'long old poke'
Because of the early kick off...4am here..i slept in and just heard the final 10min. Nice to read your reports you Guys.. Plymborn...it would have been easier to drive down to Plymouth..on your Day Out..lol
I agree with you lyndhurst. Comment from my son and companions at half time was that Young and Hourihane had bossed the midfield totally. I've seen a couple of comments now about Hourihane's lack of ability and asking why he is captain. I can't agree with them. He has improved no end and in my book it's the armband that has helped. We keep the ball more. It's what we are supposed to do rather than lump it forward at every opportunity. The lack of ability comes from others around them. Boco was absent most of the time, Alexandra no better when he came on. MOM should have been one of the 3 already mentioned for Argyle. Hourihane, Young or Mac. The real MOM could well have been "The Tank". He is one battering ram.
