⚽️ Cornwall Football: ‘Any silverware we hope to lift this year, he will be there with us’
Sat near the Trelawny League summit and into the semi-finals of the Junior Cup, West Cornwall FC are enjoying a stellar season - and the team are being spurred on by the memory of one former player...
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⬇️ Inside today’s newsletter ⬇️
⚽️ ‘Any silverware we hope to lift this year, he will be there with us’
💚 ‘Underestimated from day one’ — Why Argyle continue to fly under the radar
🏆 Argyle off to Wembley after dramatic shootout win
👀 What’s on this weekend
⚽️ ‘Any silverware we hope to lift this year, he will be there with us’
By Tom Howe
Next month marks the eighth anniversary of Dave Curnow’s final competitive outing for West Cornwall Football Club, the young man grabbing a goal in an emphatic 5-1 home win over Camborne School of Mines in March of 2015.
Six months later, the youngest British soldier to serve in Afghanistan, was killed in an attack a jury was told came about ‘totally without provocation’. He was just 20 years old and had returned home on leave.
Ashley Kemp, another of those in the West Cornwall squad that day, has since stepped up to manage the Blues, who ply their trade out of the Dave Curnow Memorial Ground and wear jerseys that bear his initials.
Football tends to pale into insignificance in these circumstances. However, with Curnow’s legacy flowing through it, the club find themselves a point off the summit in Trelawny League Premier, while also being one game away from both a Junior and League Cup final appearance.
“Having been part of the club for many years, I can say this is one of the closest groups of players in a long time,” Curnow’s former team-mate and coach, Owain Barrett, told Cornwall Sports Media. “There is a massive feeling of togetherness and that shows on the pitch.
“The committee is run by players and their family members, who are an integral part of our club. I won’t name one because I’ll miss someone but Ash needs a big shout out. His work as our manager, as a man manager to the players, has definitely brought the club’s family feeling back.
“This season, so far, is looking very positive. We’re into two semi-finals, including the Junior Cup and have only lost one league game. That being said we have a tough run of games to come. Our targets are quite simple; win the league and get as far as we can in the Junior Cup.
“Having narrowly missed out on promotion last year, we are in a good position to place our hands on some silverware this season. Looking at the current league standings, we feel that we would hold our own in the Combination League given the opportunity to play in it.”
The versatile Barrett, who has five goals in eight appearances thus far this season, has been involved with West Cornwall right from their inception in 2008, bar a handful of brief stints at other clubs, including two years spent at Mousehole.
His attitude embodies the spirit of the side, with outings anywhere from an attacking position to something slightly deeper in a more box-to-box midfield role as well as the occasional cameo at left-back.
It was a commitment shared by Curnow who, all these years later, remains very much in the hearts and minds of those who knew him and many of those who didn’t.
“I was only this week realising how long we’d been without Dave,” concluded Barrett. “He was such a nice young man. I coached him from the age of ten, along with a lot of the West Cornwall players.
“He is missed and we always play with a blue heart with his initials on our sleeve. Any silverware we hope to lift this year, he will be there with us.”
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💚 ‘Underestimated from day one’ — Why Argyle continue to fly under the radar
By Colin Bradbury
The BBC’s Mark Clemmit - lovely ‘Clem’ - is transparently one of the nicest people in sports broadcasting. But, oh dear, he raised a few eyebrows with a comment on last week’s Football Focus during a visit to Home Park.
One of his first questions to Schuey in the interview aired on the Saturday show was how a guy schooled in a football hotbed’ like Merseyside fits in to a culture down here, “which no disrespect – would not be seen as one of the traditional football hotbeds?”
Just a throwaway line, and clearly not meant to offend, but it does say something about the broader attitude to Argyle and football in the south west.
Few people would argue with the view that across the English game as a whole, the Pilgrims are not seen as one of the storied clubs of the football league. There are two likely reasons for this.
The first relates to Argyle’s location. Although it might be considered a tad impolite to bring it up, Clem was basically correct when he said that the south west is not a ‘traditional football hotspot’. That label surely applies to the likes of the north west, north east, Yorkshire, the Midlands, and London.
Glance at a map showing the distribution of the 92 Premier League and EFL clubs and you’ll see the pins in the board becoming increasingly scarce the further west you go. In the large area of England west of a line from Bristol to Bournemouth there are just two teams in the top four divisions of English football, both of those in League One and both in Devon. Cornwall and Somerset have no EFL teams. Of course, football itself is as popular in this part of the country as any other, with a very active non-league scene. But in terms of the top four divisions – no.
The second reason for the south west’s status as something of a football backwater is historical: outside of Bristol and Bournemouth, the region has never had a top-flight club. Argyle itself, of course, hasn’t played at the peak of the English pyramid and it’s widely stated that Plymouth is the largest English city never to have hosted Division One or Premiership football.
But don’t despair. This ‘below-the-radar’ status – both for the region as a whole and Argyle in particular - is an opportunity rather than a reason for despondency.
The first big plus is that because Argyle is not jammed into a region with a large number of league clubs, there is significant room to grow the supporter base.
Home Park has the sixth highest average attendance (15,252) in League One so far this season. The teams above us – in order of crowd size – are Derby County, Ipswich Town, Sheffield Wednesday, Bolton Wanderers and Portsmouth. They have one thing in common of course; they have all played in either the old First Division or the Premier League and so have a strong legacy fan base (it’s interesting to note that Charlton Athletic, with a very recent Premier League history, have a lower average attendance, meaning that Argyle is already punching above its weight).
Most importantly, the potential upside from here in terms of Argyle’s support base is still significant. Measuring that potential is not easy, but one way is to compare attendances to the populations of the clubs’ home cities.
Argyle’s average home crowd is equivalent to around six per cent of Plymouth’s population. That is below Ipswich (19% of the city’s population), Derby (10%) and Portsmouth (9%), similar to Bolton (6%), but above Sheffield Wednesday (4%).
When considering potential, the good news is that Argyle’s profile resembles that of Ipswich and Derby more than the other three. Ipswich, like Argyle, is not close to other EFL clubs, which presumably goes some way to explaining the very high supporter to population ratio. Derby does not quite have the same degree of regional exclusivity, but only the Nottingham clubs are within reasonable distance.
So the competition in terms of attracting supporters is much less than for Bolton or Sheffield Wednesday. In the case of the former, its location in a major ‘football hotspot’ provides multiple alternative top-level football options for the people of the immediate area. Wednesday’s challenge is that more than half of their potential crowd has been swallowed up by city rival (higher ranked) Sheffield United.
Even for Portsmouth, which has the benefit of a relatively recent Premier League history, the club’s catchment area is limited by the proximity of two top-flight clubs - Southampton 22 miles to the west and Brighton 50 miles to the east. Meaning they’re unlikely to pick up much uncommitted support outside Portsmouth itself.
The lack of other clubs at a similar or higher level also means that Argyle can draw supporters from outside the city limits. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that including say Tavistock, Ivybridge, Totness, Torquay and Paignton gives an additional 143,000 potential supporters within relatively easy traveling distance of Home Park.
To the west, Cornwall’s 550,000 people are even more removed from top-level football, so it’s hardly surprising that Home Park has always attracted a good number from across the Tamar (the club estimates that around 20 per cent of the Home Park crowd come from Cornwall). Including just the main Cornish towns east of Bodmin adds another 80,000 people. Including the population of those nearby areas to that of Plymouth itself (265,000) gives a potential supporter catchment of close on half a million.
Success on the pitch is, of course a key driver of attendances but it’s not the be-all-end-all. Good performances combined with a large pool of potential fans and the lack of other clubs competing for support makes the upper limit for crowds at Home Park relatively high. There is absolutely no reason that (capacity permitting!) Argyle’s average crowds shouldn’t rise significantly above the 20,000 level in the coming years. That’s because of, not in spite of, the region’s position outside the traditional football hotspots.
Another benefit of Argyle’s lack of top-flight pedigree is that the club is not burdened with unrealistic expectations. Premier League / First Division history and heritage are wonderful things, but they can become a curse rather than a benefit. Look at Bradford City, a former Premier League club still mired in League Two. Or Charlton Athletic, bouncing between the Championship and League One after seven years in the Premiership.
That history often infects clubs with a sense of entitlement, with elevated status within the football pyramid regarded as a right rather than something that has to be earned, season-in, season-out. Exhibit A - Sunderland. A club that spent four seasons in League One after consecutive relegations from the Premier League and Championship, apparently baffled that cruel fate had condemned them to keep them playing at such a lowly level.
It's also probably no coincidence that many of those ‘historic’ clubs have suffered from chronic mismanagement through ownership that lies on a continuum from the merely naïve or short-sighted to the downright dodgy. Many have been mired in financial difficulties as a result of trying to spend their way back to the glory days. Money doesn’t always buy success.
So let the pundits talk about how Argyle will inevitably blow it at the last minute. Let the bookies continue to make the clubs around them favourites for promotion, unable to quite believe that ‘little’ Argyle will still be in the fight at the end of the season. Nothing, promotion especially, is ever certain in football and there’s still a very long way to go. Meanwhile, Schuey and the lads will keep doing what they do, all the while flying under the radar.
As a summary of Argyle right now, Al Pacino’s speech to his young protégé in the film ‘The Devil’s Advocate’ is a pretty good one.
“You gotta keep yourself small, innocuous. Be the little guy. Look at me - underestimated from day one. I’m the surprise. They don’t see me comin’.”
🏆 Argyle off to Wembley after dramatic shootout win
Three remarkable penalty saves in succession from Callum Burton booked Plymouth Argyle a place at Wembley in the Papa Johns Trophy Final after a dramatic shootout victory over Cheltenham Town at Home Park on Tuesday night.
The penalties were a traditional rollercoaster but Burton was brilliant, somehow digging out a hat-trick of saves to give the Green Army a dream trip to the home of English football…
❌ Offside: Argyle have the ball in the net through a Danny Mayor header, but Matt Butcher is flagged offside. 0-0 (33’)
⚽ Goal: Alfie May strikes the first blow for Cheltenham, firing low into the Argyle net. 0-1 (49’)
⚽ Equaliser: Ryan Hardie levels for the Greens with a sublime chip from the left side of the box after latching on Callum Wright’s inch-perfect floated cross. 1-1 (64’)
❌ Nearly: Argyle are denied by the linesman’s flag a second time as Hardie’s second goal is chalked off for offside. 1-1 (83’)
🏁 Full-time: And it’s going to be decided on penalties, with Argyle to take first…
⚽ Hardie scores. 1-0
⚽ Sercombe scores. 1-1
⚽ Cosgrove scores. 2-1
⚽ Brown scores. 2-2
❌ Azaz hits the post. 2-2
❌ Broom’s shot is saved. 2-2
⚽ Gillesphey scores. 3-2
❌ Bonds’ shot is saved. 3-2
❌ Houghton hits the crossbar. 3-2
❌ May’s shot is saved. 3-2
Argyle: Burton, Bolton, Houghton, Wilson, Butcher (Matete 70), Edwards, Mayor (Cosgrove 82), Ennis (Hardie 70), Miller (C Wright 57), Azaz, Galloway (Gillesphey 57). Subs (unused): Parkes, Waine.
“That result is for our fans. They're the best fans in the country, in my opinion, for how far we've got to travel. We sell out every away game. This day at Wembley is for them.
“It feels incredible. There were stages there tonight where I thought this isn't going to be our night.
“For us to get there for only the third time in the club's history; it's amazing to be only the third manager to lead this team out there at Wembley Stadium. It's something I'm just so incredibly proud of.”
👀 What’s on this week
⚽️League One: Saturday, 3pm: Peterborough United v Plymouth Argyle.
⚽️Southern League Premier South: Saturday, 3pm: Swindon Supermarine v Truro City.
⚽️Western League: Saturday, 3pm: Buckland Athletic v Mousehole; Cadbury Heath v Falmouth Town; Ilfracombe Town v Torpoint Athletic; Millbrook v Welton Rovers; Sherborne Town v Helston Athletic.
⚽️South West Peninsula League Premier West: Saturday, 3pm: Dobwalls v Bodmin Town; Launceston v Camelford; Liskeard Athletic v Bude Town; Newquay v Callington Town; Penzance v Wendron United; St Blazey v Mullion; St Dennis v St Austell.
⚽️South West Regional Women’s Football League Premier Division: Sunday, 2pm: Royal Wootton Bassett Town v Liskeard Athletic.
⚽️South West Regional Women’s Football League Western Division: Sunday, 2pm: Bideford v Sticker; Marine Academy Plymouth v Saltash United.
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