[themaclad]

Plymouth Argyle v Preston North End
Home Park 16/3/2024

Home Park is a football stadium in Plymouth, England. The ground has been the home of EFL Championship club Plymouth Argyle since 1901.[4]

After undergoing considerable development in the 1920s and 1930s, the ground suffered heavy damage in World War II. It reopened in time for the resumption of the Football League in 1945, and underwent further improvements in the 1950s, including the installation of floodlights and a new double-decker grandstand. The ground remained relatively unchanged until 2001, when construction of three new all-seater stands began.[5] Temporary solutions saw the stadium become all-seater in the summer of 2007,[6] before the Mayflower Grandstand, the oldest part of the ground, was redeveloped in 2019.

The stadium's record attendance was in 1936, when 43,596 spectators watched the club play a Second Division match against Aston Villa. The record average attendance for a single season, 23,290, came in the 1946–47 season.[7] The stadium was selected as part of England's 2018 FIFA World Cup bid by the FA in December 2009.[8][9] The ground has played host to England youth internationals, and a UEFA Cup Winners' Cup match between Saint-Étienne and Manchester United in 1977.[10] Home Park has also hosted Rugby union and athletics, and live music in the summer, with Elton John, George Michael and Rod Stewart among the acts who have performed at the ground.[11]



They keep saying Home Park is a tough place to go

Looking at those directions it's easy



Only been once, this man Mark Leonard scored.He only scored twice whilst wearing a North End shirt this effort counted during a 4-0 defeat





LAST TIME OUT





FORM GUIDE

ARGYLE 7 PNE 10

IN FORM



Obvious danger man in Whittaker

THE BOSS

IAN FOSTER

James Ian Foster (born 11 November 1976) is an English football coach and former professional player. He is currently the head coach of EFL Championship club Plymouth Argyle.

https://www.pafc.co.uk/

https://pasoti.co.uk/forums/plymouth-arg...-forum.30/

https://www.not606.com/forums/plymouth.73/

CULTURAL STUFF



Plymouth Castle was a castle built in the early 15th century to defend the town and harbour of Plymouth in Devon, England. By the end of the 16th century it had ceased to have any military function and fell into disrepair, being almost completely demolished by the 19th century. Only a small fragment of an outer gatehouse remains.

History

The coat of arms of the City of Plymouth show the four towers of Plymouth Castle with the saltire of Saint Andrew. The motto, Turris Fortissima est Nomen Jehova means "The strongest tower is the name of Jehovah".
At the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, Plymouth, then known as Sutton, was too small a settlement to warrant fortification, but a motte and bailey castle was built at nearby Plympton.[1] As the value of the natural harbour, Sutton Pool, and the size of the town increased, so in 1377, a murage grant was received to fund its fortification. The exact date of the construction of the castle itself is uncertain, but following a French raid on Plymouth in August 1403, King Henry IV ordered the prior of Plympton and the abbot of Tavistock to further fortify the town with walls and towers. No finance seems to have been forthcoming from the Crown and Edmund Lacey, the Bishop of Exeter, later granted indulgences to those who made contributions towards the cost of the project. Instead of town walls, the defences took the form of a quadrangular castle with four towers. It was not the seat of a powerful baron or a royal constable like a traditional castle, but it was commanded by the town's mayor and the defence of it was in the hands of the aldermen, each of the four wards of the town being responsible for one of the four towers.[2] These are the four towers represented in the city's coat of arms to this day.[3]

In 1542, the antiquary John Leland visited Plymouth and recorded that: "On a rokky hill hard by it [the mouth of the harbour] is a strong castel quadrate having a eche corner a great rounde tower. It semeth to be no very old peace of worke".[4] During the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549, the castle provided a refuge for the town's officials. Although the castle was manned again in preparation for the Spanish Armada in 1588, Francis Drake obtained royal funding for a modern artillery fort further south on the eastern end of Plymouth Hoe, which superseded the castle as the main defence of the harbour. During the English Civil War, Plymouth declared for Parliament and was besieged in 1643 by Royalist forces; the castle was again made ready for defence but saw no action. The castle was later used as a prison, then as a workhouse and finally as a source of building material for the expanding town.[1]

Surviving remains
A small section of the castle fabric survives in the Barbican area of Plymouth, located in Lambhay Street, at the head of a flight of stairs leading down to the Mayflower Steps on the quayside. It is thought to be a section of an outer gatehouse called the "South Port". The remains consist of a short length of thick rubble wall 3 metres high, with a central semicircular projection, the remains of a turret of the gatehouse. It is a Grade II listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument.[5]

TENUOUS LINK TIME

On the way to Plymouth you have to go through the West Midlands birthday of Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant

It is a little known fact that he wrote about a journey to the South West on the 4 symbols album



Track was called M5 to Devon

And she's driving the M5 to Devon