AFTER two impressive away performances, Argyle were faced with the apparently unwelcome luxury of back to back home games, starting yesterday with the visit of Hartlepool.
My afternoon would consist of shadowing club photographer Dave Rowntree and gaining an insight into a day in the life of "Disco". Regrettably, I never did get round to asking where the nickname came from.
First up was a trip to the home dressing room to greet the match day sponsors. The general routine involves them coming in and getting their photo taken next to the shirt of their choice out of the 18 hanging up on the walls.
Unfortunately, as if to enforce the stereotype that these people often have a limited knowledge of what they have come to see, I was approached almost immediately and asked: "can we get a picture of you in front of your shirt?"
Needless to say, I paused for a second to allow the poser of the question time to laugh or tell me he was joking. When he didn't, it was time to let him down gently. "I don't think you want a picture with me," I said, before explaining that in fact I would not be wearing the green and white on the day. Or ever - as painful as that is to admit.
In hindsight, I should've just gone along with it and lived the high life for a while. Damn my ill preparation for such a moment.
Next up, it was the turn of the mascots to do the tour and get photos with the players (the real ones), who were now in the dressing room preparing for kick off. With music blaring from the speakers, Kari Arnason remained unperturbed, sitting below his number 11 shirt, headphones in his ears, ipod in hand.
I'm told if it's not heavy metal, he's not interested. In which case Carl Fletcher's taste certainly was not to his liking.
Once the mascots had completed their pre-match tour, which also included a plush trip to the board room, there was time for a short break before kick off. Incidentally, I was starting to think the suspended Reda Johnson had loaned his pair of shorts to one of the youngsters for the day. I'm led to believe the boy was fully kitted out, but frankly if he hadn't bothered with the socks no one would have noticed, such was the length of his shorts.
When it was time to take to the pitch, I was privileged enough to take the steps down the tunnel and out on to the hallowed turf. On my way, the ball boys were lined up offering high fives, and, while sceptical of suffering a Steven Gerrard at Stamford Bridge moment, duly escaped the process unscarred. Now that I think about it, they probably thought I was playing too.
The last of the pre-match routine was for Dave to snap away at Pilgrim Pete and Hartlepool's H'Angus the Monkey, who I'm sure deliberately kicked the ball at Peter Reid when the Argyle boss shook hands with visiting manager Mick Wadsworth. Reid did actually turn around suddenly looking threatening, but seemed to pull a sort of "I can't stay mad at you" face before getting an apologetic hug from the guilty monkey.
So to the action, as me and Disco took up a position midway between goalkeeper Jake Kean's right hand post and the corner flag in front of the Barn Park End. With Reid again demanding consistency from his team, it was important for Argyle to build on the momentum picked up in the midweek win at Swindon.
More specifically, Bradley Wright-Phillips was striving to continue his recent form, which had yielded four goals in four matches going into yesterday's clash. It would be he who was the first to go close for the Greens with a 20-yarder that narrowly cleared Kean's crossbar early on.
To my surprise, there I was for much of the early stages shielding the sun from my eyes - surely a first for an October fixture at Home Park. Unfortunately for the Hartlepool players, there was a distinct lack of tourists in town to enjoy the sunshine and cheer them on, so the Green Army instead opted to pick on their own, with a rendition of "sit down, shut up" directed at a group of Argyle-supporting teens behind me.
Gradually as the half progressed, more shots needed to be dealt with by the ever-busier Kean, who was forced into action to prevent Noone, Mason and Arnason from opening the scoring.
The only other incident of note in the first period came in the form of the premature withdrawal of Krisztian Timar from the Argyle back four. His place at the heart of the defence was taken by Marcel Seip, as 16-year-old Jack Stephens slotted in at right back - the man described by Peter Reid afterwards as the only positive from a performance most out of sync with what Argyle's travelling fans had become accustomed to over the last seven days.
The interval saw Reid introduce Yala Bolasie for Mason, as Dave and I relocated to the Devonport End, hopeful of capturing the moment Argyle opened the scoring on the road to victory.
How wrong we were.
If the first half was short of incident, the second was shorter still, with Hartlepool hardly tested defensively until Seip saw his close range effort blocked after turning surprisingly sharply in the box.
Until then, Wadsworth's men had suddenly become the more likely winners, seemingly buoyed by their hosts' inability to produce sustained pressure in the final third. After a couple of near misses, the 83 travelling Monkey Hangers finally had something to cheer when Leon McSweeney produced a rare moment of quality in a game largely devoid of ideas to beat Romain Larrieu via the crossbar three minutes from time.
As I groaned and sunk head into hands, Dave furiously snapped away to be sure of capturing Pools' celebrations and the only moment of significance from a frankly grim spectacle.
Consistent inconsistency remains all the rage at Home Park.
Mark Perrow
