Starter For Ten

TEN games into the Sky Bet League 2 season, it is easy to get caught up in the Pilgrims’ promising beginning – and there is still a long way to go...

...but, throughout Argyle’s history, few starts have been as productive as the success we have experienced so far.

Argyle have started the campaign with six wins, two draws and two defeats – giving the Pilgrims 20 points from their ten matches. This places this year’s team as the tenth most successful starters to a season since the 1920-21 squad began the club’s first Football League season.

The most illustrious beginning to a season came in 1929-30, when Argyle reached the ten-game mark with 18 points – back when a win counted for two points, rather than three, as it does today. Recalculating to take into account today’s points system, that would equate to the team reaching 27 points after ten games – not too shabby.

Conversely, the most dismal of starts to a season rang in at a miserly three points at the ten-game point of the 1946-47 season. This was the first year back after the second world war as the club spluttered for five or six years before picking up steam.

Sitting in the second spot of the league table with 20 points is a great place to be. However, it has not always taken a fast start to earn promotion. Most recently, Argyle were on 17 points through ten games in 2003-04. In the eight promotions the club has achieved, it has accumulated fewer than 20 points after ten matches five times: 1951-52 (18), 1958-59 (17), 1974-75 (17), 1995-96 (19) and 2003-04 (17). This shows how long of a season it is, and as clichéd as it sounds, that “anything can happen”.

Trying to live in the moment and focus on only the next game is manager Derek Adams’ message to his players – we are only ten games into the season. 

However, for the rest of us, it is nice to dream of what could come. Since 1920, only six times has the club had more than 20 points (adjusted from earlier times) and not gone on to be promoted.

Fingers crossed.