Pilgrims' Progress
JOEL Grant will be looking to join the list of Exeter City players whose career prospered after they switched Parks from St James to Home.
The 29-year-old Jamaican international will don the Green and White that Argyle share with Devon’s county flag this season after two years up the Devon Expressway.
He has taken the same trail blazed by John Sims, who followed City manager Bobby Saxton to Argyle in 1979 and had four very productive seasons during which he won the fans’ vote for Player of the Season in 1981-82.
Simmo scored 49 goals from 185 appearances during his time at Home Park, ranking him in the top 100 all-time appearance-makers and top 25 scorers for the Pilgrims.
Nicky Marker was signed for the Pilgrims from Exeter by Dave Smith in 1987 and subsequently thrived under David Kemp’s management. He was pushed out of the door by Kemp’s successor Peter Shilton when Premier League club Blackburn Rovers made an offer that Marker could not refuse.
After more than 50 appearances for Rovers, during which time the Lancashire club won the Premiership, Nicky moved on to Sheffield United and had a brief return loan spell at Home Park. He now manages Ivybridge Town.
Jamie Mackie also went on to play Premier League football after first signing for the Pilgrims from Exeter City in 2008. He became a Green Army favourite when he scored with his first touch in an Argyle shirt, just 15 seconds after coming on as a substitute against Barnsley. He had to wait a relatively sluggish further nine minutes before he scored his second goal.
After 16 goals in 102 Championship appearances, and following Argyle’s relegation to League One, Jamie moved on to Queens Park Rangers. Whilst at Loftus Road, Mackie, who has a Kilmarnock-born grandmother, was capped eight times by Scotland, scoring twice.
In 2013, Jamie moved to Nottingham Forest for £1m and was a near ever-present for Forest in the 2013-14 campaign, but at the start of the following season, he joined Reading on a season-long loan and then returned to QPR for a second spell.