Monday May 2nd

So it is not to be after all! Plymouth Argyle will be relegated this season into League Two. I heard it said today that the table does not lie. Fact is that the table does lie. On the pitch Argyle did enough to stay up. It was the deduction of 10 points by the Football League earlier this season due to Argyle going into administration that made all the difference. It is the law of the game. Whether it is fair or not is a different matter. Then again when has law and fairness been seen to be together?? Family law and fairness certainly does not co-exist and now it is evident that Football laws and fairness do not exist either. Surely there is a better way to handle such problems in the game that do not threaten a club's future. 

Arriving at the ground today the atmosphere was electric. It has to be close if not more to the biggest crowd of the season. Southampton themselves had over 2500 fans. The match was going quite good until the referee failed to spot one or two dubious challenges from Southampton including one which led to their first goal! The writing was then on the wall as the players seemed to realise it was all over! 1-0 to the referee! In the second half it went from bad to worse when Southampton scored two more. In the dying moments Argyle pulled one back, but even then the players did not celebrate as much as the crowd did. A few minor scuffles and pitch invasions marred the match too with fans from both sides letting themselves down. Although the first came directly after the referee's big mistake in the first half. He was booed rather loudly off at half time and seemed to goad the fans by taking a step back on his way off and then continuing his escorted march off for his cup of tea and to pick up the brown envelope that the Football League or Southampton team had left for him! The reception of "CHEAT CHEAT CHEAT!" as he made his way back on to the pitch to start the second half must have got to him as he almost immediately gave a good decision to Argyle seconds after the match restarted. Just a shame the resulting free kick didn't come to anything. In the end it was Argyle 1-3 Southampton and the referee. 

The result condemns Plymouth to the lower league for the first time in ten years and also means that barring a monumental goal-fest against them in their last game, Southampton will be promoted back to the Championship! At the end of the game there was still a fairly full stadium unlike many other home games this season and despite knowing Argyle were relegated, the players were cheered and clapped off the pitch and as usual a number of them clapped the fans back. As I stood there clapping them off, I was interviewed by a chap from Radio Devon. He asked me how I felt, to which I replied, "GUTTED! I really thought we could get the result we wanted and be able to stay up but it wasn't to be. I guess the song The Only Way Is Up springs to mind. We will bounce back!"

In other news and perhaps more important than Argyle's plight! The media is full of the news that overnight, a team of American service personnel tracked down and killed Osama Bin Laden. It was quite a bit of a shock to wake up to. Is this the beginning of the end for Muslim extremists or will there be serious terrorist reprisals? we wait to see. According to reports he was killed in a gunfight and his body taken to a U.S. aircraft carrier and later buried at sea. All in less than 24 hours! The fact that he was found very close to a high security military base in Pakistan also leads to more questions about how much help he has been given by the Pakistan government and security forces themselves. Another song springs to mind, "There Are More Questions Than Answers!"