Plymouth Parkway remain confident despite tough league start
IT has certainly not been the start to the season that Plymouth Parkway would have wanted. Without a win in nine league games and under new management, the club are second from bottom of the Southern League Premier Division and already five points adrift of safety.
In the FA Cup, however, it is a different story. Wins against Baffins Milton Rovers (4-1) and Westbury United (4-3) set Parkway up for last weekend’s trip to Sittingbourne, where a comfortable 3-0 win not only saw Chris McPhee’s side reach the fourth qualifying round, but create history as well. Never before have Parkway, established in 1988, reached this stage of the competition.
Now, only National South side Worthing stand between them and a place in the first round proper where clubs from Leagues One and Two enter and every non-league club strives to be. But while this FA Cup run is a novelty, big occasions are not uncommon at Bolitho Park.
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Prior to their elevation to the Southern League, the club enjoyed some epic runs in the FA Vase. As good as they were, though, Parkway fans couldn’t always enjoy them as much as they should have, with so many of those memorable occasions a long way away from Bolitho Park.
“All the big games we have had before seem to have fallen away, especially in my time anyway,” said chairman Mark Russell. “You think of Barnet (in the Trophy, played in midweek) and that was away and then Spennymoor and Hebburn (both in the Vase and against clubs based in County Durham), so it is nice to have a good home draw that hopefully we can get a good crowd for as well.”
However, while the magical mystery tour of a Cup run brings welcome respite from the bread and butter for Parkway, their league form is something of great frustration. No wins in nine games doesn’t tell the whole story, though, with the general consensus that performances have not yielded the results that the team has deserved.
“It’s been a difficult start to the season from a results perspective, but personally, I have been quite pleased with a lot of the performances,” Russell said. “We are certainly playing a different style of football and, to me, a much more appealing style of football, but the results haven’t quite gone our way.
“I think we have come away from games where we have been left wondering how we managed to not get three points. I was up at Poole last Tuesday and for 70 minutes, we were the better team. Maybe we could have been more clinical and defended a couple of opportunities better at the back, but overall, we showed great character to turn around from the horror show at Hungerford and not let it get in our heads that we had just lost heavily.
“The lads have put a lot of effort in, turned up as a team that wanted to get the ball down and play football and it is worth remembering that in the last seven days, the lads had travelled to Hungerford, Poole and Sittingbourne (a combined total of 1,000 miles for part-time players and staff that also have full-time jobs), so it’s been a busy week on the road for the lads and not once have they moaned.
“The character and the atmosphere is great, it is really, really strong and I saw that at the weekend, the lads enjoying what they are doing and the camaraderie is really strong as well. Hopefully, once we get back to playing league games, we can start putting some points on the board as well.”
The low point of the season was undoubtedly that 9-3 mauling at Hungerford when many questions were asked and there was plenty of commentary on social media as well. Such a result would challenge any owner or chairman’s faith in his manager and Russell was no different, but he maintains ultimate confidence in McPhee and his assistant, Lee Peacock.
“Most of my Sunday was spent speaking with Chris and Lee discussing what went wrong,” Russell said. “But the board is very much behind Chris and Lee. We made the decision and we are very comfortable with the decision and happy with the people we have - and we have each other. We are a team.
“Reading some of the stuff on social media I found quite disappointing. You are always going to get people that make comments whatever and you just have to shrug it off, but I think the majority of the supporters that turn up week in, week out are behind the team.
“It is always going to be tricky for a manager that comes in after a manager (Lee Hobbs) that has had a very successful period with us and are very different characters.
“The team has to adjust to that, the club has to adjust to that and I think our supporters need to appreciate that we have had a very successful number of years and maybe we need to learn to lose. That’s part of the journey but, from my perspective, I am 100 per-cent delighted with the management team we have in place.”
Russell continued: “I am really pleased with the way things are progressing, I think Chris has gone about his business very well and there are really good things to come from a young squad that will only get stronger and more confident the more they play together and we just need to be more clinical in front of goal.”
After the Hungerford humiliation, there was progress at Poole, but perhaps the trip to Sittingbourne and a needs-must overnight stay came at the perfect time. Much thought was put into who shared with who in the hotel rooms, while things were planned to bring the group together. Not just the players, but coaches, committee members and some supporters that made the trip as well.
“I think it did,” Russell said when asked if the overnight stay helped. “It gave the lads some time to spend with each other and players sharing rooms that might not necessarily be tied to each other day-to-day, but actually spending some time talking to each other. It was actually quite nice sitting in the hotel on Saturday morning watching the lads and they are all playing a game on their phones together. What that game was, I have no idea! But they were all talking about how they were doing certain things and every single member of the team was joining in.
“It just shows that the spirit is there, the more experienced lads at the club are taking some of the younger lads under their wing and helping them through games, through the occasion and there were comments made by some of the experienced players to go out and give everything because it’s the FA Cup and you may never get another opportunity, so make the most of it.
“That sort of insight from the experienced players to the younger ones is great to see and even new signings coming in for Saturday were involved within the team and welcomed to the group and that was really pleasing to see.”
Parkway are in Trophy action this weekend with a home clash against Banbury United. League action resumes next Saturday when Wimborne Town are the visitors. It’s too early to be a must-win league game for Russell, McPhee and co, but three points would certainly be a welcome tonic ahead of that exciting Cup game with Worthing a week later.