On the eve of the 1993-94 season, Peter Shilton found himself wheeling and dealing in the transfer market as he looked to improve on the Pilgrim’s disappointing final league finish of 14th.
Gary Poole and Warren Joyce were transferred to Southend United and Burnley respectively and they would later be followed out of Home Park by defender Andy ‘Jock’ Morrison who signed for Blackburn Rovers.
Full back Steve Morgan also moved to the Premier League and he was snapped up by Coventry City for a fee of £110,000.
Incoming players included Wayne Burnett, who was a makeweight in the deal that took Morrison to Ewood Park, left back Dominic Naylor arrived from Barnet and Andy Comyn and Mark Patterson both joined from Shilton’s former club Derby County.
However, there was one signing that Shilton made who would prove to be a very astute capture by the former England keeper. Alan Nicholls, a teenage goalkeeper who cost Argyle a mere £5,000 from Cheltenham Town, who would later receive international honours from England at Under-21 level during the season.
Off the field, Shilton drafted in his former Nottingham Forest European Cup winning colleague Ian Bowyer as Youth Coach.
Although the Pilgrims didn’t get off to the best of starts after losing 3-2 on the opening day of the season to Stockport County, a 2-2 draw against Hull City would prove to be the start of an upturn in their fortunes.
This was followed a week later with a 2-0 win over promotion candidates Port Vale and Argyle were soon souring up the table.
Central to their success was the quality of skipper Steve Castle who netted 21 goals from midfield during the campaign. He remains the only Plymouth Argyle player since Tommy Tynan to have achieving the feat of scoring 20 or more goals in any season.
Castle also achieved the distinction of scoring the fastest ever Plymouth Argyle hat-trick when he found the net three times in a 3-2 away win over Stockport County on Friday 17th December 1993 in the space of six minutes and seven seconds.
Scoring goals proved to be a great forte of Shilton’s side as they finished the season scoring 88 goals, more than any other team in the English leagues.
However, their goals against column read that they conceded 56, a figure which would later come back to haunt them at the end of the season.
A dip in form after the turn of the year would mean that the Pilgrims would enter their final game of the season away to Hartlepool United needing to win to secure the second automatic promotion spot. They were also hoping that fellow promotion contenders Port Vale and Stockport failed to win.
The Pilgrims would hammer Hartlepool 8-1, with Richard Landon netting a hat-trick and Paul Dalton scoring a brace, to equal their club record league win.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough in relation to their automatic promotion ambitions as Port Vale beat Brighton and Hove Albion to finish second in Division Two. The Pilgrims had been beaten 2-1 by the Valiants in February 1994 and that defeat came back to haunt them in the end as it proved to be the difference between winning automatic promotion and a Play-Off spot.
This meant that Argyle were consigned to the Play-Off lottery where they would face Burnley, who had finished the season with 12 less than them, over two legs.
In the first leg, the Pilgrims held the Clarets to a goalless draw despite the dismissal of centre-back Adrian Burrows, which left them playing much of the game with ten men.
Going into the return leg at Home Park, Argyle looked to be very much in the driving seat.
Sadly for the Pilgrims, they collapsed to a 3-1 defeat. After taking the lead through an early effort from Dwight Marshall, John Francis bagged a brace for the Clarets before former Pilgrim Warren Joyce added a third as Burnley booked their place at Wembley at Argyle’s expense.
