In the concluding part of Peter Shilton: The Argyle Years, we look at the former England keeper's final season in charge.
After coming agonisingly close to automatic promotion in the previous season, Peter Shilton went about strengthening his Plymouth Argyle side ahead of the 1994-95 campaign.
One area of his side earmarked for improvement was his side was the defence that conceded a huge 56 goals in 46 league games.
Shilton looked to rectify this by paying a club record £300,000 for Port Vale defender Peter Swan, it was widely hoped that Shilton had found the missing piece in his jigsaw.
Unfortunately for Shilton and all Argyle followers, the signing of Swan would turn out to be a disaster.
On his arrival, Swan was appointed as captain in succession to Steve Castle, who handed in a transfer request prior to the start of the campaign. This was a decision that did not sit comfortably with either the Pilgrims’ fans or players. In the previous season, Swan had played a key role in helping Port Vale win promotion at Argyle’s expense.
Many fans pinpointed a tackle which he made on Paul Dalton as a decisive moment in the Pilgrims missing out on the second automatic promotion spot to the Valiants.
Unfortunately for the Pilgrims, a huge injury list meant they would be starting the season without Castle, Dalton, Steve McCall, Alan Nicholls, who appeared for England Under-21’s during the previous summer in the Toulon Tournament, and Dominic Naylor.
Their absence was felt on the opening day of the campaign as the Pilgrims were soundly beaten 5-1 by Brentford at Home Park.
Far from being a blip, Argyle’s poor form would continue into September and by the middle of the month they would find themselves in the bottom three in Division Two.
At the same time, John McGovern resigned as assistant manager following a break down in relations between him and Shilton over a sum of money he was owed by the former England keeper.
This would later lead to a public fall out and breakdown in relations between Shilton and Chairman Dan McCauley.
McCauley later gave an interview to the sun newspaper regarding Shilton’s financial problems. The article highlighted the full extent of Shilton’s gambling problems and would prove to be the beginning of the end of his tenure as Plymouth Argyle manager.
On January 2nd 1995, Shilton was dismissed as Argyle manager and replaced by Steve McCall on a temporary basis.
McCall found it difficult to make the transition from team-mate to manager and was replaced by Russell Osman after 15 matches.
Osman was unable to save the Pilgrims from relegation to the Third Division, the basement division of the Football League, for the first time in the history.
In the summer of 1995, Neil Warnock was appointed as manager of Plymouth Argyle and led the Pilgrims to promotion to Division Three at the first attempt via the Play-Offs with a 1-0 win over Darlington at Wembley.
However, Argyle would have to wait until 2004 before they returned to the level they were at the time of Shilton’s appointment.
Shilton himself went on to hit the 1,000 league appearances mark whilst with Leyton Orient in the 1996-97 season, but never worked as a manager again.
His only current involvement with football is limited to after-dinner speaking and the occasional national media interview. He recently appeared as a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing.
