Ahead of the second league meeting this season between Torquay United and Plymouth Argyle, we will now look back at an encounter featuring the two sides from the late 1960's.
For a brief period in the late 1960's and early 1970's, Torquay United and Plymouth Argyle met on a regular basis in what is now League One to battle out for the status of the number one team in Devon.
The Gulls had won promotion under Frank O'Farrell from 'old' Division Four in 1966 and established themselves as a force in Division Three.
In the 1967-68 season, in which Torquay recorded their highest ever league finish of 4th in the Third Division, the Pilgrims were relegated from Division Two. This ensured that the two sides would be meeting each other for the first time since the abolition of Division Three South in 1958.
Ahead of their first league meeting in over ten years at Home Park on October 5th 1968, Argyle boss, and future Northern Ireland manager, Billy Bingham added some extra spice to the affair by claiming that Torquay were a lucky side.
History was against the Gulls going into the game as they had never won at Home Park in nine attempts in the League or Cup, but they took the lead through Jimmy Dunne before Fred Molyneux equalised for the Pilgrims.
In the second half, O'Farrell pulled off a masterstroke when he sent on Alan Welsh as a substitute for Ken Sandercock. Welsh, who would later go on to play for the Pilgrims, latched on to a pass from Robin Stubbs before firing into the back of the net to clinch victory for the Gulls.
After the game, Bingham stated that Torquay would the return fixture on Boxing Day 'over my dead body', which prompted some fans to construct a coffin for him.
As it happened, the Boxing Day fixture was postponed because of a waterlogged pitch and the Pilgrims won the re-arranged fixture 1-0 on February 5th 1969, by which time O'Farrell had left Plainmoor to take charge of Leicester City and been succeeded by Allan Brown.
At the end of the season, Plymouth finished fifth in the Third Division table, whilst the Gulls finished one place below in sixth.The two sides would meet each other six times in the league, and twice in the League Cup, up until 1972, when Torquay were relegated back to the 'old' Fourth Division, with the Gulls winning three of those six league encounters.
They also knocked the Pilgrims out of the League Cup in the 1969-70 season. During those six league meetings, they would twice emulate the 2-1 result, which prompted Bingham who say 'over my dead body', which would remain as the Gulls' biggest ever winning margin over the Pilgrims until their 3-1 Eunan O'Kane inspired victory over them earlier this season.
