Football in the far south-west

The English county of Devon is in the spotlight, with two of the best three teams in the country making the long journey south-west in the FA Cup fourth round.

I lived in Exeter for two years and never felt more disconnected from football.  For some, rugby union is more synonymous with the area than football — the Exeter Chiefs won the Premiership in 2017 and 2020 — but dig beneath the surface and look beyond the stunning coastline, popular tourist hotspots and cream teas and you will find an area that has forged its own footballing culture.

Devon’s two English Football League (EFL) clubs have never been in the top flight and neither have won a major trophy. Plymouth are bottom of the Championship, while Exeter are 18th in League One. Torquay United have a proud heritage but are now in the National League South, the sixth tier, after falling on hard times.

Devon is the fourth-biggest county in England by area, but it is sparsely populated.   The fact Devon is 200-odd miles from London and 80 miles or so from Bristol, the closest major city, brings its challenges for football clubs, chiefly with player recruitment.

Location played a role in Paul Tisdale, who managed Exeter from 2006 to 2018, getting rid of scouts in his first year at the club.  “I worked out pretty quickly it was a waste of energy,” he told the Business of Sport podcast in September. “If you spot a right-back playing for Aldershot Town (a three-hour drive from Exeter in Hampshire)… he’s never going to travel all the way to you to get paid less when he could stay in London.”

For Tisdale, it was about getting leverage by assessing whether Exeter were the player’s first or last option because this increased the player’s likelihood of signing. Then he would focus on players who may have lived in the south west, had family nearby or perhaps visited the area on holiday. The need to recruit young hungry players or players coming towards the end of their careers remains true today.

Exeter have increased their scouting capabilities in the county's more remote areas and also set up more satellite centres across the county. There is also more focus on how players are coached when players do get in the building. Like Plymouth, the club has a Category 3 academy, meaning most of their youngsters' opponents are lower-league sides in their area. To increase exposure, they test themselves against the country’s elite academy sides.

Around £21million ($26m) is being used to develop Argyle’s new academy given Plymouth's big catchment area, with scouts able to tap into neighbouring Cornwall — which has no professional teams — to unearth talent.

If anything, Cornwall is more rugby oriented than Devon and attempts to make something of Truro City have never really got off the ground.   Falmouth Town once dominated what was then the Rothman’s Western League (I have never had such a good Cornish pasty at a football ground). Mousehole have overcome their remoteness through some ingenious fund raising. 

Perhaps the oddest contest is on the Isles of Scilly where there are just two clubs on the main island of St. Mary’s that meet each week at the Garrison Field stadium for league and cup competitions giving a new meaning to ‘can we play you every week?’

A lonely time in goal on the Isles of Scilly

In 2004, a group of supporters bought Exeter and the club remains in the hands of its supporters' trust. They are one of the few clubs in the EFL that continuously turn a profit.  A big part of that is how they sell young players to bigger clubs, with the sell-on fees in their contracts helping maintain cash flow. Watkins’ transfer from Brentford to Villa in 2020, for instance, helped to fund the club’s new training ground. Tagg’s ears must have been burning again upon seeing Arsenal’s bid for the Villa forward during the January window.

Plymouth’s financial issues stemmed from England’s failed 2018 World Cup bid.  The English Football Association picked Plymouth to be a host city, but the doomed bid had huge implications for its football club. Shortly after the World Cup was awarded to Russia in 2010, Plymouth went into administration, with debts resulting from funds allocated to the failed bid exceeding £1million, according to the Plymouth Herald. Then-manager Peter Reid, formerly of Everton and England, sold his 1986 FA Cup winners’ medal to help with the club’s running costs. Businessman James Brent took over in 2011 and Hallett followed in 2018.

Hallett and additional backers Argyle Green, a group that involves NHL’s Victor Hedman (Tampa Bay Lightning) and Ondrej Palat (New Jersey Devils), helped to fund their spending in last month’s window, in which they broke their transfer record twice. Even still, the fees for those players didn’t exceed £2million.