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Plymouth Argyle has seen many low points over the past nine months, but the announcement by acting chairman Peter Ridsdale that manager Peter Reid’s departure because “football is a results business” contained more chutzpah than Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom managed during the whole of The Producers.

A cursory glance at the League Two table, where the Pilgrims sit a distinct and unwelcome last with just one point, would suggest Reid’s departure should not come as a surprise. But the table doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story.

For most of last season, Reid was working with one hand metaphorically tied behind his back. This season the other hand has been tied and the powers that be have been working on trussing up his legs. In short, Ridsdale’s footballing reasons can’t be separated from the off pitch farce at Home Park.

When Plymouth collapsed into administration in March this year, Reid had to contend with the inevitable fire sale and ten point deduction. Even then the Pilgrims rallied and came close to escaping the drop with a series of fine performances in March and April.

Off the pitch, the takeover dragged on. And on. And on. Players and staff deferred their wages in October last year to help the club stave off liquidation. As we reach the end of September, they are continuing to defer their waged on a monthly basis.

For some players this was too much. Midfielder Kari Arnason was sacked in June for failing to agree to to defer his wages for another month. Transfer targets quickly left after trials, meaning Reid’s squad was a mixture of raw youth players, loanees, those signed and prepared to pay for nothing, plus a handful of loyal senior pros.

At the start of this month, Reid, along with senior players Carl Fletcher and Roman Larrieu announced the squad was considering striking due to unpaid wages, with Reid revealing that some players were having trouble paying mortgages. The manager himself said he had no idea where the season ticket money was going.

It is little short of a farce. Yet Peter Reid is one of the few people who has come out of these sorry twelve months with any credit.

Initially hired with the brief of guiding Plymouth back into the Championship, Reid has had to play fire fighter, counsellor and money lender, while watching the club implode around him.

Early this year, the former Sunderland boss dipped into his own pocket to pay the heating bill at Home Park earlier this year. More poigniantly he also auctioned off his 1986 FA Cup runner-up medal to provide much-needed money for the unpaid staff.

Despite the club’s precarious league position, Reid also remains popular amongst the Argyle faithful, mindful of the near-impossible circumstances he is operating under.

If these are footballing reasons, then one could easily argue that Reid’s downfall has been the ongoing turmoil, which have affected these footballing reasons. Turmoil that has Ridsdale at the heart of it.

For if football is a results business then, as twohundredpercent have done, it is reasonable to ask just what Ridsdale’s results have been.

The acting chairman has overseen several months of chaos at Home Park, assuring us that he has been working tirelessly to push through a deal for Bishop International Holdings, a holding company fronted by Truro City chairman and property developer Kevin Heaney.

Given that the issue here would seem to be a very simple question of does BIH have the money, which they have repeatedly failed to show. If they don’t, then why has Ridsdale continued to work with them?

As it is, Ridsdale is now issuing dire warnings that the club could fold if BIH or James Brent, another bidder, don’t complete the deal by the end of the month.

But there have been so many dire warnings over the months that it no longer feels dramatic to say “big day off the field for Plymouth Argyle today.” The crisis is fast running out of adjectives to describe it, such is the amount of time it has dragged on.

In fact, it almost seems pointless to write about the current state of the takeover, given it changes every day.

A bewildering cast of names, including Firoz Kassam and Uri Gellar, have been banded about only to vanish from contention as quick as they’re mentioned. The soap opera changes daily. Anything written on it here will be redundant by tomorrow.

It is, however, a soap opera that Peter Reid will no longer be part of and although he is now unemployed, perhaps he can be grateful to leave the madhouse. One hopes he lands another job at a more stable club than Argyle. He deserves better.

Throughout this whole sorry saga, Reid has been the one person dealing with the crisis with sympathy, understanding and heart. That he has been made a casualty while others at the club with more of a case to answer keep theirs is entirely in keeping with how the story of Plymouth Argyle has played out over the past 12 months.

Tags: Peter Reid, Peter Ridsdale, Plymouth Argyle