Steve Smith column: How Bristol City have fared at Home Park
The Robins were on their seventh manager in Peter Doherty before they could muster a league win at Plymouth.The 4-1 success on Boxing Day 1959 came after nine previous attempts to win at the ground.
Plymouth joined the Football League at the start of the 1920-21 season when the Southern League became Division Three and their Home Park ground staged its first fixture on August 28, 1920, when Plymouth drew 1-1 with Norwich.
It was on the same date two years later that Bristol City fans travelled to Home Park in the first away fixture of the 1922-23 season. Before a crowd of about 17,000, the Pilgrims ran riot in a 5-1 demolition.
City lost their next four league games at Plymouth – the worst being a 7-1 drubbing in April 1925.
City received another hammering (5-0) on Boxing Day 1955, and it was an unexpected one as the Robins topped the Division Two table and Argyle were just one place off the bottom.
Revenge was swift, as 24 hours later the Robins went one better on a quagmire of a surface and ran out 6-0 winners; a Jimmy Rogers hat-trick, a brace of goals from John Atyeo, on his return from injury, and one from Tommy Burden.
City ended their Home Park hoodoo in their final away match of the 1950s. They halted a run of six winless matches in Division Two with a 4-1 triumph, thanks to two goals from Atyeo and one each from Rogers and Bobby "Shadow" Williams. However, City still ended up being relegated that season.
City, under Fred Ford's management, returned to Division Two for the 1965-66 season, and enjoyed a 2-0 victory at Plymouth on April 9, 1966. Terry Bush and Brian Clark scored.
City made it a hat-trick of successive league wins at the ground when they won 2-0 on April 1, 1967. Jantzen Derrick and John Quigley netted.
When the Robins returned to Home Park in November 1967 they did so with just eight points from 15 games (two wins and four draws).
So a 1-0 win, courtesy of a Jack Connor goal, his only strike of the 1967-68 season, could not have come at a better time. Indeed, City narrowly avoided the drop but Argyle finished bottom.
City drew 0-0 at Plymouth in January 1976, and went on to win promotion to the top-flight that season.
The dark days of 1982, when City almost went out of business, had just passed when City, in their first away match under boss Roy Hodgson, went down 2-1 at Home Park on February 9, before a crowd of 5,260.
City played twice more at Plymouth in the 1980s and both ended in defeats.
There was a 1-0 reverse in April 1985, which ended a run of five straight league wins and dented the Robins' dream of successive promotions under manager Terry Cooper.
Twelve months later, City lost 4-0 before a crowd of almost 20,000.
City finally produced a win again at Home Park on September 30, 2003.
It ended a 36-year wait for success and finished Plymouth's unbeaten run of eight games.
Lee Peacock netted his sixth goal of the season around the half-hour mark, which gave City the three points and inflicted on the Pilgrims their only home defeat of a season in which they were crowned Division Two champions. The Robins ended up losing to Brighton in the play-off final in Cardiff.
Last season, City drew 1-1 at Home Park, which kept them in a play-off spot.
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