By Brian Knight* in Cheltenham on 19/03/2014 ...

How, one wonders, would some modern coaches assess Sammy Black? He would probably get low marks for his work-rate, his support to the defence and his heading ability (on occasions he had been known to dodge the high ball). At the other end of the scale, he must deserve top marks for his ball-control and match-winning capabilities. There was not much of him — 5ft 6 1/2ins, 11st and size-4 boots — but he certainly lived up to the nickname of the `Mighty Atom' which was sometimes bestowed on him.

Bob Jack discovered him playing for Scottish junior side, Kirkintilloch Rob Roy, on the other side of Glasgow from his Motherwell birthplace. He arrived at Home Park in the summer of 1924, stepped into the League side soon after the start of the new season and was a permanent fixture in the team until he left the club in 1938 — virtually at the end of his career — to join Queen's Park Rangers. As he played but a handful of games for QPR before the outbreak of the war and then returned to ...  More

By Brian Knight* in Cheltenham on 19/03/2014 ...

How, one wonders, would some modern coaches assess Sammy Black? He would probably get low marks for his work-rate, his support to the defence and his heading ability (on occasions he had been known to dodge the high ball). At the other end of the scale, he must deserve top marks for his ball-control and match-winning capabilities. There was not much of him — 5ft 6 1/2ins, 11st and size-4 boots — but he certainly lived up to the nickname of the `Mighty Atom' which was sometimes bestowed on him.

Bob Jack discovered him playing for Scottish junior side, Kirkintilloch Rob Roy, on the other side of Glasgow from his Motherwell birthplace. He arrived at Home Park in the summer of 1924, stepped into the League side soon after the start of the new season and was a permanent fixture in the team until he left the club in 1938 — virtually at the end of his career — to join Queen's Park Rangers. As he played but a handful of games for QPR before the outbreak of the war and then returned to Plymouth to work at the Dockyard, it can be reasonably claimed that only his Argyle career matters.

It was the partnership which he formed on the Argyle left wing with Jack Leslie which older followers of the game remember. There might be legitimate differences of opinion about whether, as individuals, Leslie and Black have been the best in their positions during Argyle's history, but there is little argument that they have never been bettered as a pairing. Argyle used Black mainly on the left wing but he also played a number of games in the inside position and on the opposite flank. It did not matter a great deal where he played because his control was so good and he was such a beautiful striker of the ball with either foot. Time and again, Sammy Black would find the back of the net with a shot from an angle which other players would have considered impossible. So precisely and so often did he place his shots just inside a post, that the story went around that he aimed for the stanchion supporting the net. Only Black could say how much deliberation went into that shooting. It is more likely that he had a natural gift, amounting almost to genius, for doing the correct goalscoring thing.

Naturally, he was the idol of the Home Park crowd and a rumour in the 1920s that he might be transferred to another club led to public meetings and a 'Sammy Must Not Go' campaign. Sammy did not go and his aggregate totals of goals and appearances still stand as an Argyle record. There was just one other fault in Sammy which might earn him a black mark in the coach's book. He hated taking a cold shower following a hot one after a match.

*Extracted from Plymouth Argyle - A Complete Record 1903-1989 by Brian Knight [ISBN 0 907969 40 2] and reproduced with his kind permission.

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