1996–97 Plymouth Argyle F.C. season
season of football team
During the 1996–97 English football season, Plymouth Argyle F.C. competed in the Football League Second Division.
Season summary
In the 1996–97 season, Plymouth manager Warnock was sacked within a year as the club narrowly avoided being relegated back to the basement division. Warnock's assistant Mick Jones became his successor.
In February 1997, Plymouth participated in "The Battle of Saltergate" – in a 2–1 win at Chesterfield, a fight broke out in the 88th minute, involving all 20 outfield players. Chesterfield's Darren Carr and Kevin Davies and Plymouth's Tony James and Richard Logan were all sent-off. To make matters even worse, Argyle's Wembley hero Ronnie Mauge had already been sent-off in the 36th minute. It was the first time in Football League history that five players were sent off in one game.
Final league table
Results
Plymouth Argyle's score comes first
Legend
Football League Second Division
FA Cup
League Cup
Football League Trophy
Players
First-team squad
Squad at end of season
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
The public source identifies “1996–97 Plymouth Argyle F.C. season” as season of football team. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Plymouth, Argyle and season.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q20712522. The first chronological checks are 1996 and 1997.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “1996–97 Plymouth Argyle F.C. season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.