Plymouth Argyle made a quick, seven-figure profit out of Man Utd deal: View | OneFootball

Highlights

It’s the summer of 2006; the UK is experiencing its hottest July day on record, Wayne Rooney has just been sent off for England at the World Cup and Smile by Lily Allen is blaring from every speaker known to man.

No one had as big a grin on their face than Plymouth Argyle fans on July 14th of that year though, as the Greens secured the services of Sylvan Ebanks-Blake; a Manchester United youngster with pace to burn who became Ian Holloway’s first signing as Argyle boss.

Like so many young players at Old Trafford in the early noughties, Ebanks-Blake had done his time at Royal Antwerp in Belgium and was ready for first-team football in England, and after a slow start he quickly caught fire for the Pilgrims, with those in green entering some sort of Devon heaven.

With a price tag of just £200,000, the frontman would turn into one of the club’s best pound-for-pound signings, before selling him on for a quick profit when Wolverhampton Wanderers came sniffing 18 months later.

It may have been a short spell at Home Park, but it was also a sweet one, with the young marksman partnering veteran Barry Hayles up top to destroy many a Championship defence that made the long journey south.

Sylvan Ebanks-Blake career history

After coming up through the ranks at Cambridge United, Ebanks-Blake moved to the Manchester United academy as a teenager, and would go on to represent the Red Devils twice in the League Cup, where he bagged a solitary goal in a 4-1 victory over Barnet as a 19-year-old.

Four goals in nine matches for Royal Antwerp in Belgium followed the next season after recovering from a broken leg, before he had to say an emotional goodbye to the Theatre of Dreams and start life at the Theatre of Greens instead.

To put that £200,000 cost into context for Argyle, only defender Peter Swan and striker Nick Chadwick had ever cost the club more up to that date, and it still ranks inside the top 20 most expensive incoming deals in the history of the club.

And for the next year and a half the striker would be worth every single penny paid to the Premier League side, as he led the line superbly with power, pace and a knack for rifling the ball into the back of the net.

That goalscoring instinct was proven to the Pilgrim massive right from the off, with his first goal in green a poachers’ effort against Holloway’s old side Queens Park Rangers; with the forward sniffing out an opportunity all of his own doing to get himself off the mark.

His next was a sign of things to come over during his time in Devon, as he latched onto a Hayles flick-on to fire in at the near post against Barnsley. Left foot, right foot, it didn’t matter when there was a goal at his mercy.

Ebanks-Blake was playing in an Argyle team for the ages; the deadly duo up top were supported by David Norris on one side and Scott Sinclair on the other, while Paul Wotton and Lilian Nalis patrolled the centre of the field and allowed Akos Buzsaky to do his thing.

The halcyon days at Home Park provided the perfect platform for the striker - who had just entered his twenties - to flourish in his first taste of first-team English football, as he snaffled ten goals in his first full season in the EFL.

After finishing the 06/07 campaign with four goals in five games, the frontman continued where he left of as the Pilgrims embarked on their third successive season at Championship level, with five goals in seven matches giving them a flying start in the second tier.

A 2-1 victory over Charlton Athletic at The Valley will live long in the memory of Argyle fans; with both Ebanks-Blake and Hayles finding the net to blow away the Addicks on their own patch, and their bright young striker further adding to his ever-growing reputation as one of the league’s chief goal-getters.

Bristol City, a brace against QPR, his name was on the scoresheet more often than not, so it was no surprise when Wolves came calling in the January of 2008 with an offer Argyle couldn’t refuse.

A reported fee of £1.5 million seemed like a good deal for all parties at the time; Argyle made a hefty return on their star striker, Wolves got the hotshot who would power them to Premier League promotion, and Ebanks-Blake got a chance to prove himself at a higher level, everyone’s a winner.

Ebanks-Blake Wolves deal the start of the end for Plymouth Argyle

Not quite… with Holloway having acrimoniously left for Leicester City months before, paired with the quick fire sale of Buzsaky, Norris, Hayles and young academy talent Dan Gosling as well as their star striker, hindsight might show this mass exodus to be the first signs that all was not well behind the scenes at Home Park.

With their star players gone Argyle struggled to keep up their momentum that had seen them as high as fourth in the Championship table at one point, eventually finishing in tenth before Paul Sturrock oversaw a struggle against relegation the following campaign.

With money problems mounting up, it looked like Ebanks-Blake and co. had been cashed in to stave off the mounting debts at the club, with returning legend Sturrock unable to halt the back-to-back relegations that followed, with the imminent risk of liquidation simmering in the background.

So it is a bittersweet memory for Argyle fans to ponder over the plundering of goals by their former Manchester United starlet, with the short-lived joy of defeating fallen Premier League giants on their own turf soon forgotten about when the taxman was at the door.

For Ebanks-Blake the move to Home Park was a wonderful stepping stone; Molineux proved to be a happy hunting ground for the striker, with 25 goals in his first full season in the Black Country getting his side promoted, before having his first proper go at top flight football.

Two goals in 23 Premier League matches followed in the next campaign before finding the net seven times in 10/11, with another strike at Old Trafford to add to his collection in a 2-1 defeat.

The Championship was where the best was brought out of him though, as he netted another 15 times in the second division upon Wolves’ relegation in 2012, before going on to feature at Ipswich Town, Preston North End, Chesterfield and Shrewsbury Town, before a spell in non-league football.

It may have only been a fleeting visit to the south coast for Ebanks-Blake, but it will always be fondly remembered by those with green in their heart. That was at a time when the Pilgrims could do no wrong before the house of cards came tumbling down.

It’s taken a lot of blood, sweat and tears but Argyle are back in the Championship and battling for survival, how they could do with someone like their old goal-snatcher up top for the rest of this campaign.