'We knew we had to make changes from the position we found ourselves in at the end of the season. As we sit here now, you can hear drills and machinery... It has been very busy'

- Andrew Parkinson

- By CHRIS ERRINGTON

THERE is a common misconception that when a football season ends and the players leave for the summer holidays that it is a quiet period at a club such as Plymouth Argyle, but that is far from the case.

Particularly this year with so much change and people coming and going as Argyle prepare for their 2025/26 League One campaign under new head coach Tom Cleverley and with five new signings already brought in still more than a month before the competitive action gets under way.

In this exclusive interview with Herald Sport, Argyle chief executive officer Andrew Parkinson discusses events of the past couple of months following the club's relegation from the Championship.

In your experience as Argyle CEO, has this been one of the busiest summers you have known?

I think definitely. From a player recruitment perspective, we really needed to be on the front foot and take advantage of where perhaps some clubs do have a little bit of a break.

We wanted to be in there very early and we have had quite a lot of feedback actually to say that we have been very front foot and very prominent in the early stages of the recruitment market, which I think is a good thing.

We knew we would have to make changes because of the position we found ourselves in at the end of the season and when you have got the head coach needs as much time as possible to be able to have the players in front of him to gel together, etc.

So that would be one part and, of course, added to that we have then had a head coach to recruit. A senior position in any business you are usually looking at months, with notice periods and all that sort of stuff.

With a head coach you have got to go lightning fast to get all your research done, all your pre-interviews done, speaking to agents and then you have got to do the final interviews, and you have got to do that pretty much within two weeks, which is really quick.