“All that matters in a derby is winning and winning for your support.”
Stuart James Print Sports Editor
05:48, 23 Oct 2025
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IT is always interesting to hear the approach of managers and players ahead of a derby game. Some insist it is just another game with three points at stake, but others seem to relish the extra tension and importance to supporters that such a fixture can bring.
Exeter City fans will therefore be pleased to hear that manager Gary Caldwell firmly recognises the importance of the derby and ahead of the meeting with Plymouth Argyle at St James Park tonight, he acknowledges that it is most certainly not ‘just another game.’
“I think those past managers are lying!” Caldwell said in the build-up to tonight’s sell-out clash.
“Look, ultimately we get three points, so nothing changes in that regard, but for me, derby days are for supporters. Derby days are important, and not only that, I think the momentum and the feel good that they can give you can shift momentum and give you a positivity that can lead into better results, so they are big games.
“I’m not going to hide away from that. I’ve played two of them (against Plymouth), I’ve lost two of them. The performance is always important to us and it’s the process that’s going to allow us to win the game but ultimately, at the end of the game, it’s about winning and we have to make sure that we turn up with a mentality and a group that’s ready to do whatever it takes to win.”
Caldwell has experienced many different derbies, including the ‘Old Firm,’ perhaps the biggest of all during his time at Glasgow Celtic, but come rain or shine, he knows more than most that the only thing that matters when that full-time whistle blows is winning.
Exeter City fans during the Sky Bet League 2 Match between Exeter City and Plymouth Argyle at St James Park, on 26 October 2019 in Exeter, Devon – PHOTO: Tom Sandberg/PPAUK
“Managers, staff, players, you know, come and leave football clubs, but supporters stay forever and the derbies are for them,” he added. “It’s their game, it is their time to be proud of their club and show their club off and get the rewards of supporting your football club against your biggest rival.
“Those are the big things for me on derby days. Like I said, the Old Firm was ferocious. It was the most nervous I’ve ever been for a game.
“We played one in a Cup Final where I just couldn’t comprehend what it would feel like to lose. My whole mind all week, I was just thinking: ‘we can’t lose, we can’t lose,’ and fortunately, we played the worst game ever and won in extra time, where Gordon Strachan played me in midfield.
“He made it the scrappiest game ever and we scored two goals, but I dread to think what he felt that week because, as a player, I know what I felt and as a manager, I dread to think of what he felt going into that game and the decisions that must go through his head. All that matters in a derby is winning and winning for your support.”
There is an element of Exeter supporters that are not convinced by Caldwell, despite the constraints with which he has to work under in terms of finance and playing budgets. Again, on paper at least, City’s is massively less than Plymouth’s but, just like the old cliche about form on derby day, much of that goes out of the window. A win tonight would certainly go some way to pacifying those grumbling supporters, but what is for sure is that, regardless of what they think about the manager right now, they will 100 per-cent be behind the boys in red and white tonight.
“What it does for the feeling of the supporters and the whole club is it will get a lift from winning a derby game,” he added. “The players have a big opportunity to give us that feeling and that feeling can create momentum and can go into the next game and can put us on a run.
“We obviously don’t have a league game for a while (afterwards) so it’s important. We win and put ourselves in a good position in terms of the league table.
“It’s so tight, we could jump up so many places, we could potentially drop into the bottom four, so we know the league at the moment is so tight that a win in terms of the league table would look fantastic, but more importantly that a win against our rivals would give us a feeling that hopefully can kick us on for the rest of the season.”
Gary Caldwell Manager of Exeter City during the EFL League One match between Stockport County and Exeter City at Edgeley Park on 18 October 2025 in Stockport, England (Photo by Steve Taylor/PPAUK)
In the heat of battle, though, Caldwell has reiterated the need for cool heads. “We must be calm and clear and focused on what we need to do to win the game,” he said.
“You definitely need to bring that emotion and passion at the right time within the game, but there’s also a clarity. We have the same process every single week in terms of how we prepare for games and what we do with the opposition and the work we go through.
“We’ve watched training back, we’ll go through it again after I’m done here. The players need real clarity because these games, what you don’t want is too much thought. You don’t want the players thinking, you want them playing instinctively and you want them playing with a freedom, but a real clarity on what the game looks like and how we’re going to win it.”
