Mr John Salako

[ferrarilover]

Can someone please explain to me why a bunch of our fans treated Mr Salako in the awful manner which they did on Saturday?

Matt.

[JamieE]

The only thing I can think of is that he tipped us for relegation before the season started.

[BletchleyGull]

Apparantly he said during the game that Torquay didn't deserve to be Top of the league which annoyed United fans

[Fletch]

Apparantly he said during the game that Torquay didn't deserve to be Top of the league which annoyed United fans

TBH Bletchley, going by the comments on here about the first 70 minutes of the game, he was probably justified in making that observation during the match

Im sure the team will be happy to prove him wrong over the coming months

[Dave]

I read through John Salako's pre-season predictions for league 2,to me all he done was look at the bigger teams in the league,and those who spent money,and came up with the likes of bradford,gillingham,wycombe to go up,and the smaller clubs who spent very little like accrington,macclesfield,and torquay to go down.

If my dog could talk iam pretty sure ,the dog would have come up with the same conclusion,i know its early days,however one look at the current league 2 table will tell you.

What an extreme piece of lazy punditry,John Salako came up with,and he certainly did no research what so ever,so if some of fans decided to have a pop at him,fair enough in my view.

[diamondgirl]

I spoke to John, in the car park, before the game. He was so nice and very complimentay about TUFC. He said he had come to see us win and score goals. I did say that we were not scoring lots of goals but, by the same token, we were not conceding. He said he thought we looked a good strong side and he expected us to win the game against Southend.

Still no excuse for the way some of our "Fans" verbally abused him during the game. At one stage the "few" were chanting "We are embarassing" which just about summed it up. Leaving the ground, after the game, there were a some idiots (Not all of them young) still verbally abusing John Salako as he stood on the TV gantry. To be honest he looked visibly shocked at the anger being directed at him. For God sake, it's a football game and he is just an ex. footballer trying to give an assesment of a match. Lets forget the "Anger chanting" and, instead "Sing our hearts out for the lads". There were a few times, on Sat. that made me "Not proud" to be wearing a TUFC shirt, and, as the morons said, "It was embarassing".

I expect to be verbally abused myself, for this attitute but I'm sorry I feel strongly about my club, and I don't want to see us hated because of a few mindless idiots. Thats it.

[diamondgirl]

TBH Bletchley, going by the comments on here about the first 70 minutes of the game, he was probably justified in making that observation during the match

Im sure the team will be happy to prove him wrong over the coming months

Fletch is quite correct. It's exactly what it was...an observation. Time will tell who was right and who was wrong.

[Fletch]

There were a few times, on Sat. that made me "Not proud" to be wearing a TUFC shirt, and, as the morons said, "It was embarassing".

Truth be told Di, i stopped wearing a shirt to away games for exactly that reason.

I expect to be verbally abused myself, for this attitute

But only presumably from the same morons you commented about? Water off a ducks back then :mrgreen:

[diamondgirl]

Truth be told Di, i stopped wearing a shirt to away games for exactly that reason.
:mrgreen:

You got it Fletch

Can't give up wearing my Gulls shirt though!

[Dave]

oops just read back my reply,i can see how it looks as if iam condoning the fans who have clearly launched personal abuse at john salako.

i meant to come across as i understand why some fans may feel anger towards john salako,but of course it must be said that no person should have suffer personal abuse on any scale.

it also must be said that as person myself who eats sleeps and lives football,i would expect some one who is paided to work in the media,whether it be t.v radio or newspaper,to put a little more research into players,club's and league's ,than what it would appear john salako did when writting about this seasons league 2 campaign,if he had just looked back over the past few seasons,results,performances etc,he would not have gone with bradford as a tip for promotion.

of course only time will tell if he is right,should bradford and gillingham go up,and us macclesfirld,stanley and morecambe,be fighting against relegation,then i will have to eat humble pie .

[ferrarilover]

So he tipped us to go down, that's it? He doesn't abuse kids or kick kittens into desk fans? Bloody hell, what is the world coming to?

Earth to morons, EVERYBODY tipped us to go down. Pundits, bookmakers, some of the posters on here for that matter, this is exactly what we want, everyone turning up at Plainmoor thinking it's a day at the seaside and a nice easy three points.

Yes, I am sure that Mr Salako did slack off and use the results of the past few seasons to predict who would struggle and who would go up, because to do anything else is completely pointless and totally unnecessary.

He could have spend weeks and thousands of pounds travelling the country, speaking to fans, watching pre season matches, scrutinising the transfer market and then researching thoroughly every single player in and out of every single club. He would then have made a bunch of predictions which were no more accurate than the ones he has made now.
Why not pick Bradford to go up? They are an ex premier league side with 11,000 home fans and a top drawer manager, they finished somewhere near the top of the league last season.
Why not pick TUFC to go down? We are a tiny club with 2500 home fans and a manager no one has ever heard of, we were lucky that Grimsby and Darlo were so bad, otherwise we may well have been relegated straight back to the conference.

He had to pick someone to go up and someone to go down, he took the easy (and entirely sensible) decision to have a quick look on google, then write his 300 word piece to camera. He probably then went to spend time with his wife and kids, or his mates down the pub. Is that really justification for shouting abuse at him for 90 minutes, or is it exactly what each and every one of us (myself most certainly included) would have done?

Next time, can we please spend 90 minutes singing Yellow Army and suchlike, rather than wasting swathes of energy and time directing anger at some geezer who happened to say something with which we (as Torquay fans) disagree!

Matt.

[Yellow4life]

The bookies had us down for a better season than the last.

He is entitled to broadcast his own opinion- it's just like me saying I think we will finish mid table

We will also win our next match!

I've just broadcasted my opinion- it's no difference.

[diamondgirl]

Tried to ring you Matt, but you refused to answer your phone!! How did you get on today?

[Fonda]

Unfortunately, we do have this 'element' of our support, who aren't happy unless they are abusing someone - be it individuals or opposition supporters. It's all a bit distasteful really. Salako was the unfortunate target this weekend - and just because he tipped us for relegation? As alluded to above, i'm sure many people did - we would appear (to outsiders) one of the teams most likely to struggle so it's hardly a suprise.

I'd hope Salako gave his predictions a little more thought than 'they're big, so will do well. They're small, so won't'. Would Sky really be employing people that take their position that 'seriously'? If so, my CV will be in the post in the morning. In fairness, it was probably slightly more scientific than that, and our 'supporters' just have to understand that is how we are viewed - perenial strugglers.

[Fletch]

Forza, i have to say that I also thought Bradford & Gillingham (along with Northampton) would be pressing for a top 7 spot. Gillingham look a yoyo team (relegated/promoted/relegated in the last 3 seasons i think) plus they have their talismanic figure as manager now. Bradford now have (the usually canny at this sort of club/level) Peter Taylor as manager. Both clubs will have significantly higher attendances, therefore income, than us (although I suspect their overheads are probably higher than ours). All handy for squad strengthening when needed. Dont agree with Salako about us being favourites to go down though