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westyorkshiregull
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Post by westyorkshiregull »

Thinks it's been touched upon before a lot of good players esp around the home counties play part time as there day jobs pay more than say a club like ours. Some of these players are a higher standard than national south !!!!

We won't be attracting them type of players , the local job market isn't there.

It's easier to go down than to come back up

We have one last chance now to sign some quality and give ourselves a dog's chance else that's all folks
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Post by United62 »

westyorkshiregull wrote: 02 Jan 2018, 14:07We have one last chance now to sign some quality
just looked out of my office window.... Babe was donning her leather flying jacket and goggles and walking towards a byplane.
''I was born under the Mini Stand....''
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Post by hector »

United62 wrote: 02 Jan 2018, 13:17 We may also like to look at the likes of Kidderminster.... Stockport... York.... all three relegated from this division and (some would say, quite rightly) expecting an immediate return.... as it is, they sit 7th, 8th and 9th respectively and unless moneybags Salford capitulate in a catastrophic way, there is no way any of the three are guaranteed a return anytime soon.
I think Conference North is a lot more competitive than Conference South. Just look at the attendances clubs get in that league for a start. Braintree went down and are doing pretty well. We would have to stay full time and then I think we could possibly do ok in that league. However, if the club went part time, then I think that would be it for us.
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Post by Jerry »

Chances are that Hereford and Billericay will be in the Conference South next season. I can't see us competing with either of them under the current ownership.
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Post by desperado »

Thanks for cheering me up Merse, but I am not expecting the team that gets relegated to be trying to get
straight back, will be time for Owers , Kuhl and Hedges to earn their corn. Hope Hector is right, that the Nat South
is less strong than the North, if Truro who we thrashed 6-0 pre season with Ben Gerring and co can be in the
play offs I would expect us to be. Tell me Merse , you must surely know which teams in the Nat South and North
are full time ? Dartford may have momentum now but they were relegated from the Conference 2/3 ? seasons ago
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Post by merse btpir »

desperado wrote: 02 Jan 2018, 18:11Tell me Merse , you must surely know which teams in the Nat South and North are full time ? Dartford may have momentum now but they were relegated from the Conference 2/3 ? seasons ago
There are no full-time clubs in National South; whether there are in National North I do not know...the reason I highlighted Dartford (currently top of NS) is precisely becasue it has taken them three seasons to get to that stage.

Cerainly what I have seen at Dartford, Hampton & Richmond and Wealdstone with opposition such as Chelmsford, Bath and Truro City; at Saint Albans, Concord Rangers, and at the next level down fromclubs like Billericay and in particular, Dulwich Hamlet is that Torquay United are at best currently only capable of being average in that league and at worst would struggle.
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Post by wivelgull »

Harrogate are fully professional; the rest I don't know.
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Post by wivelgull »

I beg your pardon. Harrogate IS fully professional.
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hector
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Post by hector »

What will of course make season more difficult in Conf South, will be the likely inclusion of Hereford FC in that league. Hereford had smaller crowds than us as Hereford United, and I think the longer we drift under GI, the lower we will sink. Supporter ownership has functioned well enough at Exeter, Newport and Hereford plus other teams who have prospered since reforming under a support umbrella. We, of course, were denied that opportunity by David Phillips and the collusion of David Thomas but in my mind, kick starting our fortunes in a positive way is never going to happen while GI are involved, yet we will see a recently formed, supporter-run Hereford bypass us, as they rise and we sink. Yet, Hereford United were never any bigger than Torquay.
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Post by merse btpir »

Indeed more similarities than meet the eye..........It drags on. Remember how the Herald Express once noted that "GI are already understood to have injected a sizeable five-figure sum into United, who pulled off a 'Great Escape' under player-manager Kevin Nicholson and then doubled their season-ticket numbers on the back of a cut-price £200 offer".

The question then was being asked on both this forum and BTPIR ~ but not in the media ~ was whether the "five-figure sum" might be a loan that will need to be repaid one way or another. Well it certainly was; it was the same process of softening up by which Clarke Osborne's BS Group and fellow property developers Chelverton stealthily acquired the upper hand of the former Hereford United's chairman David Keytes when he was struggling to finance the club between 1996 & 2001.

The BS Group and Chelverton Properties joined forces to try to develop Edgar Street as a supermarket.

The BS Group was the old Bristol Stadium company which operated Eastville from the 1930s to the 1990s. Its current chairman Clarke Osborne was on the scene when Bristol Rovers were forced to leave Eastville in 1986. Clarke Osborne was also a director of Formsole, which was involved in the Edgar Street "project", between 1998 and 2001.

The BS Group became Gaming International in 2001 when it diversified into the Japanese electronic gaming industry. That didn’t last long and, after closing various dog tracks that were never replaced, Gaming International remains in business as the operator of the speedway and greyhound tracks at Poole and Swindon. It's been 'trying' to build a new stadium at Swindon for nearly ten years without much progress but of course with plenty of progress on the rest of the land dedicated to housing.

In March 2016 Gaming International signed a memorandum of understanding with Torquay United’s then owners for the purchase of the club and the rest as we know is history. The signs are that Gaming International has little interest in the affairs of the football club but plenty of enthusiasm for the construction of a new stadium. To this effect Clarke Osborne, chair of Gaming International, incorporated Riviera Stadium Limited of which he is the sole shareholder and now RSL have taken on the football club project cosmetically independently of GI.

Osborne baled out of the Hereford project in the face of intense scrutiny of the true motives of the BS Group and Chelverton. Nobody does anything for nothing at lower league football clubs nowadays apart from the troops on the ground; and there are now precious few of those at Torquay. Everything being pumped into the club by way of the finance that Dave Thomas is so enthusiastic about is a loan; make no mistake about that.

Even the benefactors at Hereford FC had a clause written into the Articles of Association that their companies could profit from the new club. They have also limited their Supporters Trust to never being allowed to own more than 50% of the club and even when they do HUST will be left with a 4:3 boardroom split which goes against their favour.

Blindly proposing copying what went on at Hereford and Newport too for that matter is to blind oneself as to the actual detail of the actualite
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Post by westyorkshiregull »

So will it be a case the club will need to buy the ground and resell and then build another which they wilp own to pay back there debt they club owes them


Or it bust !
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Post by lucy6lucy »

The only honest answer to to this thread is next season we will be in Conf south. Whether we able to fulfill the Conf south financial criteria is another issue. It's so sad and quite frankly unsurprising. Well done harrop, you certainty have achieved your objective since being appointed...actually what do you do. And that's just it nothing, only to screw up the local football team that you frequent as a home(shame on you).i Hope your partners close relative Osborne enjoys the destruction of ,plainmoor,
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Post by Teigngull »

So many of you refuse to acknowledge the fact that this club of ours is being slowly but surely killed off, some will tell you that a certain business man has investment in the club so there is no way he will let it die after all he's got no board or other investors to answer to has he ? all he has to do is recoup his investment , what will Torbay council do with Plainmoor when the club cannot afford to play their games at Plainmoor ? as for e.g Darlington @ the Reynolds arena in 2012 surely there will come a time when it isn't at all viable to stay at Plainmoor. What has CO got to lose realistically ? A few hundred thousand pounds (to CO probably peanuts) ? Money talks , if there's no football club to reside at Plainmoor what's the best alternative for the land ? There is a lack of affordable housing in this country~ sell the land to RSL~ houses or & flats built to ease the local housing crisis ~ Torbay council collect a nice little earner to appease the local tax payers ( who in the main totally abhor the thought of a professional football club in the bay anyway ) ~ RSL collect a nice payday far in excess of the investment into the football club, Owner collects a decent profit on his investment !
Come on convince us it ain't happening people .
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Post by nickbrod »

Last one out turn the lights off.
merse btpir
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Post by merse btpir »

Teigngull wrote: 03 Jan 2018, 23:34 So many of you refuse to acknowledge the fact that this club of ours is being slowly but surely killed off, some will tell you that a certain business man has investment in the club so there is no way he will let it die after all he's got no board or other investors to answer to has he ? all he has to do is recoup his investment , what will Torbay council do with Plainmoor when the club cannot afford to play their games at Plainmoor ? as for e.g Darlington @ the Reynolds arena in 2012 surely there will come a time when it isn't at all viable to stay at Plainmoor. What has CO got to lose realistically ? A few hundred thousand pounds (to CO probably peanuts) ? Money talks , if there's no football club to reside at Plainmoor what's the best alternative for the land ? There is a lack of affordable housing in this country~ sell the land to RSL~ houses or & flats built to ease the local housing crisis ~ Torbay council collect a nice little earner to appease the local tax payers ( who in the main totally abhor the thought of a professional football club in the bay anyway ) ~ RSL collect a nice payday far in excess of the investment into the football club, Owner collects a decent profit on his investment !
Come on convince us it ain't happening people .
It is disturbing Gavin how few folk are seemingly taking notice of the actual situation as regards Osborne's singular ownership of the football club with people still naively calling for 'Torquay United' to buy the freehold whilst being totally oblivious to the FACT that it is Clarke Osborne who owns Torquay United.......

If what is suspected of the club's lack of action in acquiring even enough players to complete a bench full of subs for what is surely the last chance saloon on the pitch for this season; then those calling for an awareness of Osborne's destruction by stealth to create a situation whereby Torquay United Association Football Club Limited - the company formed in July 1921 - may cease to exist in the near future (as Jon Gibes so eruditely calls it on TFF last night) will be vindicated in the most horrible way imaginable........


People have to realise that as soon as Torquay United Association Football Club Limited ceases to exist, the lease is void and the value of the land soars........it's a lot easier then to realise the potential value of the land than it currently stands under the tenancy of Torquay United AFC Ltd as a sitting tenant.

If the freehold is then allowed by the council to fall into the hands of property developers then we can wave goodbye to any chance of professional football continuing in Torquay; we kiss goodby to our football club!

Clarke Osborn becomes more and more reclusive ~ when was he last seen at Plainmoor? When was his finance man Chris Rich even seen at a match? ~ but you can bet he is not being as reclusive with the treacherous arm of the local bearocracy who would see the football club vacate Plainmoor.

Forget stories of a 'new ground by 2020' in the Herald Express. They and Dave Thomas are as complicit in all this as were Dave Phillips, Merv Balson and Harry Kerswell when they allowed the leech into the club in the first place. When next you see either of these people at Plainmoor ask them themselves why on earth they took the Peter Masters laid bait of **** off the trust and any (however slim) chance of a future community ownership rather than being in the hands of a rapacious property developer?

Don't bother asking Thomas; ask him anything relevant to the current crisis at the club and he'll just greet you with 'Happy New Year' whilst casting his eyes around for a friendly/gullible face to chat to.

Gibbes conclude in his piece last night ~ he is the only contributor worth reading on there these days ~ "It is important though that we all keep our eye on the ball. We are now in a long phony war after the opening skirmishes, but things will hot up sooner or later. I could scream when I think that three years ago, we had a debt-free club with so much potential. I know that the football on the pitch has been depressing, but I have felt far more pain at the shenanigans that have gone on off the pitch."

As I said before: our only hope is that Osborne decides to offload his football club as a capital venture rather than hang on to it as a potential property development.
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