Torquay United Fans Forum

With a reserve league, we're told when to play, who to play and where to play. The way we do it now, it costs us a fraction of the money, we play who we want, when we want and where we want. There are also a number of these reserve competitions available to us (Premier Cup, Devon Bowl etc) so we should get all the games we need to prevent the reserves going stale.

Matt.

We did have a team playing in the reserve league a couple of seasons ago, however that was not funded by the club, it was if my memory serves me right funded by the TUST.

Whilst the youth set up is largely funded by grants and sponsorship, it is not fully funded, so the club do have to commit a certain amount of money each year to funding that, if the club then committed itself to funding a reserve team in an organised competition, that would mean the first team budget would suffer.

I agree with Mr. Philgull. It's a pity the Western League doesn't admit professional teams these days.

I know we are playing reserve games, I was thinking that a more organised competition, with a league table may well help improved things.
It may be a simple but something as tangible as a league table may even improve performances, given our results thus far I imagine we would currently be sitting rock bottom.

To be honest our reserves have had quite a few matches this season so far they have had one most Tuesdays if you include the devon bowl and last nights game I think off the top of my head they have had 6 fixtures this year which isn't bad compared with last year which was appalling due to the bad weather all the fixtures were called off.

With regards to your point about Mackenzie and Hutchings , Mackenzie would have played if he wasn't suffering from illness relating to his diabetes and Hutchings is maybe a bit young yet to be thrown straight in. I have heard that Hutchings can play for the youth team but knill has said he doesn't want him playing for them as he's to good for that level and it would be a backward step.

The reserves do have friendly matches, I think this is sufficient enough- 2 a month or so(that's what reserve leagues play anyway) . Hutchings is still eligible for the U18 team but he isn't being used there either.

I realise there is an expense associated with it which is why we don't have a proper reserve team.
Given our current predicament with players lacking match practice and every 'reserve team' fixture being fulfilled with whatever ramshackle group of players are fit and available and ending in bad results I wonder whether a proper Reserve Team wouldn't be a worthwhile investment.

If for example McKenzie and Hutchings were playing regular reserve football would Nicho have needed to play at the weekend?

I'm not suggesting this is something we should definitely do, just wondering what other peoples opinions are. I know a lot of people will say that reserve team football is dead and the competition isn't there, I'm suggesting that doesn't matter as much as having regular, organised football for the lads not in the starting eleven would be hugely beneficial.