Torquay United Fans Forum

Who's to say this arrangement would be forced upon him.

Ling hasn't just come out of a job - his preferred people may already be employed elsewhere or are unwilling / unable to move down here (remember back room staff are older than players and therefore more likely to be settled with family).

He may have already met with Russell and they both feel they could work well together for all we know.

I wish Ling the best of luck.

My grievances that I express about the appointment are against the board, not against our new manager.

Ignore and annoy the paying customers (the bulk of your revenue) at your peril.

Sure he did well at Orient, but he did terribly at Cambridge - his last job.

What type of business offers a job to someone who failed miserably and was sacked at a lower level in their last job.

Don't get me wrong, I'll support Ling - but the board have now completely lost my confidence and if Ling does well - the board got lucky and don't deserve any praise.

I agree with the purpose of financial fair play, but the way it is applied is lazy, useless and benefits bigger clubs.

Plymouth, Southend and Stockport will be able to spend far more than many other clubs in this division with these rules, despite being in severe financial difficulties - just because they have a higher turnover. High turnover does not mean they have more to spend - clubs may have to pay high levels of interest, rent on the stadium they don't own etc etc.

Ideally, all clubs would get a financial rating and the rules would be attached to that rating. For example an A rated club can do what they like, B rated 70% of turnover, C rated 60%, D rated 50% or something along those lines. For instance, a club on the brink such as Plymouth would get an E (40%), Southend - not in admin, but have struggled in and out of it and have the HMRC continuously on their backs - D, Crawley, have financial problems in the recent past but wealthy due to a financial windfall that may not be sustainable - B.

A historically well run, financially sound club should be able to choose how to spend the money they have.

Yes it's outrageous, but lets look at it from another angle.

We knew our loss last year was around 600k before the accounts were published and we now know that 200k of this can be accounted for by this compensation - a one off cost that (you'd hope) won't be replicated in the future, rather than a day to day operating cost. Add depreciation (which is more of a theoretical loss, rather than an actual physical reduction in the clubs bank balance and spending power) and we can account for 300K - almost half of the huge loss that we don't have to really worry about.

But then again, attendances were brought down by the winter weather and we have more local games next year - I will be extremely disappointed if our average attendance isn't a fair bit higher next year (assuming we don't have another ridiculously extreme winter - although that would be unlucky and unlikely). Plus we don't know the effect of an unexpected baron December had - cash flow may have been an issue as we had no income at all that month - I wouldn't be too surprised if we had to resort to costly means to get the cash we needed that month.

Doubt we earnt much from the play off final in reality - we only got 25% of earnings after costs were accounted for. Low attendance + high cost venue = not much in the pot.

It's very difficult to turn round a large loss to break even in one year. The extent of the loss last year surprised the board, suggesting that they had been rather careless with money, which in turn suggests that we hadn't been running he financial side of the club very efficiently and wasting money needlessly (not a surprise given how the admin side is run). But, it can take a while to find these issues and sometimes even longer to correct them - particularly if tied into contracts - so a 600k improvement in one year is very good and encouraging if true.

I think it's worth just pointing out that the two seasons on the accounts do not include the season that we've just had, just the 09/10 and 08/09 seasons- as I get the impression some believe they include last season.

There is no new information here regarding the losses - we already knew about the 600k+ loss from the 09/10 season from around this time last year and that there had been heavy investment to get us out the BSP in 08/09.

The only new and albeit interesting information is the break down of the accounts, but without knowing the detailed accounts of other league 2 clubs, this means nothing.

A word of caution for anyone that does compare accounts between clubs - they can be manipulated legally very easily and the methods used to calculate things like depreciation etc and what to include can vary wildly - so accounts will not be directly comparable.

You never know unless you try - but we won't get less than 75k, although we could get a lot more.

75k is pitiful. We bought useless Constantine for 75k - todays money that is probably closer to 85-90k. You're seriously suggesting that Zebroski is worth less than Constantine was?

and the price shouldn't be out of our hands. If Zebroski wants to go - transfer list him and see the offers flood in rather than react to the first ridiculously low bid that comes in. He'd be of interest to many teams and I'd imagine some would be willing to pay more than 75k.

Well if Zebroski wants to stay, let's hope it's him who decides........

But if he doesn't want to go and is shipped out for a measly 75k regardless then I seriously despair.

My reservation with Forster is why haven't Brentford taken him on permanently - he seems to have a good record there and why does someone with a good record at L1 apply for the post at Hayes and Yeading. It makes me question just how much influence he truly had there.

It feels like there's a piece of a puzzle missing here - I'm just not sure what the piece, or even the puzzle is.

McIllroy had a 1.2m pound playing budget - hardly shoestring.

tbf to the board, unless they were absolutely certain of appointing someone close to the club and believing that they couldn't get any better, they were in a catch 22 situation because had they advertised the vacancy, it would be as good as announcing that Buckle was off.

I'd rather they take a bit longer so that everyone interested can throw their hat into the ring and thus ensure that we get the best manager we possibly can, rather than a rushed quick fix that may not be the best person for the job.

Didn't Rioch throw his hat into the ring last time Plymouth were looking for a manager? I guess it's not unfeasible that he'd put himself forward for us when you consider this - but again it's pure speculation that he would. I imagine thats where that possibility may have emerged from.

I think initial prices are down to pure speculation - which will derive from looking at sites such as this and the names popping up in the media and will then change based on the number of bets. Trollope becoming favourite on skybet is probably just from people speculating, rather than insider knowledge.