Torquay United Fans Forum

Thinking about it, we lost Phil Lloyd and Peter Whiston through injury that winter alongside Paul Smith and John Uzzell plus the errant Tommy Tynan - so the parallels are pretty valid!

Though our unraveling has been reminiscent of the surrendering of a ten point lead in the 90/91 season we did eventually go up vis the play-offs after beating Blackpool at Wembley. Dave Smith did lose his job on that occasion. We suffered terrible injuries and in-fighting along the way with Uzell, an on fire Paul Smith and an unsettled Tynan among others missing in action. That team had nothing like the ravaging from injuries we’ve had this year though. To suggest GJ should go is insanity...I’ll bet that nobody was wishing he’d gone after the collapse last year when we were smashing teams for fun before Christmas... our injuries have completely torpedoed our pattern of play and you just cannot expect to replace the quality we’ve seen on the injury table. As mentioned above, even those who have returned are far from fully recovered and so we are, in effect, seven damn good first teamers down. It’s rubbish but if we weren’t in the midst of a national lockdown the possibilities for better quality replacements would be much improved. Our policy on risky recruitment of injury prone players probably needs looking at as its cost us two seasons running now, but if Davis, Moxey, Little, Wright etc were not the age they were or susceptible to injury it’s unlikely they’d be here. Wynter, Cameron, Nemane and Whitfield are just bad, bad luck. We ride it out and suffer but if we start talking of getting shot of GJ then we deserved everything we got with the willing but hapless Hargreaves and Nicholson and the dour Owers. Blimey did we learn nothing from hounding out Ling for Knill!??

That Bristol City win was one of so many heroic performances that season...almost too many to mention.

I’ve been wondering if any footage exists anywhere of Dave Caldwell’s diving headed winner there and also of his debut overhead scissor kick (v Hereford at Plainmoor?) as both goals were just Roy of the Rovers and I’d dearly love to relive them again.

Any old footage of Paul Smith (remember his dribble and curled finish v Southend way back) would also mean a lot.

Here’s in hope.
Great to reminisce.

No way!!!

Never knew that existed ...

Unbelievable game as I remember - about as brutal as the opening twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan!!! What a "hard" side Cyril's Torquay were!

You just made my life!!!!

Sounds cool

Anyone have any footage of the Torquay Swansea play off final second leg from 88?

Was only young but remember the quagmire pitch and the physicality of the game being like something out of Game of Thrones!

Further to that burst of blind optimism, though a couple of wins is by no means beyond those clubs (especially York) and Solihull could luck a win through sheer bloody mindedness the fact that these clubs have to play each other (York and Solihull have to play too) means it is extremely unlikely all three will get the required outcomes to finish above us - plus another point at Lincoln or Dover really puts the cat amongst the pigeons - it's clutching st straws and we should be safe by now given the opportunities presented v Sutton and Guiseley but it is definitely doable!!!!

Seems simple to me ...

To stay up we will need to (and should) beat Braintree and Ferriby; this will give us 50 points.

I have faith that our goal difference will remain superior - meaning Woking, Braintree and York will all need to win twice more in their remaining four games - given that York and Woking have still to play each other and Braintree have to come here it is very much still on even with our Dover and Lincoln trips... Solihull will need three more points assuming we get those two wins. If we don't get those two results then we have no right to be in this division and deserve to go down - win them and we'll stay up! Keep the faith!

As a non believer in Nichos appointment I humbly submit this to the tune of sloop John b

Nicho had a dream
To boss our football team
He got the job
But all the fans said oh no

We had all wrong
He made the team strong
He's super Nicho
Let's sing him a song

Well done sir!

things really are imploding - my hope that Kevin would prove me wrong and that the improvement that was evident Initially was the first sign of green shoots seems to have been blown out of the water - Basingstoke, Barrow and a dressing room that is self destructing spells disaster - you know how there's always that team that bombs in a league and everything that can go wrong goes wrong? Yep - that's us guys.....

Actually loo ks more than useful!

Not sure about revisionism - I have said before that the existing board at the time chose to allow some very nasty rumours to float around unchallenged.

If supporters had known then what they know now I think opinions would have been very different.

Not suggesting personal details should have been released (you couldn't have done that) but some statement of fact would have afforded a super manager some dignity.

A midfield of Trollope and Buckle with a ball player like ORiordan in behind and an outlet to hold the ball and dribble at the opposition like Goodridge! Blimey - quality, quality players (quietly sobs and rocks backwards and forwards).

Dave Caldwell is a legend beyond all question.

As was posted earlier, you need to look beyond the stats.

His approach to the game was heroic. As a fan, you want players who will die for the cause - he was prepared to do just that. He often put his head and body where others would shirk from putting their boot!

He took it and he dished it out. He was a highly effective goal scorer but was clearly feared by opposing teams and their fans who knew all about him - so his reputation went beyond the confines of Plainmoor.

A swashbuckling Roy of the Rovers figure - hell, he even scored with an overhead scissor kick on his debut!

Never seen our front line led so aggressively since and doubt I will.

As things stand, if anyone else had attempted to shoot themselves in the foot other than Marsh, they would have undoubtedly missed!