Torquay United Fans Forum

Dave. I don't dispute a lot of what you say and I do credit them for some things. If we can stay up by some miracle and the reigns get handed over to someone who can help the club progress then I'd say on balance they would have done a great job. If however we end up in the Nationsl South and all the problems that will bring then judgement of their tenure would be very different. It sounds harsh and I know they are just fans doing their best but there have been a lot of mistakes I find it hard on balance to see that we have moved forward much. Like everyone, I want it to be a good news story but that does not stop me doubting whether the capabilities and resources are there for it to be.

Hopefully new investors really means new owners. I know the current incumbents are doing their best but it's clear to all but the most blinkered that they just don't have the football knowledge and resources to move the club forward. That's not a dig, just reality.

I'm pleased that we seem to have found a bit more form but I will reserve judgement just yet. The squad still looks pretty thin and there are much tougher tests than Boreham Wood and Welling. Credit where credit is due but it's going to take a lot more of the same to rescue this dreadful season. Here's hoping we keep it up

With rain all day today and tomorrow forecast I doubt that we will be playing, let alone winning!

Entry price is going to be interesting as well. I can't see anybody paying more than £10-12 to watch the shocking standard it will be so even if crowds hold at 1500 which I think is massively optimistic then the budget will be significantly reduced. This is my biggest frustration at the managerial gamble that was taken as we simply had to stay in this league to have a decent chance of rebuilding

Everybody says they are not racist, I guess this means nobody is then

Dave. I'm glad you noticed the bit of irony, it wasn't unintentional, and actually wasn't including you, as your comments were clearly extremely tongue in cheek. Other posts were not

njgull- don't worry, I'm not American and I find some of the comments equally offensive. These people are the same that class all Muslims as terrorists and other such generalisations. It's small minded and embarrassing. If I had to decide where has the biggest population of complete tossers, I'd have plainmoor on a Saturday afternoon right up there sometimes . It's as usual a noisy minority so can easily be disregarded as people with a blinkered view who probably haven't seen a great deal of different places and cultures.

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On the subject of the new ground, I'm pretty neutral. I think that it's worth investigating but with caution. I can see how it could work for all three parties but am not so sure why TUFC really needs to be part of any deal for a developer to get land from the council in exchange for fulfilling their obligation to the government for many new houses to be built. Clearly the council don't have the cash so will need an outside investor Plainmoor is not prime real estate both in terms of size but more importantly house values so I can only see helping TUFC as a sweetener for a much bigger deal. It's possible and may have legs so ,lets see how the initial investigation pans out. One thing is for sure, it will take some good strong management from our board which has not exactly been evident since June, but hopefully they are capable to make the right call.

Neal- your support for the board is admirable. Out of interest, do you actually deny that since bravely stepping forward to take the club on, they have made a series of poor decisions that have ultimately done it further harm?

Whilst I would agree that it's too late to sack him ( to save this season) I still think appointing a rookie was a reckless and frankly daft gamble. An average conference manager as a safe pair of hands was required as the squad was just about good enough to stay up. Backing the manager is admirable to a point but when you picked the nag with 3 legs in the paddock it's all a bit irrelevant. I would agree that help is required but think it's way too late to be honest.

Let's hope so. The club needs new hope and a new owner with a track record of running a club would provide that. It has to happen soon though as once fans get used to not attending it's hard to win them back. We will get all the usual nonsense about asset stripping and being scared of the unknown but to be honest there are no assets anymore and it's hard to imagine that it could get any worse. Life in the National South may as well be death to most people as they wont be watching it unless there is a genuine chance of getting out of it extremely quickly

As I said, attributes that are simply not enough to run a football club successfully. As we head for the lowest of the low and in all likelihood bankruptcy then I'm not sure that saying they saved the club is strictly accurate.

I absolutely acknowledge that they inherited a mess and were brave to take it on. However the decision making has been absolutely shocking and basically continued the downward trend.
I know that Bill Philips is public enemy number 1 on here and I don't know the guy or what he may or may not have done but if he was running the ship today in the same way it is being run, would he be getting the same excuses made for him? On the crowds we get there is no way we should be pretty much certainties for relegation, how anyone can argue that is incredible.

Just for correctness, Dean Edwards did not give himself a position. He conned the board into giving him one. I suspect some blind idolisation, very much like that which caused them to appoint our current manager, made them weak at the knees and give him what he wanted. It was perhaps the first but most crucial of many poor decisions. People may think that I have a personal dislike for the board or CEO, I don't. My personal opinion is that they just don't know how to run a football club. All the talk of passion and hurt is fine but a successful business requires much more than that. It needs good strong knowledgeable individuals aligned with passion for the task. Having only one of those is being 50% short.

Dave. I don't dispute for one moment that they are hurting and want to improve things. My problem is that they have not showed the capability to do so and given the one big defining moment of appointing a manager they screwed it up. Surely you have to acknowledge that it was a massive gamble at best and stupidity at worst. I hope you are right as I truly want to see a club that is copetitive again but nothing I have seen leads me to believe it's possible.
New players basically have to come from the dole queue and I'm not sure that they are going to be promotion standard as that is now the form we need.
I have no ill will to you or any other supporter who wishes to think more positively than me but right now I don't enjoy going to plainmoor and I'm old enough to know that doing things you don't enjoy in the precious time we have ain't that sensible.

Matt. It wasn't a threat and I have no desire to spend any time in your company. Your jokes if that what you call them are just not funny but what I find more amusing is your denial of the mess that the club is in. Talk of better things to come is just fanciful. There is zero evidence that we have any chance of signing a promotion worthy team as that is what is now needed. Look at the table. The club appointed a joke manager when it had one chance to put a decen ( or even a rank average) one in charge. We are paying the price for that and will continue to do so. From the day this bunch allowed themselves to be duped by Dean Edwards it's steadily got worse. How anyone can't see that is beyond me. Just how bad does it have to get?