Torquay United Fans Forum

Well done Darren Moore on your results so far especially the win at Old Trafford yesterday.
It just goes to show what a charismatic, enthusiastic and inspirational coach/manager can do with a bunch of inherited players who had no doubt been written off by the West Brom faithful when Alan Pardew was their manager!

So the Mardy Geordie and his mate have failed to achieve 50+ points.
Even his totally incompetent (according to some on this Forum) predecessor ,whose name escapes me for the moment, managed to do better in much more trying circumstances.
It's time for our esteemed General Manager to review our finances for 2018/19 and come up with a face saving conclusion "that reluctantly we have to let Messrs Owers and Kuhl go because we can no longer afford them".

Thank you Gulliball for a carefully constructed summary of recent events. I expect that most readers of this forum will share the same thoughts.

brucie wrote: ↑21 Mar 2018, 13:33 All we can do is play one game at a time but its true that the next three games are winnable.

Sadly, that is highly unlikely with the two clowns who are in charge of the team!

Southampton Gull wrote: ↑07 Mar 2018, 14:38 I didn't say that was all he did. To be honest I'm getting fed up pointing out the obvious. You championed Owers from the beginning and he turned out to be a far bigger dud than Nicholson ever did. I don't need your insight into the merits of the management, I have a much clearer view than someone who just wants to throw in a dig every few days.

We'll never know what he would have got out of his squad, he was given 4 games. Enough said.

Absolutely spot on Dave

Kevin Nicholson motivated players. There are plenty of examples of players who have moved on and not played to the level that they played for him. A few examples are Tyrone Marsh, Dan Lavercombe, iffy Allen, Nathan Blissett and Aman Verma.
Who knows what he would have done with his summer signings and how he intended to use them? Just because a dud manager and a dud coach can't inspire them doesn't mean that they wouldn't have come good under a different regime ( not necessarily KN). The two aforementioned duds can't even motivate the players that they have signed themselves for heavens sake!

I am really angry that Owers and Kuhl are still here masquerading as Head coach and coach or whatever their titles are. They have destroyed our Club and should do the decent thing and clear off back to whatever their day jobs were before they came here.

merse btpir wrote: ↑23 Jan 2018, 14:19

I think more so now; the vital ingredient and stench emanating from the treatment room; is a plethora of experienced malingerers who don't like having their noses being put out of joint by a new management and turn every little niggle into a six week sicknote. Typical of a relegation squad!

The most common 'injury' within this squad must be bed sores!

Perhaps the seasoned pro's in the squad ,who have played under a variety of managers and coaches, sussed Owers and Kuhl out pretty quickly? The French striker who was 28 I think didn't fit in with them either. Perhaps Owers and Kuhl lack the skills to manage and motivate older players and should stick to working with youngsters.

Anyway why are they still here?

Apart from us and Hartlepool the rest of the bottom half of the table are playing games against each other. That means there will be more points than usual going to teams in the bottom half of the table which is bad news for us whatever result we get.

I have very little time for people who don't sell themselves but instead rubbish others and blame everything and everybody for the position they find themselves in. Gary Owers seems to be like this which is why he has failed so spectacularly.
If he could get his act together and at least show some enthusiasm and a more positive charismatic approach he might find that some decent players would take a chance by joining us and some current players might up their game.

As things stand it looks like we will be relegated to Natinal South for next season.

We are in the ownership of someone who has no interest in the future of the Club other than for his own gain, however that might be realised.
There are no potential buyers of the Club as far as I know.

The only alternative ownership would be a Community Trust provided that it could raise enough capital to persuade the current owner to sell and have some working capital as well.
This would be a massive task and would need someone at the helm with the time, drive and determination to see it through. In order to get the right person it would probably need to be a modestly paid job and it might not be a current fan especially if it was someone who had a track record of doing it somewhere else.
Fans would need to play their part by giving their time to raise money to keep the Club afloat.
F
The Club would need to operate on a part time basis and build slowly with the aim of one day returning to the Football League. This could take several seasons and fans would need to be patient.

I have kept this deliberately brief but it seems to be the only way forward if the Club is to survive at National League level.

I suspect that the main reason for Merse currently acting up like a bear with a sore head is that his hoped for scenario for this season isn't coming to fruition.
He has a deep, undying hatred for Kevin Nicholson. I don't think we know why but I may have missed the explanation somewhere along the line. He derides him in nearly every posting he makes and has been trying to convince us that Nicholson should have achieved considerably more than he did despite the very challenging circumstances in which he was forced to operate during most of his tenure.
In order to justify his abuse, Merse then needed a tactically aware manager with excellent motivational and recruitment skills to step up to the mark and take us up the Table. Sadly for him Mr Harrop got it all wrong and we ended up with Owers and Kuhl who are making Nicholson's achievements look better by the day.
Sadly for all of us the rest is history

At least Martin Kuhl will have a back up job waiting for him on a building site when he is shown the door at Plainmor.


I don't really know whether I should feel sorry for him and Gary Owers - were they sold a pup, have they been unlucky with recruitment or have they just messed up big time?

Perhaps the problem with us making significant signings is that the financial controller at TQ1, whoever that might be, is getting cold feet and that is why we are getting the scraps and other Clubs are getting the better players ?

I think we are in danger of going off thread on this one.
The purpose of my first post wasn't to insult Martin Kuhl ( he must have a sense of humour to have survived in football for so long) or to question his knowledge of the game (football is only a small part of my life and I am becoming increasingly disillusioned with it but I have supported our Club since 1963 and like a lot of supporters I fear the immediate future).
What I was questioning was the man management skills of Owers and Kuhl which is quite separate from team formations, tactics etc. There are people in all professions who themselves are technically competent but they struggle to manage people. There is a skill in getting people (including footballers) to perform consistently. Gary Owers has said on a number of occasions that the team hasn't been up for a particular game and I would question the preparation by the coaching staff. It has to be a matter of concern that all his new signings have struggled and not improved whilst they have had the benefit of fulltime coaching.

sgf wrote: ↑04 Jan 2018, 21:15 Quite possibly the best response I have ever read!!!

Before becoming moderately successful working for myself, I worked part time in a supermarket to cover bills while my business got going. Any of us with financial responsibilities would shovel shit to pay the bills, I would think.

Calling someone a "brickies mate" because he doubtless had bills to pay is disrespectful and probably ill-informed.

I think it is you guys who have a problem! What is wrong with being a brickie's mate during the current house building boom. It probably pays more than being Assistant Manager of Torquay United,

Correct me if I am wrong but prior to today I think Oowers and the brickie's mate had signed 7 players and only Andresson is still with us. The one thing they all had in common was that they started well enough but their enthusisism, commitment or whatever slowly waned and they left as quickly as they could.
Any potential signings must wonder what the hell is going on and could reasonably conclude that it wouldn't do their career prospects any favours coming to us whilst these two are in charge.