Torquay United Fans Forum

thebigp1 wrote: ↑25 Mar 2023, 20:16 I won’t be going to this game. We will already be down and I’ve no interest in watching Hollywood fc take apart our poor excuse of a team. Their fans will almost certainly cause chaos and perhaps a boycott by us fans would be a better option.

Me neither. I’m done with the team this season. I’ll watch games on stream but I’ll await to see what the new season brings before I attend again.

DevonBee wrote: ↑25 Mar 2023, 20:37 Amazing the Stick with Johnson fans are nowhere to be seen or heard tonight . Internet problems no doubt again to blame.
.

Only the stupid think this is all down to Johnson.

Taelee73 wrote: ↑11 Mar 2023, 18:56 Somerset Gull, you are quite tiresome. Gotta dislike a 'I told you so character', someone who needs to prove they're right no matter the cost or time they need to wait to say it.
Corrie Andrews was overweight and unfit, he fell over numerous times a game and just didn't fit into the Johnson mould. There's undoubtably a good footballer in there, but wrong time and wrong manager in charge for us.

The Corrie Andrews we saw today was lean and quick. Certainly looked a much better player than he did for us. Didn’t end well though for him after getting hurt by Halstead kicking the ball at him.

dawlishmatt wrote: ↑10 Mar 2023, 10:08 Oh dear the Uncle Clarke bashers are finally coming out of the closet. Osborne made a statement following the club's AGM on the 30th of September. In said statement, Uncle Clarke said that he is still fully committed to Torquay united football club and the only thing that has changed is the number 5 in his plans for the club. Blaming Osborne is ridiculous.

How is blaming Osborne ridiculous? He owns the club and is ultimately accountable and responsible for what is going on. Even if one was to accept the lazy argument that Gary Johnson was suddenly an incompetent manager, Osborne has allowed this continue. He’s not lifted a finger to stop it. If the club is resorting to get players in on loan from Gloucester reserves, how on Earth is that Gary Johnson’s fault?

GullsUnited wrote: ↑09 Mar 2023, 19:21 Couldn't disagree more, Donnellan is more than good enough for this squad, plays pretty anywhere he's asked to and puts in a good shift

Then you didn’t read my post properly did you?

I didn’t say he wasn’t good enough for this squad - hell, even I’m good enough for this squad - I said he wasn’t very good. He wouldn’t have got near last year’s team.

The fact that some people like Donnelan kind of shows just how poor our team is. He really is a poor player who looks competent in comparison to his teammates but he wouldn’t have got near even the side we had a year ago.

He reminds me of (for anyone who remembers the mid-80s) Steve Pugh. When Steve Pugh joined us in the 83/84 season he looked such a poor player. Then when Dave Webb got rid of all of our good players and signed dross from the local leagues, Steve Pugh was suddenly one of our best players because the others were even worse. Donnelan is the same.

Stick or twist, it really doesn’t matter.

Those shouting for Johnson to go or making polls about whether he should be sacked are really missing the point. Whether he stays or goes will not make a blind bit of difference.

If TUFC were a well-run club where the owners were in it for the football and had a modicum of ambition, then changing the manager might alter things but we have a club owned by Clarke Osborne. The downward trajectory is set and will continue while he owns the club.

No one knows what sort of budget Gary Johnson has to work with unless they are a liar but just look at the squad; it can’t be much and certainly not one that could attract the sort of players we have lost over the last two years.

Just look at the sporting entities that Clarke Osborne has been involved with and what happens to them; TUFC is just the latest in a long line clubs suffering from “managed decline” - changing the manager won’t alter the direction this club is heading. It’s futile when the ownership have no interest in the team prospering.

We are about to suffer relegation to regional football for the second time in five years under Clarke Osborne, our lowest level previously played at almost 100 years ago and yet here we are about to be in the same division as Taunton Town. If Johnson goes just who do people imagine someone as uninterested as Clarke Osborne is going to appoint?

It’s almost as if there are people stupid enough to think things will get better if we change the manager. This isn’t a normal football club so wake up to who the real villain in this piece is.

Just a puppet for Clarke Osborne with links to the same property companies that saw the demise of Swindon Robins speedway.

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... pointments

Teigngull makes a very valid point in the nation that the club is being deliberately steered towards a decline in an effort to bring it to its knees.

If this is the case then those shouting abuse at Gary Johnson are seriously missing the point. It doesn’t matter who the manager is if the owner is determined that the club will become so pointless it no longer needs its stadium. Shout at Gary Johnson all you like but if you think someone like Clarke Osborne (who has a record of basically destroying other sporting entities) is going to appoint someone to turn things around when his intentions appear to be to put this club into a coma, then those people are surely living in a fantasy world. What chance has Gary Johnson or any manager got against that? Clarke Osborne has shown time and time again that he plays the long game; he waits and the only surprise is that Gary Johnson has stuck around to put up with it. He is an experienced and very successful manager and I’m sure he doesn’t need this grief in his life. If he has a contract (let’s pretend he signed a two-year deal after the play-off final) then who can blame him for not wanting to walk away from it and I seriously doubt Clarke Osborne cares enough anyway to want to have to pay his manager off when he perhaps could be leaving in four months time anyway.

Those shouting at Gary Johnson seem to forget the cards are all held by Osborne and he doesn’t care what you think. Banners, shouting abuse just won’t wash with him in fact whatever supporters do just plays into his hands.

- shout at the manager - takes the heat off Osborne
- boycott - just accelerates the decline Osborne is probably angling for


The only thing anyone can do is make things uncomfortable for Clarke Osborne but the fact he doesn’t attend makes that very difficult. You can’t protest to someone who isn’t there and isn’t listening. He basically has the club and consequently supporters (as the only people who actually care about the club) by the balls and pathetic chants against Gary Johnson aren’t going to change things.

Like many others view of the game really, first half not too bad but worryingly poor in the second half.

Although I often read negative reports, I actually think McGavin is a good player, he doesn’t hide, is intelligent in what he tries to do and takes a really good corner. I thought he had a decent game yesterday and more often than not, I do think that when I’ve seen him play.

The sending off of Crowe, could be viewed as a blessing but it will likely mean our defence away at Yeovil will be Donnelan, Marshall, Omar, Hyde unless Moxey regains fitness and assuming Ellis will be out for a while. Considering the space afforded to Yeovil in that second half with Donnelan and Ellis, I dread to think what the score might be with a Marshall/Omar pairing as both of them are liabilities - they are to defending what Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng are to the economy.

A midfield pairing of McGavin and Evans is unlikely to have enough steel for an away game - thought Evans was pretty anonymous yesterday - but we don’t even really have any options so unless any new signings/loanees are brought in, then I would imagine a 3-0 defeat or more is on the cards for NYD.

Some criticisms of the numbers of away fans travelling yesterday but will we take many more? Whilst we did last season, things are very different this year. It’s not a lot further for me to travel to Yeovil than it is to Torquay but I won’t be going to stand in the rain and watch us get stuffed. Instead, I’ll probably watch via streaming and then at least TUFC will get a % of my payment whereas they don’t see a penny if I pay on the gate at Yeovil.

culmstockgull wrote: ↑22 Dec 2022, 15:45 Going slightly off theme I did notice that when we bought our tickets for boxing day bristows and the family stand were really well sold, Then I saw on the NL site today that live streaming for the remainder of the season starts on boxing day for all NL matches at £9-50 a go with the bonus if our game are up to the usual standard you can move onto any other NL game for some excitement at no additional cost and for the benefit of minneappolis gull and our nordic supporters you can get a months pass for £20.
So other than pay us to come and watch Torquay, which judging by the fare they offered so far this season might not be such a bad idea the club is going to have to come up with some very clever marketing or else tuesdays 750 will become the norm.
So in the future at a very fair price of 9-50 I can watch the match in comfort and warmth, have a takeaway delivered plus beer at less than the £34 I paid for our tickets and thats not including half a tank I fuel I use with every visit, it is a no brainer.

Where did you see about the £20 for a month? The only options I can see when I log in are £9.50 for Boxing Day.

Since promotion in 2019, each of the subsequent seasons has seen the team suffering a run of form which have seen the pram-toy throwers demanding his sacking.

First season back 2019/20, after a decent start, injuries took hold, and we went around ten games without a win and were starting to get back to form before COVID occurred.

2020/21, we had a really dodgy spell after Christmas, and even then people were suggesting he was stealing a living and then we went 15 games unbeaten and were robbed off promotion.

After seeing his team torn apart and the hurried signing of players to have enough to field a team, we had a slow start but from the game at Weymouth in December, I would say we were playing as well as the season before but then once again, Johnson has seen his entire team dismantled and has had to start again.

Things are looking grim at the moment I think Gary Johnson has proven over each of the last 4 seasons with us, that he has turned a team that was not playing well into one that is. This season has been his biggest test because it has been his biggest rebuild job. Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see that this season was only ever going to be about getting through it as best unscathed as possible.

When things start going wrong it just gets even harder to see the wood for the trees and I find it really disrespectful to see some of the vitriol aimed at Gary Johnson after he has given us some of most enjoyable seasons for a very long time.

He has earned the right to try and put things right and even if we went down, I’d stick with him as he would be our best chance of coming back up. My feeling is that if he leaves, then we are more likely to suffer relegation than if he stays and I seriously doubt Clarke Osborne could even be bothered to come up with a decent replacement. Look who we got when Nicholson was sacked? It took about 6 games of Robbie Herrera as caretaker before we were presented with Gary Owers. Part of me imagines that if Johnson did go then the most likely candidate would be Paul Tisdale but then he has been pretty hopeless since getting sacked by MK Dons and his stock has really fallen.

Those screeching for GJ to go, cannot even come up with a reasonable candidate to replace him; not a single one other than mentioning former Torquay players like Kevin Hill or Kevin Nicholson.

From 2012 until GJ came in, there was such a disconnect between club and fans and I will remember fondly atmospheres like that away at Weston-super-Mare and Woking as when he goes there won’t be nights like those for a long time.

wbw wrote: ↑19 Dec 2021, 20:15 With a bang average lower league manager who has been found out.

Only one manager has ever won more promotions than Gary Johnson and that is Neil Warnock. Hardly “bang average”

Southampton Gull wrote: ↑12 Jan 2020, 13:32 My assessment of Gary Johnson is that he hit the ground running and brought in players to achieve promotion. He gave those players a chance to prove themselves at a higher level and supplemented that with some quality additions. Some worked and some didn't. We suffered a catalogue of injuries to key players which left us continually shuffling the pack to put a side out. Should I judge the manager during this spell? If I knew the fitness, mental state and application during training then yes I could judge him. Probably better to properly judge him when he has his full squad available, when he's had a chance to reject a few and bring in better suited players. Basically judge him at the end of a season rather than call for his head or criticise his selection or formation.

Our nightmare run of injuries will eventually correct itself. At full strength I think we're more than good enough to challenge the play offs. Consolidation will do me fine this season and I trust him to make sure the squad that starts next season will be more than capable of challenging for the top spot. Instant success isn't always the answer.

Exactly this, Dave. Surely even the most stupid of people can see the bad run coincided with a horrific injury crisis?

Funny how times change. Two years ago many of us would have loved to have been banned for the season.