BECAUSE I ACTUALLY CARE
The above is the answer to the question you have just asked youself in your head when you opened this thread.
The question being, "WHY THE **** DON'T YOU PISS OFF!! THIS IS OUR BOARD!!!"
All i wanted to do is post some balance to all negativity that has pervaded YOUR forum lately.
Despite all the doom and gloom i do see plenty to be positive about but i do now firmly believe that the club has to open up to the fans and you all need to start working together in order to stabilize, survive - and flourish.
You're the only club to have bloody palm trees outside their ground for fecks sake!! That honour cannot be allowed to be lost.
Positives first....................
You still have a club with one of the better squads in the conference. You aren't in so much debt that the words 'Hereford' and 'Portsmouth' regularly crop up although the latter got away with murder. You have a young manager and club legend who has the benefit of respect from the fans, you have a core fanbase that some league 2 clubs can survive on, you are well capable of achieving a play off spot and lastly if i urge you to sit back and reflect a while at the predicaments the fans of Darlington, Scarborough, Stockport, Hereford and others have suddenly found themselves in.
There are plenty of positives to concentrate on.
I strongly feel that in order for the club to survive, not grow but just survive is through co-operation and team work. The club needs to open up to the fans and ask for help.
There is little doubt in my mind that the club need help.
Am i that naive that i truly believe that there are many fans out there who are willing to work voluntarily to help the club out in all manner of activities? I think fans are reluctant at the minute because they feel already taken for granted but if those at the club revealed they were struggling and needed help then many fans would plug the gap. The club has to once again become an entity that the ordinary fan can feel connected with and it's unusual to be saying that as you usually associate this with the mega clubs such as Man Utd or Chelsea.
Those that run the club don't have to reveal details of their financial investments and all the rest of it but to just admit that a lot more pairs of hands and fans with different skills and access to different things would help the club with the peripheral but critical elements of running the football club.
Just for the club to admit that mistakes have been made and accept that they need everyone's help to muck in and get the club moving again would be a great start. Is it pride, is it that they don't want to admit they need help? Is it because it may be seen as unprofessional and further accentuate the 'joke club' tag?
It's all about community. TUFC are a community club and at the moment it feels as if there is a clear 'them and us' mentality. The club is for the community and the community can be for the club too. The fans can help and i'm sure are willing to help.
Refusing to work in co-operation and unity with the very people who mostly keep the club afloat makes no business sense.
Again i think it's all about transparency and openness, i don't mean go into intricate detail about the inner workings of the club but for them to say that maybe they are struggling with the social media side of things, are there any fans out there experienced in that side of things willing and able to give up their free time to sort this? Maybe free match tickets as payment or whatever. In other areas they need help in, could they get volunteers to get involved and share the workload of a normal working day?
Could more people help with match day entertainment? Could people be asked about the programme and what they would like in it? Could people provide regular features in it? For example (i've not seen one yet) a page spotlighting a fan and a sort of Q&A about where they are from and why they support the Gulls and other stuff. It seems that most footy programmes are of pretty much the same content and there is nothing different to make them unique.
Could people help selling tickets on a matchday, could people help in the club shop and so on and so forth.
It's down to the club to ask for help and accept that they can't do the whole shebang on their own. Again, it's all about communication and working with the fans instead of treating them as pounds and pence.
As Mark Jenkins from The Hotel said, "I want to work with you, i don't want to battle against you........".
Not the best quote i know but why look for Shakespeare when what he said sums it up perfectly.
I've often accused Torquay fans of being slow to get involved but those running the club may find that fan involvement is imperative to their survival. The fans withj half a brain cell won't swallow the embarrassment that are 'fans forums' anymore. The last one made me piss myself laughing. More wooden than Sylvester Stallone!! Fans want the truth and a way forward, not what they got last time around. Open up , don't cover up. The true fans and decent people will always support you. A club that is 100% united fears nobody. Nothing can't be overcome because everyone knows the score and everyone is singing from the same hymnsheet.
A club that is 100% united should be Torquay United.
Community club?
Prove it.
Thanks Andy. 
