Little club syndrome...

[Fonda]

We've got a bad case of it, and it's a mentality we need to rid ourselves of if we're ever to progress. When i say 'we', i mean the club AND the supporters...

The club really doesn't help itself. The board will get no criticism from me for what they've achieved, and the effort they put into making things better. But in so many ways we remain so amatuer. It might be very unfair to say so, but it doesn't appear we have anyone in the boardroom who knows enough about the internal machinations of the game to run the football club in the manner it needs to be run. I will never question the good intentions of everyone involved, and there is no shame in admitting 'we don't know what we're doing'. But at some point we need to get someone within the employ of the club with some experience of how things should be done. Does anyone remember the film '3 men and a baby'? Because as an outsider looking in, it looks for all the world that the consortium have had a football club dropped on their laps, and they're looking at each other for ideas of how to manage it. Simon Baker seems a thoroughly nice chap, and i'm sure the others are too. But in business, and in football nice guys generally get trampled on - by managers and players with greater ambition than the club which employs them, or in transfer dealings with other clubs that have seasoned negotiators doing their deals. We can't allow ourselves to continually be taken advantage of. How does continually shouting from the rooftops that we're a small club with moderate ambition inspire the fans, or potential signings? We revel in telling all who'll listen that we're a 'friendly family club' - quite frankly i'd rather we weren't so friendly. We're a soft touch and it's getting tiresome watching us get bossed around by the bigger boys. We need to get tougher, or bring someone in with the knowledge and skills required to sail the ship for us.

The 'little club' mentality eminating from the club has transferred to the supporters too unfortunately. The apparent 'chip on our shoulder' because of it, is embarassing. Most tire of the 'Billy Big B******' attitude of some visiting supporters, but we take it to extremes by taking offence at any supporter of any club daring to suggest their ambition and potential is greater than our own. Well, the harsh fact is, it probably is. We can't continue to whine about 'AC Northampton' or Bradford or Rovers when they make apparently cocky comments or references to our club. Unfortunately, everything coming from Plainmoor makes us appear absolutely as small and insignificant as they accuse us of being. We can't keep moaning about players preferring to seek their employ elsewhere, when it's only our support for the club making us think there's any reason they'd stay. Why would you remain at 'Little Old Torquay' (have we officially changed our name to that yet?), who's ambition is to not get relegated, when there are other clubs in the same division with a real desire to better themselves? Who's sympathy are we looking for, by whining about these things? The Rovers fans visiting this site have been roundly criticised for suggesting their club could be something better than League 2 fodder. What is wrong with ambition? Our own club, and it's support would benefit from demonstarting some similar drive. It might not work, but if you don't strive to improve you never will. Our club is seemingly too happy to settle. We know our place seems to be the motto of many. Unfortunately, it will always be our place.

That might be complete tosh. I kind of forgot my point.

[royalgull]

Whilst the general gist of your post is hard to disagree with Fonda it's a lot easier said than done to make a club 'bigger'.

You know what helps the most...money. We don't have any..doh!! Next best thing a new shiny stadium with corporate hospitality, the full shebang to make money...dont' have that either doh! Or thirdly a strong fan base....doh!.....you see where this is going?!

Tend to use my local club because they are an easy example, Reading. When I first started to watch them was in 1994, a bit like us they had a team that overachieved and finished in the playoffs. They were sneared at by many a team, well they played at Elm Park which was 'old fashioned' at best and a $hithole at worst. Their gates would be around the 7-8000 mark most of the time and they were a small club tipped for relegation most years punching above their weight. Madejski's money helped get them a brand spanking shiny new stadium and although they found themselves in the equivolent of LEague 1 they were considered a big club for that level. The money and facilites behind them managed to attract the best players at that level for a couple of years, crowds were up into 5 figures and since promotion to the Championship that club has sky rocketed. Reading are now a big club for whatever that term is useful for. Money and facilities that's the difference between Reading FC in 2011 and Reading FC in 1994.

More recently Chesterfield have always been looked at as small club. Competitive at League 2 level, tiny at League 1 level. Not so much now, why? because they get 7000 people through the gate in a new soulless bowl ground. Mod£rn Football.

Torquay's standing will improve when the grand stand is done, i'm certain it'll boost crowds maybe not massively but a bit. It should generate some extra income which hopefully will mean we have a better and more consistant team. i remain sceptical that last season was the norm and not just a Morecambe style 1 off.

Would someone 'ruthless' help yeah maybe but it wouldn't stop people leaving this club. We are a stepping stone to bigger and better things, always have been and maybe you're right in saying only a change of attitude will ever change that. what would really change that is for a money man to buy the club, Torquay to win regularly (not just a season but 3,4 seasons and play in front of 5-6000 everyweek in a modern ground. Chance of that happening? Pretty slim you'd say.

[Fonda]

Not sure the 'doh's' are necessary Royal. My point was about mentality, not the physical assets of the club. The way the club behaves, the comments of supporters to others with a modicum of ambition. If we don't start thinking more positively, we'll never improve. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just because we are 'small-time' doesn't mean we have to continually act 'small-time'.

[royalgull]

There are things that the club does that doesn't help itself agreed, especially last season. To be honest what fans and rival fans say on forums doesn't make a jot of difference and nor am i fussed by it personally. It's all bollox

[happytorq]

Great post.
Pretty much agree with you Fonda - the whole club has this attitude of being "litte old Torquay, we're just happy to be here, punching above our weight" etc etc. I do it myself. The problem with that is that it becomes a self-fulfilling thing; we believe ourselves to be small so we don't even bother to do the simple things like communicate to fans, gets shirts in on time etc, and that contributes further to the perception - both internally, by fans, locals, and playing staff, as well as externally - other teams, potential players and the wider football world.

we're unlikely to be Manchester United. But we can at least try! Hell, a bunch of misfits and disenfranchised Wombles from south-west london have got themselves into the football league in just 8 or 9 years! You can bet your bollocks that they were never in the pub saying "Oh well, we'll always be small". No - reach for the stars. Of course, you need to put it in the context of proper fiscal responsiblity and all that guff, but teams from our level have improved into leagues above us - and although there are many barriers to prevent that from happening to us, the biggest barrier is that we don't seem to really think that we can.

So come, on Board - enough with the depressing statements about how small we are. How about some big picture proclamations? Even saying "We want to be established in League 1 within 4 seasons and have an average attendance of 5k" will make a nice a change, and maybe encourage people to swing by Plainmoor and take a look

[hector]

Agree with everythign Fonda says. A lot of this stems back to the Bateson days when he constantly preached the mantra that we were too small to be a league club and that being a league club we were punching above our weight. A lot of people swallowed this claptrap and relegation in the end became a self-fullfilling prophecy.

Buckle was canny enough to tap into this mindset when trying to inflate his achievements by suggesting it was an incredible feat to get Torquay into the League 2 play-offs, conveniently forgetting that we had done the same thing in 1988, 1991, 1994 and 1998 and got promoted in 2004 all on shoestring budgets and under managers probably getting less backing and support than Buckle.

It is the natural thing to do. Preach smallness and nobody can moan if you do not improve.

But like you, I feel the board cannot get more people through the gate, attract better players, managers or coaches if the messages coming through are doom and gloom 'we are small-fry'.

[andygull]

I'm actually in agreement with someone!! Well done Fonda and great read.

[cambgull]

It really is a matter of ambition. We all know that Torquay are a club with a distinct lack of money, a very unhelpful local council and seem to have always been a club who have just kept going year on year, not really doing much else, no 5 year plans, nothing. Apart from a brief flirtation with administration when Roberts was in charge, not much else hugely interesting really.

For that reason, we just 'exist'. We don't really go anywhere, we have the odd trip into League 1 and then the inevitable relegation within the next 3 years. Perhaps this is where times need to change, perhaps this is where someone with half a brain cell needs to step in and take charge. Don't get me wrong, I feel indebted to our board for saving our club, they have ploughed in money just to keep the club afloat, probably on a weekly basis and have run the club to the best of their abilities. This is where the problem lies. You ask any football chairman and they'd all tell you that running a club and a normal business are two very different things. Running a club, especially one like ours is an extremely tough challenge and one that really requiries a ruthless touch. One which sucks every penny out of transfer deals, one which understands marketing a business and realises that (especially for us) a proactive approach to marketing WILL help us.

I've had my business hat on for many years now and have been looking into various different ventures, biding my time until the right one comes along, and while doing that, I look at every business and critique them. Where I see our biggest flaws:-

Firstly, marketing. This can be done in several ways - website, radio, tv, newspapers, banners around town, (more recently) viral, and the biggest of them all... Word of mouth. Now, I don't live in Torquay and never have. I was Ivybridge/Buckfastleigh/Totnes originally before moving to Cambridgeshire and it's fair to say, in 20 years of living in those towns, I never heard any mention of Torquay from anyone other than Argyle fans, and that was usually in a derogatory manner. Torquay was never on the minds of the locals because we never do anything interesting. We need fans to be proud to come out of the woodwork and openly talk about their club. To get there, they need to be proud of their club, and a professional image at all times is the very first place to start. If a club is marketed well, then straight away it gives a good impression to fairweather fans and those who have never seen a game. If people like the look of what they see and they know when the next game is on, then they'll try it out. When they become fans, they tell their friends and they'll tell theres. It's very simple stuff and perhaps the new grandstand would be a great excuse to get the PR machine wheels rolling.

Secondly, player deals. There needs to be someone who steps up to the negotiating table and says "oh, you don't want to pay £150,000? Well then I'll let you pay £149,999.99". We need every penny we can get and we need to stick to our guns with the valuations. Too many times we have seen similar ability players go for far greater money than we get for ours. Why is this? Firstly, negotiating skills and secondly, lack of time left on contract. Someone like Eunan is a player who we all know can play at a higher level. Why can we not slap a 3 year contract on him with a minimum fee release clause at around £1mil. If we were playing in League 1 and he shined, we could get that figure, and if we don't it can be used as a bargaining tool and get £750k instead. Then we look at the realistic option, we'll either take about £150k for him this summer, £100k in January or we lose him for free next summer.

Every thing about improving this club starts with the board, they need to start doing things pro-actively and start being ruthless, just like what Buckle is doing for BR. The board are the only people who can improve this club and they are the only people who can raise the profile of the club and turn it into something to be proud of. But rather than shout out loud and celebrate us, they keep quiet and do the odd interview for the Herald casually slouched over a turnstile.

Christ, for £20,000 a year I'd f*cking reform this club!

[miltonkeynesgull]

Great post Fonda, and agree with everyone elses opinion on this thread too.

You don't need lots of money to be an ambitious club (it helps but it's not crucial). Plenty of clubs no bigger or richer than our own manage to be ambitious, so why can't we? Small things like a steady increase in marketing and promotion would improve things ten-fold. Couple that with a more brave and aggressive stance in negotiation, maximising any transfer income for saleable assets like Eunan and Zebs, would mean that all that money could then be ploughed back into making more improvements and increasing our ambition even more.

The question is, and I have total respect for what this board have done for the club thus far, do we have a chairman/board who are forward thinking and progressive enough to give it a go?

[happytorq]

Secondly, player deals. There needs to be someone who steps up to the negotiating table and says "oh, you don't want to pay £150,000? Well then I'll let you pay £149,999.99". We need every penny we can get and we need to stick to our guns with the valuations. Too many times we have seen similar ability players go for far greater money than we get for ours. Why is this? Firstly, negotiating skills and secondly, lack of time left on contract. Someone like Eunan is a player who we all know can play at a higher level. Why can we not slap a 3 year contract on him with a minimum fee release clause at around £1mil. If we were playing in League 1 and he shined, we could get that figure, and if we don't it can be used as a bargaining tool and get £750k instead. Then we look at the realistic option, we'll either take about £150k for him this summer, £100k in January or we lose him for free next summer.

I've highlighted the important bit here - the fact that it is so well known that we need all the money we can get is the exact reason we often don't get as much as we should for our players. Clubs coming in know that we have a small budget and will (probably, I don't sit in on these negotiations) start with a deliberately low figure. I rather get the impression that the board get worried that the prospective buyer will walk away and we'll end up losing a player for nothing.

Personally, I don't buy that - obviously it's a negotiation, but that's it: you negotiate, you compromise. Take O'Kane - let's say we value him at £350k. A club may show up waving a hundred grand at us, and rather than tell them to get stuffed, you do feel that the board will see the money and almost forget that they're getting bent over a table. If we can negotiate up to, say £250k, then that'd be an equitable outcome all around, and would also show other clubs that we're not a walkover any more. (especially if we go to the press and boast about it, lol). Sure, there's a risk that we end up not selling the player, but that's a good thing, surely.

And remember - some of 'sellable' players are still young, so even if their contract expires we'd be entitled to get something at tribunal. O'Kane has been playing for Northern Ireland u21s and I wouldn't be surprised if he gets a proper call up next season - that'd really improve his value in front of a tribunal, assuming we don't manage to get him on a longer deal.

[royalgull]

Probably not.

Fine line between ambition and recklessness. We don't ever want to get in a situation like Argyle's. A club like ours needs to be sensible, but yes I feel we could definitely improve things in our manner and the message we put out. Saleable assets we need to try to sign long term contracts, 4 years. Kee, O Kane, should have been Benyon, Ellis. These guys that even if no one buys them, they are going to play for us anyway. But if people want to buy them then we get a fee like Hereford got for Manset, nearly £400,000. It's no use having players like that on 1 year deals because it makes £100,000 impossible to turn down. £400,000 each for those players means we could rebuild the club almost, £400,000 in total keeps us going for another year.

some of the things i heard about last season in terms of players we missed out on because of individuals actions, not registering players, the lack of information that gets out, there is no promotion of the club at all in the local area, stuff like that has to stop. Like others have said it's amateurish, it doesn't make us look good and the gates tell their own story.

[PhilGull]

I think - if I understand the OP correctly - that I understand. The answer I think is that the board are, or at least were aware that they don't really know much about running a football club, hence why Colin Lee was appointed as Chief Executive.

I think in an ideal world the board would still like that 'footballing person' on the board to point them in the right direction, sadly I don't think the finances are going to allow it for some time yet. Maybe, just maybe this may be an ideal way for Bruce Rioch to return to the club? I was never in favour of his returning in any kind of player management position but as a part-time advisor to the board? Well maybe that is an option that could be looked at.

We aren't the only club to find ourselves in this position, just look at Jongleurs FC (Newcastlol United). They have a chairman with no footballing knowledge and it shows. I'm sure as time passes the board are learning, it's just a slow process. And now I've lost my train of thought....

[happytorq]

Problem with long-term contracts is that for every O'Kane, Kee and Benyon, there's a Roscoe D'Sane, Leon Constantine (or David Byng!). We can't afford to have players on long contracts if they're simply not good enough.

I think we should hire the guy who negotiated for Hereford. £400,000! That guy must be a genius!

[miltonkeynesgull]

Absolutely Royal. I didn't really get across what I was trying to say. In fact, reading it back, it was total carp. I was more trying to get across that we can be a comfortable League 2/occasional League 1 team, but still be ambitious. I wasn't trying to infer that we should attempt an all-out bid for Premiership status (not that I'd ever actually want us to be a Premiership side!), more that to hold our own in this league, we have to show a certain level of ambition to get more fans through the turnstyles, and a willing to maximise our transfer earnings by not making ourselves such a 'soft touch'. Look at Bournemouth - a similarly 'sleepy' town club, but one that's doing a very good job of consolidating it's position in League 1.

[royalgull]

you don't give them out to those sort of players though, i'm talking about players 23 and under who are already proven at first team level. So right now O Kane, Kee, Ellis. They might choose nto to sign them but I wouldn't see why not. You are offering them the security of a playing contract for 4 years, but also saying we won't stand in your way if a big club comes in for them, we just want a fair fee for you.

Manset's deal has a ton of add ons but I know the deal is worth £400k, Hereford got around £200,000 up front.