Where did it all go wrong.....

CP Gull · Post by **CP Gull** » 29 Dec 2014, 05:56

My apologies for the length of this post, but like quite a few that used to post more regularly on here, I haven't done so for a while and so I have more to say than I usually would!

Like a lot of long suffering fans that post on here it appears, I too have found my enthusiasm for TUFC severely tested over the developments of the last couple of years. As 2014 draws to a close and after more than 7 years of their ownership the "new" consortium that took over the club way back in 2007 does seem to be falling apart at the seams. It has made me question, where did it all go so badly wrong?

There are some that may well consider our current position about right for a club with let's face it a hardcore support of just 2000 or so, although of course in reality there are far more of us when you take into account all the exiles that make our away support, in terms of numbers relative to our home support, so commendable even at this low point in our history. Maybe, we are now at a level that befits a small seaside town in a far flung outpost of the country, but the speed and rapid descent is understandably hard to take for all supporters when you consider the relative success that we enjoyed under the first five years of the new owners.

It is hard to take, when not so long ago we were regularly beating the big city teams in league and cup competitions, taking the scalps of the likes of Portsmouth, Plymouth, Bristol (Rovers), Blackpool, Bradford, Swindon and Rotherham to name just a few. With the greatest respect to the clubs involved to now find ourselves being humbled by the likes of Alfreton, Braintree and Telford and "celebrating" a "decent point" at the likes of Dover and Welling is quite hard to take.

It has made me wonder where and when it all went wrong and despite the relative success we enjoyed in those first few years under the new owners, I have come to the conclusion that actually several mistakes were made before they had hardly even got their feet under the table! Firstly, from the outset, there were far too many people involved - starting out with a board of 9 or 10 was far too many to begin with - it must have made the decision making process difficult and the Board was just too large and unwieldy. With the greatest respect to all those individuals, all successful people in their own right, you have to wonder what apart from a few quid some have really contributed to the cause. Personally, I think it would have been far better to have started with just a few "hands on" Directors who could really make a difference while supporting the Bristows .... rather than just trying to trouser every wealthy fan in the Bay for the odd £50k!

Secondly, I also believe through conversations that I have had, that they paid Mike Bateson too much for the club in the first place. In a game of poker, the well meaning group of fans, lost out to the hard nosed businessman Bateson. Of course, it also meant, straight from the off, that they had less than they originally intended for the playing budget and whilst it may have not have had too much of an immediate impact I am sure it probably did a little further down the road.

Thirdly, they then rushed too quickly to reappoint Colin Lee. Whilst he would undoubtedly have made a good Director of Football in my opinion, to give him the Chief Executive role was in hindsight I believe a mistake. I would not have had a problem with Lee in that role if he was the owner of the club and using his own money .... as I suspect he would have made a far better job of it, he would certainly have spent a lot less!

It would have been far better, to have appointed someone with previous experience in the role, someone who understood football but with experience in accountancy and making sure that the Bristows (in the main) money was being spent wisely. The Board must be given credit for backing Lee in appointing Paul Buckle (a good appointment as it turned out) but they surely should have paid more attention to the commercial side. Appointing a lovely guy like Daryl Batten may have been a popular choice but Daryl's expertise has always been in hospitality ( and still is to this day!) and at a time when they should have been "cashing in" on the new found optimism surrounding the club they failed to take advantage of the situation.

Quite simply, under Lee, we were losing money hand over fist and it appeared that no one knew what was going on! I will always remember a fans forum meeting where the then Chairman Simon Baker suggested in January that we were looking at a break even or small loss position for that year ... six months or so later we posted a loss of more than £600k if memory serves me right and Lee was finally relieved of his duties when the Board finally realised that he was spending money like there was no tomorrow!

I had always expected, even assumed, with all the collective experience that the Board had in their numbers that with all the solicitors, accountants and successful businessmen in their ranks that the club was in "safe" hands ... alas, when you consider the size of the record making losses we have made over the intervening years, I suspect it was more a case of them making sure that their own personal investment didn't grow to an unacceptable level, but neglected to put a brake on things when it became clear that the club was becoming ever more reliant on the benevolence of the Bristows' to keep the club afloat.

Quite clearly we were spending far too much money in those early years and yet no one seemed to do anything about it. With all the success (relative) that we were enjoying on the field, as a mere fan, I didn't care too much about the record breaking losses but even I did find myself questioning how well the club was being run when we were enjoying the benefits year upon year of play off monies, FA Trophy final, successful FA Cup runs, transfer sale proceeds, Wembley and old Trafford appearances and of course promotion via a play off final and all of this and we were still posting huge losses! All of the above should have been unbudgeted ... so goodness only knows how far we would have come in over budget and what sort of losses we might have posted if we hadn't enjoyed such success!

For all his faults and for all the mediocrity on show, bar the "Rosenior years" of course, the one thing with Mike Bateson was that he always ran a tight ship and the club was always in safe hands under him even during some of the most trying periods in our history. Sadly, as much as I don't want to admit it,but given our current predicament I have a lot less faith in the current Board, as we have become far too reliant on the generosity of one individual to sustain the club and she (and her family) have already given plenty enough. As Thea herself has said she is not a " bottomless pit" and if (as seems likely) she hasn't already said enough is enough, she will do one day soon and then what happens? I guess it all depends on whether Thea is prepared to write off the huge loans that have accumulated over the years.

The other thing with Bateson was that actually as he proved time and again, when he genuinely thought our League status might be seriously in doubt he would always come up trumps with the appointment of the likes of Warnock, Lee and Atkins even if only on a short term basis, proving sufficient to ensure we stayed up. He also showed ambition on occasion too with the £70k we gambled on a Eiffion Williams and the £75k we threw away on Leon Constantine. Unfortunately, I don't think the current Board have been able to act quite so decisively and certainly not as effectively, as our relegation proved, when it came to our time of need and lessons we should have learnt when we nearly went down in the 12-13 season were not heeded the following year and we paid the ultimate price.

On the pitch, if there has to have been a pivotal moment when it all started to unravel then for me it would be, as others have suggested, that FACup Round 1 defeat to Harrogate under Martin Ling. Up to that point the Board had grown accustomed to banking the prize money, gate money, TV appearance (Yeovil, Coventry) money that decent runs in the Cup had brought under Buckle. That all changed when we slumped at the first hurdle under Ling. I can always remember a rather forlorn sounding Ling giving an interview to BBC Radio Devon around that time saying something along the lines of "relying on income from an FA Cup run was no way to run a football club". Of course, he was being quite obtuse and it wasn't clear to me at least at the time as to whether he was actually referring to his own club or just generalising ... it soon became clear it was indeed TUFC he was on about!

You have to feel sorry for Ling, given that just a few short months earlier, he had sold off the "Crown Jewels" through the transfers of O'Kane, Olejnik and Ellis - sales that (over time admittedly) brought in £600k to the football club and everyone or so it seemed at the time anyway, wrongly as it turned out, assumed that the club was flush with money ... the cost of building Bristows bench put paid to that. Being told that he had no money to spend in the January, transfer window, when he had just banked the club £600k in the summer, would have bene enough to drive anyone to contemplate resorting to drink you might think, and many speculated at the time that it did for Ling, but in reality it simply drove him to despair and as we now know, within a couple of months it had all become too much for him.

More mistakes by the Board, such as giving Shaun Taylor too much time, nearly cost us relegation two years ago, but ultimately we stayed up, so job done. I didn't have a problem with the appointment of Alan Knill at the time (although I felt there were better candidates around) as I thought that the reappointment of Martin Ling represented too much of a risk given his health issues and the stresses involved in running a club like ours. Whether Knill was the right appointment or whether Hargreaves was as his ultimate replacement is all very subjective but what is clear is that they have both had to work under very difficult circumstances as the purse strings have been pulled ever tighter.

Rather like the Greek economy, indeed the global economy, we the fans just like the citizens of Greece, now appear to be having to pay the price for all those years of over spending by those in control of the purse strings. At least the Greeks can vent their anger in the direction of their politicians and the bankers though, whereas who of us with TUFC in our heart can really ever point the finger at the benevolent Thea Bristow and her family. She is clearly not the best Chairperson or indeed spokesperson you would wish for your football club, she would admit as much herself I am sure, but she has given so much over the years and for a few brief years in our history she really did make a difference and helped bring us some good times and happy memories .... sadly though you get the feeling those times are probably behind us, for the foreseeable future at least, and you cannot help but wonder if the custodians of our football club could and should have made so much more of the fantastic (once in a lifetime? ) opportunity of having a hugely supportive lottery winner amongst our fan base. Personally, I can't help but feel that that opportunity, given where we are now, seems like it may have been wasted.

Of course, on a positive note, the real legacy of the "Bristow years" may well prove to be the redevelopment of the ground and of course Bristows' Bench. I should also add the development of Seale Hayne training ground but at the moment that seems to have had more of a negative impact than a positive one and whether it will ever be truly " finished" or whether it will revert back to little more than a farmers field in years to come is I suppose anyone's guess!

For all the improvements at Plainmoor (yes that's right Plainmoor for that is what it will always be to me and the rest of us) though, is there any amongst us who wouldn't trade it in for a three sided ground with a squad good enough to compete with the " big boys" in League 2, or even dare I say it League 1, which we came so close to doing two seasons in a row a short while back? Funnily enough, I really enjoyed that season where everyone squeezed into either the Popside or the Family Stand - the atmosphere was the best it had been for years in my opinion and there was a real sense of "togetherness" which feels a little lacking on match days now I feel.

One final gripe (I promise!) and something that I believe has really stunted our progress on the pitch given the importance put on it by the Board when they first took over the club and that is ..... why is it after SEVEN long years we stil seem totally unable to produce our own players from within the Youth set up? Whilst it was the right decision, in my opinion, to release young Niall Thompson and Danny Sullivan in the last couple of weeks, it is depressing that yet again we have failed to be able to get young players to make the step up. Following in the footsteps of the likes of Saul Halpin, Ray Spear, Kyrtis MacKenzie it has become an all too familiar pattern of failure to make the step up and does anyone really hold out any more hope for the likes of Hutchings, Purcell and Chaney? Of course young Ives may make the grade, but will it even be with us ? Not only that but from what I have seen of late, he still has an awful lot to learn anyway.

To their credit the Youth set up have at least seen some reward for the efforts with the sale (£40k) of young keeper Neal Osborne to Southampton and they were unlucky not to cash in on the £50k agreed with Aston Villa for young Prynn but in terms of producing players for the first team we have Ashley Yeoman as the only flag bearer and his future (yet again!) must be in some doubt beyond the summer.

Why is it that Exeter (and to a lesser extent these days - Plymouth) can continually produce young players (mostly local in the main too) that are able to easily make the transition into their first team and then inevitably get sold for a small fortune down the line. The likes of Grimes (rumoured to be on his way to the Premiership for a seven figure fee), Pym, Sercombe, Nicholls, Bennett and Moore-Taylor to name just a few, all came through their Academy system as far as I am aware and are all now featuring regularly in their first team these days and all making an impact too. They are just a few more in a long procession of players that their youth set up has produced over the years, including the period when they were in the Conference with us, which includes the likes of Dean Moxey and Daniel Seaborne both of whom made it to the Premiership.

I do wonder how good a job is being done and how close an eye the Board keeps on the youth set up and what, if any, performance targets are being set. Are they quite simply just left to get on with things in the hope that eventually they might just produce something or are they closely monitored and set clear targets? The honest answer is I don't know, but what I do know is that so far they have failed to secure one single player, on a pro contract, that has really got anywhere near to being an established first team member... in seven years of trying. It may seem harsh to some, but those are the FACTS and in a results based business, a cutthroat one at that, some might say that that fact alone might be enough to consider a change is necessary.

Of course, the stark reality is that within the next couple of years, when the central funding for the Academy has all gone, we may well be faced with the same difficult decision that Mike Bateson had to make and it would be no great surprise if the whole thing was shut down again It would be a great shame, of course, but rather like Bateson did all those years ago you have to wonder whether all that investment is truly worthwhile and, as was the case back then, if you aren't either developing kids for the first team and/or receiving transfer money back from their sale on .... then really, what is the point of it all?

If you are still reading this, then fair play to you! I have gone on far too long, but as is always the way with forums like this it is a great way to "get things off your chest" .... even though you know, in your heart of hearts that no one is really listening .....

brucie · Post by **brucie** » 29 Dec 2014, 08:57

Yes a very good post. Unfortunately everything about the club has nigh on always been a shambles. When we played Birmingham at home in the cup I didn't go because I was unable to obtain a ticket (yet I was a season ticket holder at the time)
Same thing happened when we played Forest Green in the Cup away. Torquay would not sell me a ticket. I was able to obtain one from Forest Green who sent it in the post the following day.
You mention the Exeter Youth Set up.
They produce a whole host of players from the youth set up who make the first team because the operation they run is a million light years in front of ours.
My son played for Exeters youth team for two years till he was sixteen.
When we played Torquay away they were the only team which didn't use linesman for the games - as I say its always been a complete shambles.
Stewards,Customer relations etc etc - its always neen the same.
On the subject of stewards the bloke with the mobile phone complex was at it again in Bristows Bench against Bristol Rovers - this time berating a boy aged about eight or nine on two occasions.
The boys father was less than happy - is that attitude going to make him bring his son back spending thirty quid a throw?
The club will never ever learn.

CP Gull · Post by **CP Gull** » 29 Dec 2014, 09:13

Of course you are right Brucie, the "communication" between the club and the fan, which I had such high hopes for all those years ago when the new Board took over, did improve for a while I thought, under Alex Rowe and Dary Batten, but then regressed, and picked up again when the enthusiastic Andrew Candy took over his new role at the club .... but sadly, if only based on his interaction on this forum of late, even he seems to have got worn down by it all lately and I suspect he struggles with trying to deliver excellent service whilst facing the daily challenge of having to do everything " on the cheap" .... which is how our club seems to be being run these days.

It is sad to hear of the ever growing band of fans that I seem to come across that we have lost. I even
bumped into a former employee of the club in M&S a couple of days back, expecting to chew the corn with him on what went wrong on Boxing Day ... only to find that he hasn't been back since the day he "left" .... make of that what you will!

ethantufcbaker · Post by **ethantufcbaker** » 29 Dec 2014, 09:44

That took a while to read but brilliant post

Never knew what it was like under Bateson as my first game was buckles last year. First real season was under ling and the atmosphere was incredible.
Youth setup as we aren't really making a profit, I can see being shut down. Have seen a little of the youth players and Ives is the stand out however I think Chaney can cut it as well. I can see it being shut down though as it's costing money which isn't helping the first team.

A Candy · Post by **A Candy** » 29 Dec 2014, 09:56

Thank you CP Gull for your kind and "insightful" comments which I appreciate. I do struggle to contribute on here at times because as I am sure that you understand, there are many threads where it would be wrong for me to do so. This is one of those threads but I appreciate your personal observations!

tommyg · Post by **tommyg** » 29 Dec 2014, 10:02

I'm listening CP and it's a shame you don't post more regularly as I always value your opinion. I agree with the bulk of your post, although have a different view on Bateson which I'll get to shortly.

I just think - perhaps naively - that if you average gates of around 2,000 then it's only a matter of time before you lose your Football League status. Unless you have a sugar daddy or gain regular windfalls from player sales and cup runs, then it will always be a battle to keep your head above the water. Clubs like Accrington and Morecambe are doing extremely well to hold their own in League Two - but they will only survive at that level for so long because of the size of their fanbase. It might happen next year, in five years' time or take longer than that, but eventually they will have a bad season and it will cost them their place in the Football League. Clubs of our size can't afford to make too many mistakes and unfortunately we did that last season with poor manager appointments and disappointing signings.

The biggest mistake I believe the club made was not reinvesting the £600k accumulated from the sales of O'Kane, Olejnik and Ellis back into the team aside from the signing of Bodin, but we were kindly gifted £50k from a mystery donor. It's nice having a new shiny stand - but not if it's at the expense of our League status. Although the board had no choice but to remove Colin Lee, we have always lacked a football figure at the top and had Lee or someone else been in that position at the time of those aforementioned player sales, in my opinion more of that money would have gone into Ling's budget. Unfortunately, those in power naively thought the players left behind were good enough - but they were wrong.

Since then we have nose-dived dramatically. The health of Ling put the club in a difficult position and I think they were right to relieve him of his duties, although went the wrong way about doing it. Knill kept us up and was backed by most fans for the job but in hindsight he was the wrong choice. The same can be said for Hargreaves. And when you make mistakes - as I mentioned earlier - clubs like Torquay will be punished severely.

As for Bateson, whilst we were never relegated from the FL under his stewardship (apart from when he retook control after the Roberts debacle), for most of those years only one team suffered relegated from the bottom division and when we did finish bottom in the mid-90s, our skin was saved by the fact that Stevenage's ground wasn't up to scratch. You could argue that we've been on a downward spiral since we were relegated from League One in 2005. Had Rosenior been backed by Bateson then perhaps we could have established ourselves in that division... who knows?

wodger of awabia · Post by **wodger of awabia** » 29 Dec 2014, 10:14

" a small seaside town in a far flung outpost of the country,"

"redevelopment of the ground and of course Bristows' Bench. I should also add the development of Seale Hayne training ground "

It is the above two quotes from CP Gulls post that I am commenting on:

He is right about this area not being a "hot bed " of football, but the words " far flung" are the important ones. Since the club sold off the club houses around 45 years ago players have been reluctant to move down here, & "up sticks" from up country, especially if offered a short term contract. Attracting players & the Youth Programme would not be a problem if the training ground was located in a better area. Where is that I hear you ask! The answer is just south of Birmingham close to the M5/M6/M42. The only thing that needs to be in Torquay is the ground & a club shop/ticket office. If the training took place in this area then the players could live where they want, there would be a huge amount of local lads available for the Youth Programme, & we may be able loan players from the Midland clubs. Travel to most away games from a Midlands base would be short in most cases & not involve overnight stops. Travel to home games down the M5 to Torquay is also only around 3 hours & likely to improve when the Kingskerswell by pass is finished. I.M.O. it was an expensive mistake to throw money at Seale Hayne which is proving to be a "white Elephant". Bristow's Bench was an unavoidable expense, as the previous Stand was falling down, & in any case some funding was available from grant money to build the Stand.

Gloomy Gull · Post by **Gloomy Gull** » 29 Dec 2014, 10:40

CP - Thank you very much for such a well thought out resume of the (lack of) progress the club has made in the last 7 (I can't believe it has been that many!) years.

We were all keen to see the back of Bateson - I can remember the end of games when the popside were baying for his blood - and I believe that his exit was needed to give the club some room to effect changes. Sadly, the changes have not been as beneficial as we would have hoped.

I fully agree with your observations on the manner the current "business" is being run. Given that we have a board of business people - there does appear to be a dearth of business "acumen", the evidence of this has been pointed out time and time again. I fear that there are a few in the "group" who have the ideas but are not given the freedom to try them out.

This is only a small point, but one that "grinds my gears" on a regular basis, and, for me, highlights the lack of business management of the club......I had been a season ticket holder for many years and, because of a growing disillusionment with the entire set up, I chose to take the option to use the membership scheme to give me the flexibility to choose games, if I lost too much enthusiasm. The point of this comment is three fold :

1) If I attended every home game (and my maths was correct) it actually turned out less expensive to pay the £15 per month and £8 per home game under this scheme than to buy a season ticket !!! - which accountant worked that scheme out????
2) It is a ball ache to have to buy a ticket at the office each game to then hand it in at the turnstile - as the scheme requires possession of a card with your photograph, why can I not just present the card at the turnstile and pay there?
3) Every time I go to the ticket office, there is a queue of varying proportions. There are two windows and two people dispensing tickets. however, the business guru at the club obviously considers it is better use of resource to have one issuing a ticket and one taking the money.....why do you not open BOTH windows and each person take money and issue tickets?? That would reduce the queue significantly.

As I said a small point, but it is the small things that can make the biggest difference and leave the longest impression (good or bad).

CP Gull · Post by **CP Gull** » 29 Dec 2014, 10:42

A Candy wrote:Thank you CP Gull for your kind and "insightful" comments which I appreciate. I do struggle to contribute on here at times because as I am sure that you understand, there are many threads where it would be wrong for me to do so. This is one of those threads but I appreciate your personal observations!

Hi Andy

Good to hear that you are still listening in! I do fully understand your situation and the need for you to use your judgement wisely in terms of your contributions to this or indeed any of the other various TUFC forums. I am also sure that there may well have been times when you have had to "bite your tongue" and exercise considerable restraint when posting too, perhaps not always being able to say what you would really like to. ...indeed this thread may even be a case in point!!!!

Personally, I have always found you to be extremely positive and helpful in any situation where you can be, whilst perating within the constraints which are no doubt imposed on you. I imagine you have lots of ideas as to how you would like to improve the club, as to be fair does Dean Edwards too, but as with most things when you try to improve them, it generally costs money to make it better and/or a lot of help and support from volunteers who are willing to give their time and energy to the various projects - something which may not always be forthcoming.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

PlainmoorRoar · Post by **PlainmoorRoar** » 29 Dec 2014, 10:57

I'll take issue with the part about the youth set up. I'm not a 100% sure but believe it's that age group around Niel Osbourne that would be the first that we would have had since the restart of the youth team. It would only be fair to judge the system on those players when then reach the end of their time in the youth team to see if they progress into the first team.

CP Gull · Post by **CP Gull** » 29 Dec 2014, 10:59

Wodger, that is an interesting idea, and whilst it would be quite revolutionary it is not as daft as some (not me I might add) might think it to be.

The only thing I can compare it with is I seem to recall Barrow FC do something similar in that, as a part time club (somewhere where, who knows, we may eventually head) rather than have their training sessions at or near to their Holker Street ground, they actually hold their midweek training sessions in the North West, in the Manchester area I believe - not a million miles away from Barrow from nevertheless a long way from "home".

The huge advantage to them is they are then able to recruit part time players from in and around the Greater Manchester area, of which there are an abundance, rather than force such players to commute at great expense to Cumbria or move to the area. Clearly for part timers the greater availability of job opportunities in the industrial North West is also far greater than in and around the Barrow area.

I certainly think that having say a base, perhaps just south of Bristol ( maybe?) could be a good idea ... particularly if we eventually had to go part time.

CP Gull · Post by **CP Gull** » 29 Dec 2014, 11:13

PlainmoorRoar wrote:I'll take issue with the part about the youth set up. I'm not a 100% sure but believe it's that age group around Niel Osbourne that would be the first that we would have had since the restart of the youth team. It would only be fair to judge the system on those players when then reach the end of their time in the youth team to see if they progress into the first team.

Fair point, I look forward to hearing that a whole host of local lads are being taken on as Youth trainees next season then! I don't know enough about the current crop of U16s to comment but I take your point that that there may be some potential in there, but correct me if I'm wrong but when we set up the Academy we didn't just recruit at under8s level (the age Osborne would have been when the scheme was reintroduced) presumably we also recruited 9s, 10s, 11s, 12s, 13s, 14s and 16s too didn't we? None of whom seem to have made it through to the u18s and into the first team though.

Even those that have, have by and large been recruited not from within the Academy age groups but instead have been picked up at 16 having been released elsewhere - Spear, MacKenzie, Thompson, Hutchings, Chaney, Sullivan - all as far as I am aware only joined the club (mostly from well outside the area) at 16 as first year trainees as far as I am aware. Even the current crop of youth trainees seem to be drawn largely from outside the area with a number of lads from Northern Ireland, Cyrprus, the London area etc .. admittedly there are one or two exceptions ... Jonny Buckle and Dan Lavercombe are certainly local lads and Liam Prynn is from Cornwall ... time will tell as to how many of them get offered pro deals in the summer, I guess.

It just irks me somewhat when I still hear of local lads turning out for the academies of Exeter and Plymouth when I think they should be with us. Not only that, but I read in the Herald a little while back of a couple of promising kids who play their club football for Marldon getting trials with Premiership clubs including the likes of Chelsea - which is great for them and nothing wrong with progressing their career through their local club - it's just a shame that their local professional club hasn't picked them up though!

PlainmoorRoar · Post by **PlainmoorRoar** » 29 Dec 2014, 11:28

But if you want to judge the youth set up surely you base it on those first 8 year olds to see after 10 years how they develop. Who knows if Osborne had stayed he could have been our No.1.

hector · Post by **hector** » 29 Dec 2014, 11:58

Superb post, CP Gull, as ever, well considered and articulated and nothing really to take too much issue with.

I would suggest that you may be being a little harsh regarding the youth set-up. I realise that we have not really produced any players of note yet but it would be unfair to compare us to Exeter.

Take Matt Grimes for a start. He would have been 12 when Torquay re-started their set-up and already signed up by Exeter. The best players will already have been associated with clubs with a youth system, so for Torquay, we were always having to make do with what is left.

If you think players are often signed up by the age of 9, as part of a centre of excellence, then those players would still only be 16 now. We will always be 3rd choice for youth players, even had we been in the league. Plymouth are the big club, and Exeter are the club with a real culture of developing youth, perhaps in the way Crewe used to. Torquay have been badly served since John James upped sticks for Plymouth. The talent we produced dried up once the likes of Compton and Hancox started producing players for Buckland Athletic and the Peninsula League.

I think Tommo is right about his views on Bateson. Under Bateson, we had too many narrow misses with relegation, and survival was despite him, not because of him. The ridiculous non-backing of Rosenior in League 1, a decade ago, sowed the seeds for relegation to the Conference in 2007 and whilst things are bleak now, more through just plain stupid decisions, rather than the lack of ambition or even counter-ambition that characterised the Bateson years.

The sadness is that because of those decisions, that you document so well, it is difficult to see how the club can recover as it feels as though it is becoming an inevitably shrinking entity, with the perpetual scaling down that brings, and standing by Torquay United, as a fan, is becoming an increasingly wearing thing to have to do and so many people just feel they want to wash their hands of the club and not have such disappointment feature in their lives anymore.

My feeling is, that despite the criticisms that are beginning to develop from a murmur into a rumble, the people running the club are good people and well-intentioned and perhaps don't really know how to rectify the situation themselves. However, whilst we wait, the club will just shrink because crowds will fall, revenue will drop and the club will have to cut its cloth accordingly and so on. How do they break the cycle? I guess that is their role to try and figure out but they cannot rely on cup runs and crowd figures to remain stable as that won't happen.

kevgull · Post by **kevgull** » 29 Dec 2014, 12:06

I think we should go part time next season.

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