Torquay United Fans Forum

Perhaps in retrospect Simon Barker would have been better saying that we exceeded pre season expectations rather than that we over achieved. But at the end of the day its down to a matter of interpretation. I think it has become a habit for the club to set low levels of expectation and the time has come for a more positive approach.
We all know the club is not in the front rank in terms of finance but that dosn't mean we can't move forward. The likes of Dagenham & Redbridge managed promotion on a shoestring and although they came straight back down again they didn't go without a fight. They managed it on gates and resources below ours so if they can do it there is no reason why we can't reach L1 and stay there. Rochdale & Hartlepool both spent more time than most in L2 yet have both moved up and survived in L1 (Rochdale with some success) again on average gate not that much higher than ours. We may need a season of consolidation & rebuilding to get there but it can be done and it is what the club should be aiming for. Negativity and lack of ambition breeds mediocrity so lets see the club showing a bit more fighting spirit together and a bit more professionalim behind the scenes swouldn't go amiss either.

Agree SG without making this thread becoming a banging on about how bad our advertisement is, as it has been said on many threads. There is nothing around town and the surrounding area to suggest we have a football league side and hearing such comments in the paper etc will just put people off.

Over achievement.

Mmmm.

Because someone says something you believe them ?

Then there's potential.

Last season we performed to our potential.

Simple.

Brilliant post Shane. I think you hit the nail on the head there. If the Board don't at some point come out and say "We want to progress, we're now a forward looking club" etc etc the people who've become disillusioned over the years will never return, those that might be tempted into becoming regulars will just see from the outside a club that's not worth investing time and money in because it's going nowhere.

The whole promotional side of the club needs sorting out, at the moment it's a shambles. With those attitudes off the pitch the club did over-achieve, with the players we had through last season I think we fell short of what was a reasonable attempt at promotion.

basil75 wrote:I've made my feelings clear elsewhere on whether we overachieved.

However, it's not a word our chairman should be using publicly and another "foot in it" with regards our approach to PR.

People of Torbay, come buy a season ticket - we won't be as good as last year and you shouldn't have high expectations of the coming season, but come and buy a season ticket anyway.

Spot on with that post mate.

My opinion on this has been expressed elsewhere, but what the hell, it reiterate. No, i very much do not think we over-achieved. At the start of the season i thought we were good for a top-half finish. Our finishing points total was on a par with that. A few of the 'bigger' clubs that would have been expected to perform better struggled, and for that reason the points we got were good enough to see us into the Play-Offs.

This idea that we over-acheived is a myth perpetrated by Paul Buckle - the usual self-promotion. 'Torquay are a tiny club with a tiny budget. It's pretty much a miracle that i got them where i did. If it wasn't for me, they'd likely have been relegated again'. I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea.

There's also no doubt the board like to 'play safe' by keeping expectations low - but as i've said elsewhere, i'm not convinced it's an effective methodology. It doesn't inspire new supporters (or old ones in fact), and it gives the players an excuse. Someone mentioned above that it's good because it takes the pressure off the players. Personally, i like the players to feel a little pressure to perform, because without it performance levels drop.

The only possible reason we can consider last season as one of 'extraordinary over-achievement' is if the expectation from within the club was that '22nd will do'. And that's not a healthy mentatility, but which has been discussed previously.

It certainly does come down to what you would define as over achivement. If we had relied soley on Torquay United players last Season rather than those borrowed from elsewhere then we'd have achieved a mid table position at best. Using other teams good players (via the loan system) allowed us to achieve a position in the League that would have been beyond us had we been restricted to using our own playing resources.

As I wrote on another site a month ago :

"I saw a characteristic Buckle team losing at home to Crawley in the F.A Cup. Short on ideas & short on inspiration, heading for a mid table finish at best, possibly a little lower. The next time I was able to attend Plainmoor was more than a month later for the Shrewsbury game. I was all ready to watch a Torquay team that had struggled to record five League wins in the whole of 2011.

But the huge increase in quality was apparant within a couple of minutes of the kick off. Half a team of good players had been parachuted in from when I last saw them. All those unfamiliar faces, Murray,Tomlin,Stanley,Robinson,Pringle. Suddenly we had half a new team of players who were all looking a bit too good for this division.

From a team that had won 5 league games in the whole of the year, these players put together 5 wins in less than a month !"



Surely all those good non Torquay players running around in Torquay shirts, scoring goals for us & helping us win matches helped us over achieve ?

Now compare that to next season when,for instance, the central defence & the goalkeeper will barely know each others names let alone have built up an understanding that only comes from playing competitive matches together over a prolonged period. My expectations of what we can realistically achieve in the coming Season are far lower. Maybe that's the wrong approach,maybe Blackpool did start the Season firmly believing they'd be Premier League champions. Luckily there are plenty of different opinions which only leads to the Forum being that much more interesting.

Over achieved,,,,,,,, now when did we last hear a chairman in the not too distant past start saying things like that?

Slightly OT but torquaychalky makes an excellent point. Does anybody remember a season when we lost so few key players to injury absences. I reckon the combined total for what could be considered the 7-8 core key players must have been less than 10 games - quite incredible really and played an important part in our achievements. If we had extended absences from players like zebus, branno, manse or nicho would we have finished quite so high?
Food for thought

numpte wrote:Who started this over achievement clap trap....Buckle. He's been spouting it for months to a degree that no other manager I can remember had.

Self publicity.

As previously posted, there are half a dozen clubs of similar size to ourselves in this league and you dont hear them talk about it.

Exactly. Buckle was always going on about how small a club we were, and we had no right to be up there, bigging himself up in a way.

For the record, I was quietly confident of reaching the playoffs after our excellent end to 09/10 and then start of 10/11!

I've made my feelings clear elsewhere on whether we overachieved.

However, it's not a word our chairman should be using publicly and another "foot in it" with regards our approach to PR.

People of Torbay, come buy a season ticket - we won't be as good as last year and you shouldn't have high expectations of the coming season, but come and buy a season ticket anyway.

Overachieve means to perform better than expected. I personally didn't expect us to get into the play-offs and would have been happy with a safe mid-table finish. So we overachieved in my eyes, but then it depends on what expectations you had for the club at the start of the season.

Who started this over achievement clap trap....Buckle. He's been spouting it for months to a degree that no other manager I can remember had.

Self publicity.

As previously posted, there are half a dozen clubs of similar size to ourselves in this league and you dont hear them talk about it.

We are the only club talking nonsense and its BAD KARMA!!!

We had a brilliant side last season - 7th was a fair reflection of their ability, not over-achievement really. In terms of budget and reputation, certainly, but we finished in the play-offs on merit with a solid defence and dangerous attacking players.

Long-time lurker, first poster so feel free to say I m talking rubbish!!
I personally think this overachievement philosophy is quite an interesting point and in a way probably underlines in part Buckles move to BR (had we finished mid-table would they have really seen him as the man to get them straight back to League 1?).
For what it s worth I don t think we did overachieve. We had a very good season and at times played some quality football. Buckle built a good but small squad with some very shrewd loan signings but we were very lucky with injuries throughout the season and on the whole everyone s form was pretty consistent.
At the start of the season I think the general consensus was we had what it took to be mid table at worst and pushing playoffs at best 9think there was a poll on here at one point but can t remember the outcome).
As it happens we were lucky to scrape a play-off place with 68 points (only other time this would have happened with this points total in the last 12 seasons would have been 05/06). Our end of season form was ordinary at best (2w-5d-1l) and in the end we only got there due to other teams not taking their chances. Overall we had a very good season that almost became a great season but I m not sure that constitutes an overachievement.
In my opinion overachievement was just another example of bucks-speak used to massage his own ego and get his name in-front of other clubs Chairmen, as let s face it he was always far too ambitious for us!!!!