Torquay United Fans Forum

Wasn’t there today so can’t truly comment, but from the games I’ve seen Murphy gets a bit of a disservice on here. I don’t think it’s coincidental that after a run of improving form, the games he misses turn into disappointing defeats.

Yes the goal return is poor, but I think his movement and “putting himself about” creates opening for others. Namely Reid.

Keating, from what I’ve seen, is all action but limited technical ability. It’s great that he runs about a lot, but there doesn’t seem to be any purpose to what he’s doing.

I wonder who the trialists were - I hope they were “the answer!”

The whole Fondop saga made me wonder how hard we really looked at levels below.

He was quite below the radar, but once you looked a little deeper into his history he had good scoring records and has shown for Guiseley that he can handle this level.

So, his attitude may not have been right but he’s not the only person who’s scored 15-odd goals at the level below. I’m sure if homework had been done correctly we could have unearthed someone similarly effective.

westyorkshiregull wrote: ↑01 Nov 2017, 14:01 Only get a quarter of people turn up that we do. Can't see all of them wanting to travel 200 mile round trip. Ok closer for away fans though. Nothing else closer for them. I assume if promoted then stadium has to be a certain standard. Is that same standard for national south as it is for national premier ??

No, the standards aren’t the same.

This information is probably massively out of date, but I was under the impression to gain membership of the National League South a capacity of 3000 was required with 250 seats (or something similar). Promoted clubs get a grace period of 3 seasons to get their grounds up to scratch.

To gain membership to the National League a capacity of 4000 with 500 seats was required (amongst other requirements around ability to segregate and other things like changing room size), with a similar grace period for promoted clubs.

This is stuck in my head from around 10 years ago so the regs have likely changed. But it is part of the reason why Hungerford and Poole were denied access to the NLS playoffs last season.

I’m sure googling “FA Ground Grading Regs” would turn up something more accurate

EDIT - should have googled myself in the first instance - http://www.thefa.com/get-involved/playe ... nd-grading

Although this fixture looks winnable on paper, my concern is how we deal with the 3-game week this time around.

Last time we were in this situation, we played a high energy game at Dagenham that unfortunately didn’t yield what it deserved; a high energy game against Maidenhead that laid the foundations for the first win; but then produced what was described as a very flat and poor performance against a very good Dover side. At the time, I put that down to the players fitness levels not being able to withstand the level of performance and workload required by GO at the time.

Fast forward, what, 4 weeks? So we’ve come off the back of two strong, committed performances on the road. Has the fitness improved to such an extent that we can do it all again for a third time in a week now? Hartlepool are on good form and look to be tough to break down.

We need a win to keep on the 50 point target. Fingers will be well and truly crossed

gullno4 wrote: ↑25 Oct 2017, 14:31

5:10ish. Decide for yourself

Nope. 100% didn’t, you can see it from the replay that it’s on the line, but not over it

Consummate away performance last night really. Never dominated, but worked exceptionally hard and were solid and organised.

Nobody can argue we didn’t deserve to win - we had maybe 3 or 4 clear cut chances, whereas the Home side only had the first half header from Kedwell and an incident in the second half where a free kick was whipped into the near post and a bit of a scramble ensued. I was convinced they’d scored (the net even rippled!), but somehow Dorel emerged carrying the ball. The Ebbsfleet fans seemed pretty disgruntled but with all the disallowed goals we’ve had this season maybe we deserved a marginal decision to go our way.

Davis was very lucky to stay on the pitch at the end - already on a (albeit harsh) Yellow, a clear body check left him on very thin ice. The ref had to call Gowling over for a word, which I assume was something along the lines of “your man here is on his final FINAL warning”. Actually thought the ref was OK last night, didn’t seem to make any glaringly bad decisions.

Still think we are missing something up front. Reid took his goal superbly - well worth a watch on the highlights - and was lively, but Murphy isn’t big enough to act as any kind of a target so we need to avoid trying to use him as one.

Thought McGinty should come in for some special praise, as he really seems to have upped his game. Still the occasional hopeful punt from the back, but all in all he kept a difficult customer in Kedwell quiet and looked very assured. I agree with the assertion that RWB is currently our weakest position - the Fleet went at Higgins and Efete during the first half and made some headway.

Still think we are a Work in progress, as we didn’t move the ball as well as Ebbsfleet did, looked a little panicked in possession and lacked a cutting edge up front. But this was a night and day improvement on one of my previous away trips to Aldershot this season, and encouraging signs are there

McGinty
Reid
Davis
Young
Gowling

SuperNickyWroe wrote: ↑24 Oct 2017, 20:52 evans just missed a sitter!!!!!

Was Murphy, and in his defence it came at him rather quickly. Should have done better though

Not the greatest half in terms of entertainment, we’ve looked solid which is an improvement on earlier games.

We’ve had the better chances, forcing their keeper into 2 saves whereas Dorel hasn’t been threatened bar a Kedwell header that bounced just wide. But for us having the better of the chances, Ebbsfleet have played by far the better football. Very quick and move the ball well, you get the feeling they could open us up.

We need to calm down when we’ve got the ball, lots of poor decision making. The front 3 have been very disappointing and haven’t made much impact at all. Young, Davis and McGinty look the standout performers from us.

All to play for second half though

apgull wrote: ↑24 Oct 2017, 12:25 Remember Febian Brandy?! Looks like he might get a run out against us tonight: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41735033

This was on BTPIR the other day - I don’t think they are expecting Brandy’s international clearance to come through in time for tonight, although you never know with these things

I get confused with the whole “transfer-window” rules and who it applies too.

I know that it doesn’t apply to NL clubs or below, witness Chester signing someone from Stourbridge on a 2 year deal today. But does it work the other way - can we permanently sign players from the football league?

Just wondered, as JBB is under contract with Newport can we sign him permanently now? Or would it have to be a(nother) loan until Jan?

Something doesn’t ring true here for me. Regular (ish) last season in L2 for Newport, offered a new deal at the end of the season - yet potentially being farmed out on loan to Margate, 2 divisions below us. But if he’s not fit enough for them, he’s good enough for us?

Not saying that the link with the player isn’t legit, especially if he’s not getting any game time at Newport, but not sure the Margate/medical side of the story makes sense

A decent point I guess.

But what concerns me at the moment is that we are behind on our target to make 50 points. We had to make 1.3 points per game (mid-table form), but by my reckoning GO has had 6 games and has garnered 5 points. So we now need to win 2 and draw 1 of our next 3 just to keep on target, let alone do anything more than a last day escape act.

It’s all well and good thinking “we’ve got time to get out of this” but time is ticking and we aren’t making that much progress in terms of results.

Either way, I’m looking forward to Ebbsfleet and seeing how we fare there

Not been to many games this season, but Reid at Dagenham looked 100x more effective than Gray at Aldershot. Limited data range admittedly, but can only comment on what I’ve seen.

Reid fits GO’s system, Gray doesn’t. Reid frees up a loan spot, Gray potentially off the wage bill, seems like good sense to me

Plymouth Gull wrote: ↑17 Oct 2017, 14:45 Soon to become the most replied to thread in forum history, then. :}

Neither McLoughlin or Keene ring a bell for me, but then in the years from 2005-2007 we had some utter, utter tosh playing for us. A look at Soccerbase shows a Patrick Flynn, who I think you mean, rather than McLoughlin (the background fits; ex Wolves, 1 game at Grimsby, never seen again!). Actually looking back at those years, there's some I don't even remember! Michael Flynn, Paul Smith, Stephen Cooke to name a few.

That will be him. Maybe slight misuse of Irish stereotyping on my part there.

Can't remember a Michael Flynn ever playing for us, but certainly remember Stephen Cooke and Paul Smith. Both were signed in the desperation of the Roberts/Kubik/Keith Curle car crash of a season. Saw both play in a particularly dreadful defeat away at Lincoln.

That season was the nadir for dismal signings (well, until now perhaps!). At that Lincoln game I remember we had a young lad at the back called Matt Halliday on loan from Norwich. The way I remember the story going was we called up Norwich to try and get Ryan Jarvis on loan - he was quite a hot property at the time and they weren't keen, but suggested we take his younger, less able brother Rossi instead. And whilst we were at it, would we fancy this Halliday lad too. Such was the chaos of that season - we went to sign one player, but ended up with 2 random other ones who we'd not even watched or even really wanted. As it was Halliday wasn't the worst player to grace the shirt.

Some terrible players that season though - Nick McCoy, Jamal Easter, Dean Oliver, Dean Gordon, Alastair John, Darren Baxter, Nathan Simpson........ it was a succession of nobodies. Even the once great David Graham was a shadow of his former self once he came back