Torquay United Fans Forum

Gulliball mentioned Chris Hargreaves, which is an interesting point. Hargreaves came to the job via very similar circumstances, very well regarded ex player, had never made it a secret he wanted the job despite only limited experience beforehand (although more than Nicho). He was practically worshipped as jesus around Plainmoor, the fact he had a passing resemblence probably helped. By the time he left the club as manager, he was regarded fairly poorly by most and his reputation has never recovered. Nicholson on the other hand left the club with most fans still respecting him and thanking him for his efforts regardless of their views of him as a manager. That should give you some indication to his character.

As for him as a manager, he's a very mixed bag. Many of us never thought he should have been appointed due to his lack of ticking the required boxes, regardless of his character and his ties to the club. What you'll be getting is the following:

Pros
+ a man motivator who can get performances out of players in the second half of the season. Weirdly though his teams seem to suffer in the first half of the season - often putting in lacklusture performances until something clicks.
+ Will give 100% and have a strong relationship with the fans. Can be seen in him driving the team bus during our worst financial periods, he's more than happy to muck in across the club and is very effective at promoting and representing the club in the local community.
+ Can develop players. If he lucks into a useful raw talent then he can develop them well, McDonald, Smith, Blissett, Moore and others have benefitted from his management. However this is offset by his limited contacts book.

Neutrals
+/- Someone who will be pally with the players, give them nicknames and defend them to the earth. He's not a shouter and a bawler, he wont rip it out of the players in public. This can be viewed as a posititve or a negative based upon your views and the characters at your club. He builds a good bond with the players but there's also the feeling that he'll let his favourites off lightly and maybe doesn't have the authority he should (think Steve McClaren with England)

Cons
- Tactically poor. If the team goes behind, don't expect him to turn things around or spring any surprises. Generally speaking the team capitulated when they went behind. They were utterly lacklusture during the first four matches of this season, never looking like winning. Furthermore he signed Brett Williams on probably the highest wage in the squad, a well known National League luxury player, then froze him out of the starting line up for 2/3rds of 16/17 because he wasn't 'tracking back enough' and putting in enough effort. This despite everyone knowing that Williams is basically the 'Conference Berbatov' and you have to build your team around him. When Nicholson got over this and restored Williams to the team our form revived and we went on a run that kept us up.
- Fitness. His teams were often blowing out of their arse after 60 minutes due to an over focus on bulking up - he basically views a local gym owner as a fitness guru. Our squad have become noticeably fitter this season since he was sacked. If you're lucky he won't bring along Simon Jeffreys and will have learned his lesson.
- Poor at team building. He built his own team in 16/17 and nearly relegated it before it kicked into life in the final third of the season. Regardless of the financial constraints, the budget here still wasn't the worst in the league. In 17/18 he had an increased budget and signed a number of players on decent contracts that have been crocked for prolonged periods or utterly flattered to deceive (Gowling, Klukowski, Gosling, Davis, Clarke, Higgins, Pittman). Some of these players came with known injury histories. His signing of Williams and trying to make him into a different player at 28 also speaks to this weakness/lack of knowledge.
- Lack of contacts. Nicholson doesn't come with a 'black book' of NLS/NLN raw diamonds and up and coming players from the lower leagues. If you're operating on a small budget and should be looking for these players to build your squad/develop and sell on then he's not your man. Fans for a long time have said TQU should operate in this way to overcome our geographic issues while building upon the rather good infrastructure for this league, which is one of the reasons why some were against his appointment.


If you do appoint him then it'll be make or break for him as a manager. If he suceeds then he'll prove some here wrong, if he fails then it'll confirm what some of us have been saying for a while. During his time here I would probably have rated him a 7/10 - did well in a very trying situation but enough concerns that I can't say he was excellent, nor that another manager wouldn't have produced the same results. I feel like his skills are better suited to being an assistant manager/coach but I'll be more than happy if I'm proven wrong.

This thread is ridiculous, the club needs to be more commercial and get more revenue streams coming in, advertising their services on their own website is marketing 101. If you don't like it, just click on the 'next icon'. We've got more pressing things to worry about right now.

Everyone who thinks that the article was vapid nonsense and is still angered by the HE's attitude towards the club's fans should post a comment on that article. We already have six comments on there, the more comments we make (or emails sent to Jim Parker - professional in tone) the more chance there is that the HE might actually start reporting on the things they should be. It only takes a few minutes to do.

He was very impressive in his first pre-season, something crazy like nine goals. Then when it came to the season itself he really struggled to hit the back of the net. Decent player but like many we didn't see his best.

Plainmoor78 wrote: ↑03 Feb 2018, 16:01 Didn't stop them attracting the Oakland raiders.

or the Golden Knights for that matter. I was talking about a few years back when it was viewed as unlikely that Vegas would get any of the 'Big Four' sports and MLS was their best shot.

Southampton Gull wrote: ↑03 Feb 2018, 11:08 Perhaps they listened to Mark Horler and now believe the club is in good hands....................

If you listen to anyone on the Yellow Army FB group, you'll get an aneurysm. At least most of them have finally come around to the idea that Clarke Osborne is distinctly dodgy at best.

westyorkshiregull wrote: ↑03 Feb 2018, 10:38 Who knows with thea , but to be honest I feel uncomfortable very much with what she put into it and what she got out of it. I know tragic circumstances with Paul , but it doesn't sit well with me.

It wasn't great and she was taken for a ride by many of her board members/Kelvin Thomas during the 'second incarnation' of that group, once Rowe and the Boyce Brothers amongst others had left and a lot of the business expertise departed. However she's not exactly living in the poor house, I dare say she's still more wealthy than everyone posting on his message board.

Yorkieandy wrote: ↑02 Feb 2018, 20:35
All fair points senor. We could rope in a few holidaymakers like you say but it sounds like not the numbers required to have much of a positive impact.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

It's a nice thought but one that never really works out in the long run. It reminds me a lot of when people spitball about whether Las Vegas could support an MLS team, the holidaymakers thing is always brought up - and Las Vegas gets far more tourists than Torbay :-o - but ultimately they're hard to attract, may only ever attend one match and aren't suitable for building a football club upon. The key is and always will be the local population.

Torbay actually isn't that badly done by in terms of it's catchment, if we became successful (ha) and drew people in from the South Hams and Teignbridge areas, there's 250k+ people there to attract, that's twice the catchment area of places like Blackburn - ignoring the demographics of the area and the way football clubs are the largest cultural symbol of many of the post industrial northern towns.

lucy6lucy wrote: ↑02 Feb 2018, 21:46 46k loss, how must Thea be thinking losing 3 million . He's a bookmaker he can recoup that easily. However I do applaud him initially for taking the club over. It's a poisoned chalice and it shouldn't be.

I'm not exactly the biggest fan of Dave Phillips after what he board did, despite having respect for him stepping up to the plate at a time when few others would. However it should be noted that the Bristows won £15m, even accounting for their other activities, that £3m wasn't a huge hit to their finances or life quality. Thea is probably still worth £9/10m. That £46k likely represents a much larger relative % of his wealth than Thea's losses.

It's the exact angle the club should use to sign players and they should be setting up a scouting network into the NLS/NLN and below to attract players looking to make a career. We can offer them playing in front of decent crowds, in one of the best stadiums in the league with amongst the best training facilities and the opportunity to get themselved noticed further up the pyramid. Unfortunately we've never bothered to do this, instead prioritised signing whatever journeyman players we can persuade to come down to the English Riviera and any players Argyle released - unfortunately with Argyle down on their fortunes that latter source of good players has dried up in quality somewhat.

IanGull01 wrote: ↑01 Feb 2018, 20:41 Where were Bath in the league when he joined us?

Hovering just below the play-offs. They are a decent sized club for NLS though, one of the bigger.

Hmmm having read that my immediate thoughts are:

The Quinta/Spires landswap? Written as though the Herald Express had thought it up themselves, when it's been mooted on these forums for about two years now. At least that idea is out there though I guess...better than nothing.

No reference whatsoever about Osborne's involvement at Bristol Rovers, Hereford and speedway. This is the whole reason why the fans are very worried and mobilising against his plans and attacking the HE. We are not randomly kicking off because we're bottom of the league as Geoff Harrop seems to suggest. We're kicking off because there is a pattern and history in Clarke Osborne's past that is deeply deeply worrying and the Herald Express won't report it to the public. If Osborne didn't have the history he did, a good deal of us would probably be quite supportive.

Probably the only interesting thing is someone from the Council saying that Plainmoor wouldn't be sold until United are in a new stadium. Good to have that on record, it's to my knowledge the first time a Council member has been that concrete in commenting on their plans. This is of course ignoring the fact that the club won't benefit at all from a new stadium because all the ancillary revenue would go into OSBORNEs pocket with the club receiving whatever he deems necessary to give them on a season by season basis.


"I cannot for the life of me understand why people are worried about what's happening to Plainmoor if we have a new stadium".....WTF Jim Parker, do you not understand basic business, have you not followed football over the past few decades and seen so many clubs fall foul of developers promising fancy new stadiums to get their hands on freeholds and screwing over clubs?

He's clearly being very defensive. Maybe if you'd written about the subject beforehand Jim Parker, we wouldn't have had to be so vocal to get the news out there. Now there's a revolutionary thought....

Yorkieandy wrote: ↑01 Feb 2018, 18:10 Just wondered about the strength of feeling towards Owers with regards next season.

What IF he managed to perform the miracle and keep Torquay in the league. Would he deserve another crack at the whip and a full summer and would any of you support him?

Obviously we can only blame Nico for part of the problem but it has been the total managerial ineptness by Owers that has led to the club being rooted at the bottom of the league and nearly a full 30 points off the likes of Bromley, a tiny club averaging 600 home fans.

I'm not sure tbh. I think that if Owers turned things around against all the odds and kept the club up then perhaps on the face of it he would deserve to stay. Part of me would like to think i'm fair and would have to consider supporting this and give him a second chance but there is the suspicion that he has ties with CO and that is in the back of my mind regardless of anything football related.

IMO he should go for definite should the club be relegated and i dont think he could have any arguments about that unless he's deluded but if he keeps the club up then should he be supported and allowed to continue? Obviously it's not up to us but i just wondered how many fans would stop going if Owers DID keep his job and if the club survived the NL trapdoor.

I wouldn't want him back for another season even if he keeps us up. He's been nothing but courteous to the fans and made a good impression as a person but he just doesn't seem to have 'it' as a manager and his 'contacts' in the transfer market seem to be much weaker than originally talked talked. As Tony Boyce once said, you need 'contacts' as a Torquay United manager. This being said I don't think we need to have this conversation as we're not going to stay up.

SBG wrote: ↑01 Feb 2018, 16:40 All/Anybody

I know that it was mentioned that there was a lack of IT skills which I don't have.

However there are a lot of exiles like me - I live 200 miles away - who would have attended if it wasn't for the distance.

A suggestion going forward - in this modern age of technology, internet, social media etc - would surely be to have some sort of video conferencing facility whereby exiles could "attend" the meeting via the internet with video and commentary. I have attended HMRC webinars - online training sessions where you can even post a question for someone to collect at the sharp end.

All very techy to me but I bet some 14 year old student from the local college could set something up in nano seconds for the price of a lemonade shandy and a sherbert dip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Skype conversation + high quality webcam in a strategic location. Bish bash bosh.

Hell Owers apparently talks to Osborne via Skype, so if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us.

Yorkieandy wrote: ↑01 Feb 2018, 10:27 Torquay has holidaymakers of all ages all year round. Surely there could be offers advertised in hotels and holiday parks and tourist attractions for special holidaymaker deals etc and in return we give the establishments a free advert or two in the matchday programme throughout the course of a season? This has probably been done before no doubt so apologies if it has but i think a few extra quid could be made here if we are to be writing off the locals. What other choice do we have? It's an advantage over Barrrow for sure. Can't see many people heading to Barrow for their hols.

I know personally that i always look for a local game or two to go and watch wherever i am on holiday.

Most holidaymakers to Torbay are OAPs and people with young families who come for the beach. The former already has their own fan allegiances and certainly aren't going to rock up to Plainmoor to see NL level football, only real football fanatics will do that. The young families will also not come because of the sheer expense of taking 2/3 kids to a football match, at a low standard, with none of stars that the kids have grown up watching for free on TV. Holidaymakers aren't going to add more than a dozen onto the gate if you're lucky. They're also one and done, not the key to making a sustainable club.

The main key to making the club more of a success than it is now is to attract the local population who have never cared for the club and especially to attract those existing football fans who moved into the Bay and have other allegiances - essentially making them adopt the club as a 'Second club'.