Torquay United Fans Forum

Impster wrote: 08 Apr 2019, 18:18 I've been watching your progress these last few months... what's changed? Has he used his contacts to bring in good young loan players?

Anyway I am delighted you're on the way back and hope - and think - you'll do when next season too.

What about off pitch issues? What's the situation there now.

He's largely used the same players that were here before, the only ones he's brought in are Janneh and Sendles-White, he's actually got rid of far more plaers, we have a pretty small squad now. Janneh has scored a hatful of goals but he's not the sole reason for us doing well. It can only be explained as a highly experienced man motivator of a manager who knows exactly what he's doing compared to Owers being absolutely useless (I'm ashamed I supported him during our NL season - he was a decent bloke but his management was awful, especially the NLS matches). It's a perfect example of how switching a manager can really turn things around, when people say don't sack managers because a new manager is going to have to use the same players....well look at the results.

Off the pitch issues have gone a bit quiet at the moment as the ownership seem to have taken a step back in their stadium ambitions, likely due to the impending local elections and abolition of Torbay's elected mayor. No point discussing matters with a lame duck mayor. Johnson has also embraced the 'public face' of the club role far better than Owers, which means that the ownership don't have to make their presence felt that much. Honestly if he left in the summer (god forbid) he'd probably have already cemented himself as one of the club's most popular managers. Also the recent success has made the more casual/less clued in fans to overlook the hidden issues at the club. When problems were peaking around September time, it was driven to a large extent by the dire on the field situation.

Almost reminds me of under Buckle when we got Guy Branston in for the second half of the 09/10 season and he helped fortify a young raw inconsistent side, resulting in that ridiculous run towards the end of the season when we didn't concede for 7 games (continuing into the next season) and smashed promoted Rochdale 5-0.

United already have a decades long lease on Plainmoor - the issue isn't so much the time on the lease but rather the Council's willingness to talk to Osborne. Any land swap/Council involved decision that facilitates a move to Nightingale Park, absolutely must come with a watertight legal agreement that nothing can be done to Plainmoor before United are playing in a new stadium*


*Not that I think moving to a new stadium under Osborne's ownership will be good for the club. The only way it works is if the Council or club owns the stadium.

TorquayDNA wrote: 19 Sep 2018, 13:36 Indoor sports arena for Exeter Chiefs? Given they have a shiny new stadium with incredibly good leisure facilities to serve Exeter execs at Sandy Park, I think not.

Indeed. The Chiefs are actually the example that United should be aiming for. What they've done over the past decade and a half is incredible and a great example of a sustainable sporting business.

jono_Gull209 wrote: 15 Sep 2018, 14:57 Better team so far. Another goal would kill them off.

89th minute equaliser incoming now that you've said that.

MellowYellow wrote: 12 Sep 2018, 18:20 So who next? Gary Johnson has to be a front runner. Close links to Bristol City (our new found feeder club) with his son now manager of the club his father formely managed. Has over 1,000 managerial games under his belt over a 30 year period. Knows the game inside out; know's how to beg, steal and borrow when money is tight and most importantly knows how to win promotion.

It's somewhat humiliating but we could do a loss worse than being Bristol City's feeder club for a couple seasons, they seem to be sending some decent players down our end.

dennisk wrote: 12 Sep 2018, 17:46 Mediterranean Gull

Wouldn't mind some NLS tiki-taka.

Road2League2 wrote: 12 Sep 2018, 17:03 It’s better than I thought!

Only Dave Webb and Stuart Morgan worse than him amongst managers with more than 75 games (should be noted that Owers never reached that stage), both of whom were manager in that dire mid 80s period, which is probably the closest to the state we've been in now. The history books will not be kind...

brucie wrote: 12 Sep 2018, 13:10 That will be the Tully who was soundly booed and jeered when he did the half time draw on Saturday.

Some idiots boo'ed Guy Branston when he signed....

leetufc wrote: 28 Aug 2018, 19:42 What convinces you that Williams is capable of scoring regularly at the level above? He averages around one in four during his career, and if you take out his two good years at Aldershot it drops to worse than one in five.

At no point in his spells here has he looked like being prolific.

Except for you know scoring 11 in his only full season here when he wasn't even regularly started by Nicho aside from the last 15/16 games...

Launceston Gull wrote: 28 Aug 2018, 16:43 I`ll bet Owers secretly is loving "Coffeegate" cos it deflects attention from the inept performance on the field. Yes its inexcusable but its done lets move on. Surely of greater concern is that our 4 strikers, Williams, Reid, Wright and Keating dont know where the opposition net is. We shouldnt be that surprised, a brief look at Wikipedia will reveal that combined they`ve managed to score 122 career goals in 576 senior appearances. By my rough and ready maths one of them is due to score a solitary goal next game.

Williams is more than capable of scoring regularly at the level above this. He's clearly suffering from confidence issues and the woeful current management of the team. If he scores a couple he'll be fine for the rest of the season, whether he'll get those opportunities under Ower's woeful tactical set up and management is another issue.

Southampton Gull wrote: 28 Aug 2018, 14:34 I have it from a very reliable source it was a mouthful of cold tea and not a hot cup of coffee.

The individual concerned has owned up and is prepared to face the music. If only the morons with the pyrotechnics were as concerned about the club enough to own up.

Why would Owers lie on the record and say it was 'red-hot'? I'm hardly a fan of his tenure at the club, despite originally supporting him, but it doesn't make sense for him to lie about such a thing.

As for the pyrotechnics, surely someone knows them, just anonymously report them. It's probably the shame shitheads that threw flares onto the pitch at Plainmoor a couple years ago and seem to think they're some kind of crew (...would love to see them go to Millwall or Cardiff).

__quiet__gull wrote: 31 Jul 2018, 19:04 Nothing of major interest other than the Mayor said that by May 2019 he wants every sports club in Torquay with facilities to have a 40 year lease... he didn't say how much that lease would cost... so the crowd did not erupt!

At one point I thought Oliver and Osbourne were going to kiss... luckily it didn't happen!

I did take some pictures from the slideshow, looks better than Wembley!! LOL, this presentation was on a constant loop - no presenter. By this point I was frustrated at hearing the same old shit so I slipped away.

Worth mentioning that CO repeated the word 'SUSTAINABLE' about 100 times in his brief spat - wonder why? .....

Isn’t our lease already over 40 years

MellowYellow wrote: 27 Jul 2018, 01:59 Torquay United is 100% part of the plan but when full details of the plans are released, I think you will find that the development of Plainmoor is not part of those plans. Osborne knows he is on a losing wicket in obtaining the freehold of Plainmoor so has changed strategic direction. There will be no mention of land swapping, housing development or disposal of Plainmoor, it will just be about Osbornes new targeted land (wherever that may be) for housing development in exchange for the promise of new Multi-Event Arena (wherever that may be) and of which Torquay United can be one of the many new tenants when completed ( if ever completed). Plainmoor, the current home of Torquay Utd will back to where it started -for the time being - a piece of leased land from the council - no more - no less.

I remain to be convinced, I bet Plainmoor will be involved in some way, even if it's at the back end of the project. Even if it's not we need to be incredibly wary about Osborne's plans, lets not forget that at Swindon the 'enabling' housing development has sprung up at pace but the stadium is still nowhere to be seen. What's the betting that Osborne's housing starts going up to pay for the initial stadium investment, then more housing is needed to make the project viable and this pattern repeats itself again and again until hundreds of houses have been built and there's no stadium in sight. Just like Swindon.

Likewise that hinged monstrosity must be using some semi-temporary poor quality stands, just like what is being proposed for Swindon speedway, made by a company that deals in temporary office space aka portacabins. We do not want to give up our perfectly suitable for use custom built permanent stadium for that crap.


As an aside the Talking Torquay podcast has revealed that the HE's image for the stadium is actually just a rebadged version of designs for Grimsby's new stadium, quite blatant too: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DjHJf6xWwAAQcUo.jpg could be shit journalism by the HE as always, anyone know if that image was used in the presentation?

Caldwellanddobson wrote: 27 Jul 2018, 15:52 According to the website Mr Oliver donated the trophy himself. Apparently it’s “massive”...

Interesting awakening in him, seems like he's finally been bitten by the Torquay United bug at 70 something. Somewhat less suspicious then, if still a little baffling. Clarke you're off the hook on this one (temporarily). Olaf Koszela is going to have to make some room in his house for that.