Torquay United Fans Forum

ferrarilover wrote:Olympic standard backpedalling here. Well done everybody.

Matt.

S4fedr1ve wrote:1/Blame the manager. Well he's doing the best he can on half a shoestring. Last seasons turnaround was amazing. I trust him to do it again.
2/ Blame the board. Well sure mistakes have been made. They are doing what they can to keep the club running on very little income.
3/Blame the players. Well maybe but if they are generally not good enough for this level then as long as they are doing there best!! can you really.

So the blame in my humble opinion should be directed elsewhere

A/ The previous administration, for getting us in this s**t in the first place just chucking around the Bristow family money. and watching it disappear.
B/ The greedy premier league while they rake in the millions in tv revenue the small clubs are just forgotton.
C/ The fans of these premier league clubs who live hundreds of miles away from these places but would rather watch Manchester sainsburys v Manchester tesco or chelsea waitrose v arsenal morrisons on telly than go a mile down the road and support there local team Torquay cornershop.

points AB and C really p**s me off .

forevertufc wrote:
From the manager and coaching staff, to the players the board, and yes even us fans, we all have our role to play in the clubs success or failure, can we all do better, yes we can.

exilegull wrote: You're rather putting words in my mouth there gullpower however as you asked the question...

I wouldn't put money through a community share issue without it being very clear it had the realistic financial plans to sustain Torquay United for at least 2 seasons at conference level for a competitive wage budget and a plan of how to progress beyond that. I'm wouldn't put into anything that only takes ownership and address the GI loan but by the end of this season is out of cash and scraping around to try and prove to the conference it can compete another season.

As far as I'm concerned it would be irresponsible for TUST to pour its members money into a blackhole for the sake of keeping the life support machine on for a few extra months and I don't see that TUST can do much more than that - maybe I'm wrong. Where I think TUST should be ready and where I would support is if the worst does come to pass and the current business does go under, TUST is ready to step is and support the club at a realistic level and turn it into a proper community club and build from there.

Rather than waste a couple of hundred thousand of members money and still likely end up in the Western League with nothing, restart the club in the Western League with a couple of hundred thousand of members money.

Soupdragon wrote:ferrarilover (yeah, aren't we all?): I'm more than happy to put in £500. I'm more than happy to give time, too. But you need to understand that it would not be with the current board in charge. They have not demonstrated that they would act for the best for either the club or its fans.

Any money or time I put in, glven the club's current circumstances, I choose to do it via TUST. I suggest you ask someone is a TUST member to let you have sight of the chairman's latest email; it will answer a lot of your (quite blinkered, to my mind) objections.

hector wrote:It could probably be done fairly rapidly if push came to shove. The issue is what happens to the club if fans have made such a massive investment without anything in return (eg representation on the board or ownership of the club)?

Does that £400k go down a black hole of paying off GI/Masters and the rest being used by the current board to prop up their directorship? Does it safeguard the club for a while until the next GI come along? Is it used as a carrot to dangle in front of a potential investor who gets the benefit of fans money to serve their own agenda?

Or could it be used by TUST to buy the club and safeguard its future for fan ownership or until a suitable investor comes along who supporters get to vote on buying the club?

TUST ownership does not necessarily mean the club is fan-run forever. It would, however, ensure that supporters get to decide, whether or not to accept a potential new owner.

exilegull wrote:Completely agree with Matt. Without major investment to drive other revenue streams the club can not be run sustainably at this level or the level below so TUST are not currently an option. Going part-time is not feasible as there simply isn't the pool of part time players available in the area - clubs need to be near a big city to make that work.

The club is in the worst possible position at the moment, running full time but languishing at the lower end of the Conference with support drifting away. To turn it around, without making significant investments to generate new revenue streams, someone probably needs to be prepared to put at least £1million in over the next 2-3 years to build a stronger team to challenge for the playoffs and hopefully start to pull crowds back in.

Possibly if the club can be challenging in the conference, have a good cup run and bring some transfer funds in, losses can be narrower.

Rjc70 wrote:I believe Dave Phillips or Rob Stanley said at the meeting we should have takeover news in a couple of weeks and that is just over a week away. I am content to ultimately judge them on who they can sell us to, rather than who we defaulted to, so am looking forward to the information given at the forum bearing fruit very soon.

hector wrote:Do you really think Mike Bateson was pouring money in towards the end of his time? He was essentially just balancing the books, not spending anymore than the club earned as income. Why is it supposed that TUST could not do the same? A club on gates of over 2000 if things were not so bad and probably more if supporters are galvanised by owning the club themselves. That would still - even without investment - generate more revenue than most clubs in this division.

The damage, however, that has been done to the concept of TUST by the football club and the local press, now means that there are supporters who view a body of fellow supporters with suspicion. I struggle to understand this. Just who do fans think have the best interests of TUFC at heart - TUST or property developers?

There is no benevolent benefactor coming along. A Norman Smurthwaite (possibly) would be the best option but in the absence of such an option do people really want to chance their arm with GI/Peter Masters?

Matt expresses a hope that the current board will sell to the right people. Does he think GI are the right people? I also think he is a little naive when he suggests TUFC are no less a viable investment/project than any other club. That is clearly misguided as it is only when the noises started about Nightingale Park that suddenly these mythical Americans and Stadi UK/GI started making noises of their own.

Even if GI end up getting their way, and even if they actually do build a stadium (not that honouring this concept normally troubles them) is anyone foolish enough to believe that TUFC would end up owning it? More likely is that they'd be paying rent to a private landlord and not gain any of the ancillary revenue a new stadium could generate.

I think those that are denigrating TUST and shouting them down in forums will reap what they sow and end up with exactly the football club (if it still exists) that they deserve.

S4fedr1ve wrote:Oh come on let's not look too deeply into the Exeter situation. Trust or no trust they would have dissapeared a long time ago without some lucky cup draws and one or two big money transfers. Yes maybe they made there own luck but nothing you can rely on.

Glostergull wrote: I do wonder how Exeter work theirs. they seem to have quite healthy crowds and I can imagine that makes a big difference. but do they have forms of income stream they we don't. could we ask them for any ideas. No one has asked that question yet

TUST_Member_Rob wrote:The club memorabilia ideas are,all well and good but hasnt the shop been contracted out?

PhilGull wrote:I would like to see some form of fan ownership but I think a more continental model of a paid membership or TUST owning 51% would perhaps be better than 100% TUST ownership.