Torquay United Fans Forum

torq2u

the Board told us specifics last week that could have been divulged a long time ago? Which may have saved us the rumour that Steve Tully was our new gaffer, for example. They chose to tell us specifics about the Gus and Eunan deals, again which could have come out before and saved some speculation and criticism of their business acumen.

Reasonable points made by torq2u, but I do wonder if there's a lot to be gained, and if the Board wouldn't just be setting themselves up to step onto a never ending treadmill of denial. The speed with which unfounded criticisms and rumours can be churned out shouldn't be underestimated. Half a minutes typing on a popular forum and it's successfully launched. I'd rather the Board ignored the tittle tattle, rose above it, and confined the use of their time and energies to the important issues and decisions they are faced with.

Will giving specifics on the Gus and Eunan deals have achieved anything towards making fans take less notice of those who initiated the speculation or criticised the Board's business acumen ? I greatly doubt it. Within days there'll be just as much speculation and criticism being initiated from those very same sources, and just as many people willing to happily believe them.

gullpower

I feel that I have been duped.

I came away from the forum last week with the impression from the Board that there were two others being spoken to but there were two definite offers on the table - the Board were choosing which one was best for the club. Now we are told "We've been talking to people today. It shows promise, but until people actually come up with an offer, we're still considering all of the parties that have approached us."

So what happened to the two definite offers? Did I get that wrong? Or were they just a ruse to appease fans at the forum?

I can't stop myself having a sneaking admiration for this type of post, where someone has clearly worked so hard to find a way of misunderstanding things. Given the severely limited material there was to work with, managing to generate a 'Chairman dupes fans' scandal out of it should entitle gullpower to free life membership of TUST if nothing else . As a general rule I'm convinced that responding only aids and abets TUST members mischief making, but let's assume that gullpower genuinely does feel he's been duped, perhaps even more so than by the narrative of his cherished 'punk football' book, and see if it's not possible to help him out.

The Board has a couple of firm offers on the table. In due course we'll get back to these people in order to inform them whether it is their offer that was or wasn't the one that was eventually accepted. There is still a real hope that other offers might materialise that will be an improvement on those already received, and it is obviously those people who we still need to be talking to, and who the Chairman was in negotiations with yesterday. 'Promising' is a good sign, but after yesterday still no firm offer that the Chairman can say tops the two offers already on the table. Therefore nobody has been knocked out of the running as a result of yesterday's talks, i.e all parties remain under consideration. 'So what happened to the two definite offers ? asks gullpower, and of course the answer is 'absolutely nothing, any assertion that anything has happened to them is entirely bogus. They sit firmly on the table in exactly the same position they were at the time of the Fans Forum. Meanwhile the Chairman will continue talks with those still considering adding bids of their own.

Neal

TUST would run the club within a budget that the club generates from income. Might that mean we operate part time or in a lower league so be it.

The alternative hasnt been that successful either. You need a very wealthy individual to pump in £100's of thousands every blimmin year with no guarantee of success. Thats what Thea did, and that didnt work.

Fair play to Thea, who in many ways resembled a one woman TUST, putting in donations to keep the club going, and being a genuine fan of the club.
Although it has to be admitted that whatever ownership model is in place, it's going to be a severe drain on your resources if you've decided to have a manager of the ineptitude of Alan Knill making expensively bad mistakes month in and month out.

I'd be surprised if we get new owners who are keen to invest in us just so that they can lose hundreds of thousands of pounds over and over again. A properly well thought out business plan with some radical ideas and the initial finance to back it up is clearly what we need. TUST'''s guesswork as to what money they might possibly be able to raise, plus their confession they've no actual business plan properly drawn up, did rather sound like a claim that the dog had eaten their homework. Entertaining sideshow that they've provided, but we can now at least look to the future knowing that we've dodged the bullet of TUST ownership.

Neal's suggestion that we could operate part time or in a lower league is quite true and it's a view that would attract some agreement. But while initially there are some willing to see the club shrunk down to the size that would fit in with TUST's meagre resources, just how long does it take for even the most ardent TUST supporter to go off the idea, once of few seasons of the cold reality of it has sunk in ?

As gullone highlights on TFF, AFC Telford's Supporters Trust have had more than enough of that cold reality, and accordingly have just voted overwhelmingly to ditch Trust ownership. Yes of course Telford could have shrunk down to a 5 a side team that played on Wednesday evening at the local Recreation Centre, but the fans wanted something better, and had the good sense to realise that Trust ownership would need to be binned to get that improvement.


“We have urged the Trust Board to put in place a process to enable urgent changes to the ownership model of the club which would allow external investment.

“It would not be right for us to comment at this stage on the limitations of the model that we currently operate which we believe are currently hindering the business.

http://www.thenonleaguefootballpaper.co ... ownership/



The Board of the Football Club note that the Members of AFC Telford United Supporters Trust voted unanimously to approve the transfer of shares in the football club from the Trust back to the Football club, following the football club boards press release of the 11th October. The club board are greatly encouraged by the emphatic support of Trust members to support this move. The board of the football club are also encouraged by the number of possible investors who have contacted the club board since the 11th October announcement, this includes some potential investors who have previously contacted the club and several local business who have contacted the club for the first time since the 11th October.

http://www.telfordunited.com/News.aspx? ... eSupport=1


Shutting out investment while maintaining politically correct principles might provide a warm glow to a few dozen TUST militants for a season, but for the vast majority of ordinary fans 'so be it' wouldn't offer much comfort as the consequences of 'Community ownership' begin to hit home.

What will be needed now is for all fans to get behind the new owners. It would also be an ideal time for TUST to turn over a new leaf, and make a real effort to lose their reputation for constantly sniping from the sidelines. Lacking in cash and membership numbers we accept, but sometimes they overplay the role of constant irritant that finds fault with anything and everything. Once 'critical friend' crosses the line and becomes 'critical pain in the arse' then it becomes no surprise when membership numbers start to stagnate. There's also no guarantee how tolerant new owners might be, especially if TUST's understanding of 'verbal agreement' differs from theirs.

Let's hope everyone participates fairly and properly as this new era dawns.

gullscorer

and the police and CPS for withholding evidence and following the feminist political agenda.

It's surely revealing that even immediately after Ched Evans has been found not guilty and the claims of his accuser discredited, to note who the CPS decide to praise:

However, the jury cleared Mr Evans of the single charge after retiring to deliberate at about 11:40 GMT on Friday.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it respected the jury's decision and thanked the complainant for her "courage" in giving evidence.


Should making up malicious and unjustified rape claims, resulting in innocent people being jailed for years really be classified as courageous behaviour by the authorities ? In previous times probably not, but this is politically correct 2016.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-37659009

Just say you were one of the leading TUST militants, and last season, just for example you seemed to have
little interest in Torquay United or attending games at Plainmoor, in fact, if anyone wanted to speak to you
they'd be better off going to Sandy Park at Exeter where they'd have more chance of bumping into you watching the rugby.

Yet at the same time your importance was such that a fellow TUST member advocated that the Football club (an organisation
currently with only 3 full time employees, not attached with the playing side, remember) should dispatch a member of staff
to your home, probably the best part of an 70-80 mile round trip from Plainmoor, in order to plead with you to start attending
matches again. That sort of thing clearly not only leads to a massive sense of self importance, explaining why you'd feel able to
look down your nose at the hard work, time and investment Peter Masters and the Truro fans have put into growing their little club
and getting ever closer to having a new modern stadium for themselves, while you casually dismiss it all as 'tinpot'.


Now let's just say, that when a growing number of supporters seem to be having concerns that increasingly extreme outbursts
from TUST militants might just be designed to frighten off any new purchasers of the club, or new owners, so that, surprise,
surprise....there'll then be no one left other than the TUST's hands for the club to fall into, even more evidence starts to
stack up revealing your tactics. Let's just pretend that the 'My feeling is that fans should NOT pay into the Players Fund'
wasn't damaging enough on it's own in highlighting the 'let's starve them out, until they give in to us' approach that the
militants appear to take towards the club. Let's also just imagine that a few days later, further evidence came to light of
you advising a top TUST official that 'I think TUST need to be a little more guerrilla in their outlook'.

The fact is that the Torquay fans aren't as thick (with the possible exception of chardie) as you're hoping. And even if they
do google 'guerrilla' and immediately read 'a member of a small independent group taking part in irregular fighting'. What
indication does that give ? Well we all know what small irregular group you're a member of....and it's clear as day that it's
fighting the club until they give in to you, rather than helping them, that is what the TUST's militant wing is advocating.

It's bad for recruitment, it's an uncomfortable truth, it won't sit well with TUST hierarchy, but at the same time you can't
deny it's true, because the evidence exists. If at long last the TUST is seen to make some efforts to rein in it's militants
then it can perhaps start to undo the damage their confrontational tone is likely to cause.

So if you can't deny the message (as the evidence exists) what do you have to do ? That's right...you attack the messenger !
But seemingly without considering that by using bare faced lies such as labelling me a 'mate' of Chris Roberts, when I've never
met, spoken to, or expressed an opinion on the guy, you are at the same time, dragging the reputation of the organisation
to which you belong (TUST), through the mud with you.

The average fan would far prefer you to provide some evidence for your claims, rather than just resort to dishonest mud-slinging.
For instance, is it true or not that one of the TUST's top men, Chris Fleet, is highly involved in setting up TUOSC ? And why, if TUOSC is
a Pete Masters creation as you tell us it is, designed as a parallel organisation to help discredit TUST, then whatever is Chris Fleet doing
by arranging for a Company of which he is a Director to sponsor this new supporters club ??

If TUST are sending out their attack dogs in an attempt to silence anyone who dares question them, it's a tactic that won't work.
The light of transparency obviously doesn't sit well with the militants. But if they want sauce for the club goose, then they won't
succeed in stopping us from applying it to the TUST gander also.

MarkL

If I was in a situation to give a wad of cash to it (which, unfortunately, I'm not) I would, at the very least, like to see the numbers.

I think most of us would reckon that was fair enough. Although of course, you don't want to get on a slippery slope whereby some bright spark then announces that it's the fans who buy the matchday programmes, and demands to know how much profit is made each month from programme sales.With only three full time staff (besides those involved with the playing and management side) we can guess how busy they must be, without having to go about compiling sets of figures.

And of course, you wouldn't want the players fund cash figures made generally available, as if your big wad showed up, the player who Nico was negotiating to sign would adjust his wage demands upwards accordingly. Remember that just a little while ago GG signed a contract with us on the same day that Eunan O'Kane joined Leeds. Now if it had been announced in the morning that we'd be getting a cash injection of £200,000 as our cut of the transfer, you can bet that GG's agent would have immediately factored that into his negotiations and demanded more money for both himself and GG.

It's worth reminding ourselves that there are plenty who would use every opportunity of such 'transparency' to use it against the club's benefit and to favour themselves instead. There's more to consider than just satisfying fans curiosity.

tomogull, thankyou for the first ten words at least

I'm sure you realise that it's just as possible for someone to post here next week stating: 'I, and mates who are members, have joined TUOSC because we support their aims. That is our decision and we realise that there are fans who choose not to join', and who will be objecting to your labelling of him and his mates as 'mugs'

By providing this useful service to TUST members or supporters, by being a critical friend to them, and helping out by shining a light on some of their statements to test them for truthfulness, or if you prefer, accuracy, it has to be a good thing. I'll give you an example of what I mean. Let's take last Saturday when the bit about the new supporters club in the matchday programme clearly stated 'A priority of the TUOSC will be to help the Players Fund'. Add to that the big screen periodically flashes up the message 'TUOSC proud to support the Players Fund'. The message from Kevin Nicholson stated 'I urge you to join the TUOSC' ....and why would he do that ? Because it was obvious, even to a blind man, that the TUOSC is an attempt to give out little more than a small piece of plastic with 'Official Supporters Club' printed on it, in order to try and bring in funds for the players fund. You might also get a complementary balloon at Christmas...but it's overriding purpose is patently to raise cash for the players fund.

Then when you read the exact opposite of what is really happening such as 'absolutelythirdrate's' fourth-rate comment on this thread: 'This new initiative will only divert much needed funds away from other more important issues such as the players fund. I was there on Saturday'. You wonder how the hell no one explains to the poor guy he's come way having got things absolutely the wrong way about, despite having actually being there.


Or a TUST member who posted 'As for the mugs - sorry, members (my spellcheck is malfunctioning) - who pay their ten quid, surely that would be better paid into the Players Fund? Say the Supporters Club attract 150 members, that £1500 would be of much greater use in the Players Fund'.

The more the light is shone, the more people might be willing to question whether it really is a choice between Supporters club membership or the players fund....and if it really is...whyever would Nico be pushing us towards the Supporters club ?......or if they're unwittingly been fed duff information.

It may be an unpalatable truth for some, but the fact remains that while certain TUST militants have been posting things elsewhere such as 'My feeling is that fans should NOT pay into the players fund', as part of what seems like an obvious 'cut off their funding until our demands are met' strategy, on that very same site, or indeed on this one, you'll find it's a TUST member who's first out of the blocks to highlight the club's lack of money.

Remember what Dave Phillips said in his programme notes on Saturday: "The official supporters club is not to be confused with TUST who do not raise money for the club"

If helping finance an organisation attempting to overthrow the current ownership set up is your priority then fine, but spare us the TUST crocodile tears while Nico is hunting down the back of the sofa trying to find some pennies for Durrell Berry.

Gullscorer

Let me get this straight:
(1) The male suicide rate is more than three times higher than the female suicide rate.

The guys might be ahead for actually doing it, but it's thinking about it and filling in surveys that matter...meaning the girls come out on top again

In 2014, one in five 16-to-24 year old women (25.7%) reported having self-harmed at some point.

That is about twice the rate for men in this age group (9.7%) and women aged 25-to-34 (13.2%).

The data showed a fifth of adults (20.6%) reported that they had thought of taking their own life at some point.

This was also more common in women (22.4%) than men (18.7%).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37504679


Don't give up the campaign Gullscorer, but with the State broadcaster so obviously cheerleading for the girls team, you know where the Government will be directing future mental health resources.

fredisley

I am a little concerned that there are posters to this forum who seek for whatever reason to undermine the work of the TUST,

At least it's good to know that your concern doesn't stem from seeing opinions being aired on the subject that don't tally with your own. Having a brighter light shone on the 'work' of TUST, and a light than shines further, therefore bringing their recent utterances and opinions into view for a wider audience, rather than just to TUST members themselves, shouldn't in any way undermine the work itself......unless they were, for instance, embarrassed about the wider fanbase finding out what they'd been saying on certain subjects.

Rest assured Fred, the TUST know it would be highly hypocritical, if they were advocating 'critical friends' for everyone else, but just not for themselves.

'Transparency' is their byword, they'll be particularly keen for all opinions, favourable or not , to get a fair airing, and should have no reason to feel undermined by allowing another voice to speak.

plainmoor78

Let me remind of the one sent on 26th August 2016. It reports on a meeting between TUST and the club board. Under the heading Supporter Engagement it reported as follows:
'David Philips did however recognise the need to facilitate a fans forum in the near future as promised. However, in the short term it was felt this may not be as fruitful an exercise as anticipated. TUST would support this view.'

All Football League clubs are bound by regulations which demand that they hold at least two Fans Forums each season, open to ALL sections of the fan base. This of course is designed to make it much more difficult for owners to marginalise or freeze out one section of the clubs fans. But being a National League side there is nothing to prevent the club and TUST deciding they'd like to meet each other more often (they'd recently upped it to monthly meetings) while at the same time for TUST to connive with, or at least appear to discourage the club from holding meetings such as Fans Forums which would allow non TUST members to attend.

The disappointing thing is that TUST members seem to positively lap up their privilege....or to uses Hector's term, they seem to very much enjoy the fact that they're now much more 'equal' than the rest of us. If nothing else, TUST should have the good grace to stop attempting to use the term 'Supporters Representatives' for themselves, as the evidence becomes ever clearer that they represent the viewpoint of only one section of the club's overall support (probably not even the majority) ....and the more they're treated as Teacher's pets, the further alienated the rest of the fan base will become.

Modgull

Reid - really effective shift but was greedy in first half so Young not given a tap in

How Luke Young stopped himself from throttling Reid I'll never know. Reid's refusal to let Young have the much easier chance was unforgivable.

Gullscorer

At the present time we can only speculate as to what that disagreement was, whether it was to do with Gaming International or the proposed move to a new ground, or something else, perhaps a personality clash.

In turn we can only speculate as to why Gullscorer chooses to highlight 'proposed move to a new ground' as a possible cause of any disagreement. I'd suggest it's been picked out because of Gullscorers personal opposition to a ground move, rather than any basis for connecting any such opinion with Steve Breed.

Let's not forget that when it came to enthusiastic utterances about a move to Nightingale Park, Steve 'Win Win' Breed was leader of the pack.

It was, of course, support in principle, ticking those boxes marked 'Community', 'Recreation' and 'Sports Hub'.
It all sounded very grand and positive. Breed understandably used the phrase 'win-win' to describe United's take on the scheme.
But the major message which also emerged was – No Housing Land, No Stadium ... Ball Kicked Firmly Into Council's Lap.

http://www.torquayheraldexpress.co.uk/t ... story.html


It's also worth remembering that you can't always choose the order in which things can be accomplished. Would Leicester City currently be in the Premier League at all, let alone have won it, if they hadn't moved to their new stadium ?

As we don't have a transfer window, that could be a very long wait but questions relating to the Players Fund could well be addressed at the Fans Forum which will most probably be held before too long.

Gulscorer

One more thing: regarding the recent attempted abduction of the RAF jogger, I'm reliably informed that an urgent internal security warning at RAF Marham within an hour of the incident identified the attackers as Asian.

I didn't see this mentioned on the BBC, nor on any other other media outlet.

Although the incident happened on Wednesday afternoon, and assuming you're correct in stating that the Asian appearance of the attackers was confirmed in an internal security warning issued within an hour, it's worth remembering that descriptions of the attackers weren't given out by the media until almost 24 hours later (Thursday afternoon).

Whether you 'missed' that information in a BBC report or whether it wasn't there, will probably be dependent on what time you were checking BBC News. For instance, I was listening to the World At One (R4) on the car radio, and the BBC Reporter who was spoken to just before the programme ended at 1.45pm told us quite a bit about the incident, but no description of the attackers.

Either the BBC was in possession of these descriptions and decided against making them public throughout the morning and at lunchtime, and only on discovering that the Police had scheduled a media briefing for 3pm, for which descriptions of the suspects were to be made public in advance, and so further suppression was pointless, or the BBC genuinely didn't know the descriptions until the Police provided them just ahead of the media briefing.

The BBC will have altered there report many times, and Jerry's link only enables you to see the 10th amendment or 11th version of this story. If you had checked the story before about 2.30pm yesterday, you would indeed have concluded that the descriptions were still being omitted, despite having been known by 'Internal Security' 24 hours earlier.

https://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1194859/diff/2/3

The explanation of 'pachinko' should have accompanied it's first mention in Point 1, rather than in Point 10, long after we've googled it.