Torquay United Fans Forum

I actually 100% agree with Brucie. He is spot on in terms of the players with proven League 2 quality in our current squad it's a worry. For people stating that Branston was a conference player when we signed him, so that means Saah can make the step up too, I have two points.

The first is, I am sure I am right in thinking that Branston had signed for too many League clubs during a 12 month period and was forced to drop down to non league football because he was unable to sign for another league club, rather no league club wanting him?

The second is we signed him from Burton Albion so another league club had taken a punt on his ability, something that a league club hasn't done with Saah.

I am not suggesting that no one can step up from non league football unless other clubs have an intrest in said player, a much better example would be to look at brucie's list itself. with the exception of O'Kane all of them played in the conference for us, only Zebs had an approach that I know of from League clubs during that time and all have managed to step up to achieve Brucie's level of League two expectations. Even Eunan had no League experience before joining us.

teeboo100 wrote:stanley wasnt offered a contract though was he if he had he would have signed as for ross hannah he was here on trial then suddenly went back dont you think if we would have pushed hard enough he would have signed come on paul knew he was going he saw the the potential in stanley do you think he would have tied him down to torquay or say hang on craig i mite not be here next season keep your options open lad. i agree he is a decent manager never argue that point but u dont have be so mersanary about everything do you....

Well that goes against what Craig said to me, last time I spoke to him (in March) he was house hunting in Torquay.

TUFCBrett you are spot on, the main concern now is not who did what, but what the hell do we do now!

teeboo100 wrote:some interesting points however the buckle bashing continues simply because buckle continues to bash torquay united football club he is now paid by bristol rovers and has no affinity with torquay anymore fair enough how about respect respect for his previous employers who could have sacked him many times during his reign and choose to stand by him a man universaly despised because of his disgusting attitude to the gereral staff of our club a man who engineered a move while planning one of the biggist games in torquay history against stevenage. ask youself why stanley and branston deals where not agreed march or april time stanley would have signed no doubt so would branston fact is buckle new what he was doing his attitude towards this club stunk in the last few weeks of his reign. the players where flat at manchester the manager did not care 1 bit and any 1 who argues that point are compleatly olivious to what goes on around them... paul knew exactly what he was doing now ime not saying its the end of our club far from it we have to rebuild that takes time and the club have entrusted martin ling for the job ile just be gald when paul buckles name is consigned properly to the history of torquay and hopes he falls right on his .....

Stanley was offered a contract by Buckle (for TUFC) in March, Craig said he loved it down here and his agent convinced him to keep his options open. Why would Buckle do that if he was engineering his move? Why would he continue to pursue Ross Hannah? People are so quick to take 2 + 2 and let it to equate to anything they like if it means they can slate Bucks.

Don t get me wrong, he has a horrible attitude and not a very nice person in anyway, you are right he was despised by the staff but he is a good manager, and as ANY good manager would when he sees quality players that he trusts and are available (especially for free) he goes for them. The man is doing his job that he is employed to do. Its not as if he has a gun against Simon Bakers head telling him to let Zebroski go. We need to start looking closer to home and hope Ling is prepared to be a bit more ruthless with the resources he is given because so far I haven t seen any suggestion that we are going to be anything other than relegation fodder

Zebs was always on his way out of the club.. if anything I can see the boards eyes lighting up with this transfer request. If we had sold him without the transfer request in question all our posts would be aimed at the board, selling our best player after losing so much quality already this summer, who is going to come in to replace him? Where is the clubs ambition? Now look at us, Buckle bashing...again, for turning a players head? he s enquired about a player he knows well, the fee was agreed earlier in the week and BR are paying us what we asked for.

The question I am continually asking is where is the quality in the squad? right now aside from Eunan we have none.

tufcbrett wrote:Being in Non league and then not being on the best of form for a league 2 side doesnt always mean there rubbish. Look at Branno he was in at Kettering, then plyed not to well at Burton. Im for one thats usually very postitive by signings. I happy with the three already.

But i hope this is not true, we can do better than him if im honest. But if Ling brings him in then il give him the chance. If were getting him in, may aswell get Wayne back in, he cant be much diffrent.

But it doesn t do much to inspire us either, well I hope he does well here and at least he is technically good on the ball. Smacks a little bit of bringing in anyone to make up the numbers rather than someone to take the club forward but I hope his fitness and or form stays with him because on his day he can offer something to the current squad.

royalgull wrote:Whilst i don't really agree with the above post, i too made the point about Ling's skills in front of the cameras. Definitely not of the same standard as Buckle's. Seems a nervous character or more likely just out of his comfort zone having to talk to papers/websites. Probably a different bloke in the flesh as it were.

McPhee is a totally different player to the one that was here previously. He was 7 or 8 years younger for a start at his first club where he was really involved in the first team and on top of that was in a shocking side. He's gone away and done well everywere he's been sicne developing his game so he can play in a load of different positions. The only concern for me is that it was at a lower level. But he's local, he's now at a good age, he's a free transfer, 18 goals last season he's just worth a punt. if he hadn't been here previously I'm fairly sure there would be a bit more support for this move.

AndyC wrote: Bucks was much better at telling porkies as well.

Seems like everything Ling said he was going to do, he has done.

I'm with you with regards to the signings, but until the jury comes in with a verdict and we actually see them gel as a team, there is no point beating Ling down with a stick.

McPhee is certainly a better player than he was when he left us, that I will guarantee.

Maybe a combination of my memory of him in a poor side, his inexperience when he was with us and him scoring a penalty against us at Wembley has hindered my opinion on him. I sincerley hope he is a better player now than when he was with us last and his statistics show this is the case.

We are all well aware of Buckle antics, but you cannot argue that the players he brought into the club in the main took the club forward, even his unpopular decisions such as Hargreaves/Sills/Woods/Hill. He was always looking to take the club to the next level, So far I feel Ling is looking to keep us here rather than take us forward, and given that he has been told by the board this is a consolidation period I guess he is just doing his job, and my/our expectations should be redirected. It just seems such a shock to the system going from buckle's 'over' enthusiastic approach about a players potential, to Lings "I've seen him play twice" approach.

Of course it is not fair to judge how we will fair next season on this signing alone, but I do hope we bring in a bit more Quality because if our options next year are Manse/McPhee in midfield or Kee/McPhee up front I fear we will struggle.

Well I said I was worried about the calibre of player Ling would bring to the club and this is exactly the sort of signings I was afraid of... Not inspired at all I am afraid. Maybe I have been spoilt by seeing exciting prospects like Eunan O Kane or established League two players such as Stanley and Robinson join recently.

As far as the OS attempt at sugar-coating what McPhee gives us, surely they must realise we know! We have seen him play more times than ML? Hearing we won the battle of his signature to Hereford and Cheltenham only spells a relegation battle to me.

As for Leadbitter I will reserve judgment as I haven t seen him play. However for some reason I was more inspired when Oastler first joined on loan? Even though both were in the reserves of a fairly high profile club and neither had any league two experience. Maybe this is because Buckle could actually string a sentence together and was able to express his qualities far greater than Martin Ling appears to be able to do

It does just go to show how we, as fans (myself included) can over analyse the most trivial of things.

one man s assumption, that Guy did not agree to the appointment of Martin Ling quickly became known as fact on here, every other post on the ML thread at one point was cursing the club because Guy had left us because of this that and the other.

Even tweets like Lee Mansells this week s quickly became used as a stick to further beat the board with. while we re all trying to figure out if it s a positive WOW or negative WOW it turned out that the tweet had nothing to do with the manager. In the end I wouldn t blame the players if they just stop tweeting.

Of course we were all just disappointed and venting, all I am saying is you have to take everything you read that is not from the horse s mouth with a pinch of salt, and be cool, are we cool?

doogull wrote:if he is not up to it he will leave or be sacked like any other but until we see what he is all about for us leave all preconceptions at the door.

Underwhelmed appears to be the word of the day and yes I am disappointed. That does not mean I won't get behind Martin, but no matter how much my heads tells me to give him my full backing my heart will remain disappointed.

This is where I think the board have made a business error, the point quoted states that if he Is not upto the job he will go, this is of course true but at a huge financial cost to the clubs pockets? I feel that the fans would have given someone like Forster a lot more time to bed in and find his feet, taking pressure off the board if things don't go well on the pitch. We really need Martin to get off to a good start, and to remember we would all have taken mid table consolidation before this announcement, so if that's what we get under Martin, it can't be considered a failure

I can only hope that someone on the board decided that there was not too much difference between what the candidates had to offer on paper but by employing Martin Ling we would be able to afford extra backroom staff, maybe an assistant manager of his choice and a first team coach, at the club getting good football people around him to support him, and thus representing a better full package for the club.

I await the coming few weeks with intrest.

Ultra retarded more like, I mean really do some of you actually have tourettes?

As a group I understand what you are trying too do, I really do, i stand with you on the 'back step' join in with all the torquay related chants, normally get some going too but tonights performance was beyond poor.

The group that was continuously trying to sing Craig stanleys name into every single song just killed every chant before it got going, and therefore killed the atmosphere completely. Rather than support our team you found it more entertaining to sing about Barlow or your mates, this maybe very funny too you but But no one gives a crap

It's dead easy to sing "more fun if you all join in" but who wants to join in to that drivel, tonight was the first time I can remember in 15 years being outsung by the family stand, pathetic

If the 12 of you can't manage to sing in time, how do you expect the other 1000+ to join in with you?

In my opinion you need to go back to basics and remember what you are trying to achieve by setting this group, and please don't just hit the drum randomly, try and form some kind of rhythm

I know I'm ranting, but the boys on the pitch deserved more than what we gave them tonight