We are a shambles.

[Modgull]

We might well be in a mess at present but it doesn't justify juvenile behaviour like "I told you so but you didn't take me seriously" and "that's the last time I'm going to watch this rubbish"

Also some posters either have short memories or are too young to remember other bad times.

We have been here before and will no doubt be here again in the future but for the present there is no alternative but to stick with the Club. After all, there is a clue in the description "supporter" and we all now need to show that support.

Does anyone really believe that staying away from future games will do anything but hasten the demise of the Club as a football league outfit?

[Sexy_Gulls]

Not made many games this season due to living in London and how the fixtures fell. But it really is sad to see a club go from being really well run to essentially rudderless in the space of a couple of months. Even with our previous poor form I would have been perfectly happy to have a boring season and continue building for the future. New stand, new training ground, a manager and chairmen who both had long term interests at heart, good scouting, decent youth, excellent team spirit. And now we are running a serious risk of ruining every good thing that has been built at this club since the consortium took over.

The best thing for me about LIng last year was how few moans we had. No playing players in the wrong position, no glaring tactical mistakes, no strange selections. This season I have read repeated statements by the majority of this forum saying Craig is not a winger, that we play long when we don't have a target man on the pitch, that we play players woefully out of form (Bodin, Mansell, Nicholson), that we have neither the creativity or the playing surface to play passing football, that we need another option up front etc etc. Its these little things that sway me with a manager, that if they are generally accepted as right decisions then I can put up with poor short term form. Unfortunately as the season drags on those decisions are seen to be more and more wrong.

If Ling is too sick to manage the team for the remainder of the season then someone else needs to be brought in, as cover at least. Taylor will not manage in any other way than as his bosses proxy, and as a proxy without the leadership or authority to take the initiative. I sorely hope that the board make the kind of strategic decision that has done them so much credit in the past.

[ROADRUNNER]

for god sake, call your self supporters, i thought we are suppose to support through thick and thin, weve seen worse times than this, we have a good five seasons and they will come back, i know its poor but if we dont stick with it there will be no club to support, look at the shit arygle have had to put up with if recent seasons, yet they still get 6000 plus gates.
shame on you so called supporters, its an sad to hear it.

[AustrianAndyGull]

for god sake, call your self supporters, i thought we are suppose to support through thick and thin, weve seen worse times than this, we have a good five seasons and they will come back, i know its poor but if we dont stick with it there will be no club to support, look at the sh*t arygle have had to put up with if recent seasons, yet they still get 6000 plus gates.
shame on you so called supporters, its an sad to hear it.

This is a good post

Oh and thanks Steve for the support mate, i'm not into seeing my team lose otherwise why would i be going to Rochdale on saturday ans why would i spend nearly £200 coming to the Wycombe home game next week? No, you see, i'm as much a fan as any and i just wanted to tell you all that you can have your cake and eat it if you want as that is what you seem to be doing. I am gloating yes, i am enjoying it yes, i'm not enjoying my team struggling. I've been to Northampton at home this season, Rotherham, Fleetwood, Burton, York, Chesterfield, Bradford, Wycombe, Port Vale away and many more before the season is out so yeah, of course i want to bother wasting my time going to these games and seeing us lose just so i can come on here and gloat! Jesus. Talk about simpletons.

All i'm saying is that our performances since October have been identical and showed no signs of changing to the point where people considered not going anymore to pay £20 to watch teams that don't wish to win football matches. 5 months on and i'm still saying the same thing but funnily now we are in the sh*t people are coming out with this exact same thing now yet i got crucified for it. All i've done is report what i've felt and what i've seen and it was to negative or perhaps too close to the bone for some of you to accept. Well accept it now as we're in the brown stuff and it's been coming.

I don't stop being a decent bloke just because i like to defend myself. I'm defending myself from all you who have forced me off the forum for posting honesty and i think i deserve a bit of vindication now my 'CONSTANT NEGATIVITY' is actually turning out to be true.

Not interested in any put downs because i'll carry on supporting MY club whilst you lot chop and change on here. If we go down are you Ling lovers gonna want to still marry him? I wanted him out months ago but had the decency to admit it.

If i'm a sad b*stard then what are you?

[divingbboy]

I thought you were done posting? Jesus, that lasted all of 7 hours or so...............

[Plymouth Gull]

Nobody "forced" you off the forum, you just can't have a reasoned argument without getting all lairy and abusive, so when someone called you up on it, you flipped, again.

Anyway, I posted this in the heat of the moment last night, I've calmed down somewhat now. However I still think we really are in deep trouble. I won't stop supporting the club, but they have to realise that we are in trouble and start addressing the situation, before it is too late.

[sam]

Too much doom and gloom. Agree the second half last night was absolutely awful and yes there has been a worrying slide. Someone mentioned here what is it we want, is it 20 years of Div 2 football. The answer is yes. The most important objective for Torquay United AFC is not to get relegated to the Conference. Promotion, play offs, cup runs are all a bonus. 90th will do for me. In 50 years I have seen much worse than this as have many of the older supporters. Attendances of 1,000, terrible gutless football. It's not good at the moment but the fact is we are a league team, geographically and support disadvantaged. It is a satisfactory season if by the following August we are playing in League 2.

[divingbboy]

Second half was not good last night, admittedly. I thought we were by far the better team in the first half, however. It's not good, for sure, but I do think that we can't discount the APPALLING ref last night and the fact that he fell for every one of Fatty and Cheaty's tactics. As soon as Rotherham scored that first goal, they timewasted appallingly, went to ground (and stayed down) whenever we got the ball and, basically, behaved exactly how Fatty and Cheaty teams behave. The difference being that, due to the original ref injuring himself, we ended up with a replacement who was apparently inexperienced and let them get away with murder. That's NOT to say I'm not concerned, but I do wonder if matters might have turned out not quite as badly with better officiating.

[Scott Brehaut]

I had posted a huge reply to you Andy - but deleted it as I don't really want to start world war three - besides which it would be boring to those that actually just want to read about football matters. What I will say is this:

NOBODY is, or has, forced you off the site - you went by your own free will as you felt others weren't supporting your view - that's what a forum is all about. If you can't get that basic of concepts, don't come on to a forum.
Why ANYBODY supporting this club can take delight in us losing, and seeing it as some sort of victory over those who have tried to be positive about things, is truly beyond me....I can take the greasers or gargs coming on here and having a laugh (although the muff haven't got much to gloat about either), but one of our own supporters taking delight in it? I honestly couldn't believe what I read last night from you to be honest....and the fact that you are unmoved today is just, well words can't really describe what I think, so will leave it there.

[Yellow4life]

The referee did let them get away with too much time wasting, i agree. However he(the replacement) would not have been inexperienced as such. They are put on games as they have earned promotion towards making it up the leagues. He has been assessed and has taken the same steps as the original referee, but he's just younger.

1st half I thought we could have been 1-0 up at half time but 0-0 was just about fair result. We actually had shots to test the goalkeeper, the second half we played too much 'pass it in like Barcelona'(I went to watch them on sunday).

We need to just have more shots, we do good build up play but this is let down by not having a go!

[Bitchie Renault]

No we are not a shambles, very far from it. Portsmouth currently are a shambles, TUFC under Roberts was a shambles, Blockbusters, Jessops, Woolworths were shambles, but we are not, we are just going through a lean spell, something we have experienced on dozens of occasions. Ask any honest long standing fan and they will tell you the good times are less frequent that the bad.

Some people on here just don't seem to grasp the simplest of concepts. Maybe it is purely in their nature to just see the negative in everything or they have massively unrealistic expectations regardless of what the realities are. Football, just like any other walk of life will always go through peaks and troughs. You only have to go back to the 47th minute of the Aldershot home game to get the perfect example of how things can start to change unexpectedly. Nothing is ever certain and if anything it is that air of unpredictability that makes the game as addictive as it can be and why we turbulent creatures relate so well to it and form emotional bonds.

This season has gone from one of potential great promise to sizeable disappointment within the last couple of months. There are many factors contributing to this. There is no doubt that people at the club has made errors of judgement, particularly in terms of not bringing in new signings but that is also clearly not as straightforward as it seems and it is reckless and thoughtless of fans to just look for that easy blame. Last season despite a very slow start and a disappointing ending, in total we massively over achieved. With a limited budget, a new manager in Martin Ling who many questioned the appointment of and a squad of journeymen, kids, last-chancers and relatively unknowns we miraculously put together one of the most amazing seasons in TUFC's history. Our run of 41 points from 16 games at one point is one that will surely never be surpassed in the future. Relying on an incredibly solid goalkeeper in Bobby, the creative flair of O'Kane, a fairly rigid line up that often played for and achieved 1-0s added to the gift of an unheard of lack of injuries and unexpected goal tallies from Mansell, Stevens, Howe and Atieno we came within a whisker of promotion. That was then, this is now...

This season has been more fractious. We had to sell 3 of our best players, the quality spine of the team ripped to shreds. Funds were diverted to much needed infrastructure; the new training ground and a main stand to finally be proud of and stand us in good stead for years to come. Injuries have plagued the squad from day one. Some stalwarts from last year (in particular Oastler, Mansell, Nicho, Stevens) have surprisingly underachieved this year. And now, although the full picture hasn't been revealed, very worryingly it appears our manager is suffering quite seriously with his health. It is all concerning, even baffling in some cases, but it is also all part of the rollercoaster ride that is football.

For us as fans it's the time to stand up and be counted, to weather the storm and get through it together showing unity to the club. Becoming a football fan offers no guarentees. We often just live in hope that a good day or a good season is around the corner and that is so much more likely to happen if us as fans stick with the club, put worthy trust in the players and staff and offer positive support and encouragement. Some of the petty, disloyal, petulent comments on here and on the terraces make a few people look very churlish indeed, and as for one particularly nasty, imbalanced poster's comments of I told you so and I'm out of here, well I guess Torquay United and this forum are probably better of without you.

[Plymouth Gull]

Bitchie,

As I say I may have overreacted but I was very frustrated last night. We looked so, so limp last night in the 2nd half. That 3rd goal was completely laughable. I know we aren't a shambles off the field, but we're really going that way on it. I've been to every game bar Burton since New Year, and in every match I have seen we've had an okay/good first half, but we haven't come out of the dressing room at half time. Lets be honest, we were lucky to get the win at Exeter, mainly down to their failings in front of goal, and our sheer willingness to hold on. I applaud that, but then Cheltenham, the second half I don't think we got out of our half. Fleetwood, we dominated the first half and should have been ahead, but we can't seem to score from open play right now. I hope we see an improvement on Saturday in what is looking a vital match now.

I know the situation isn't urgent yet, but we need to arrest the slide sooner rather than later. Another thing that is concerning me is that there seems to be a lack of recognition from the club, that we are in the position we are in. I don't expect them to come out and say 'We're in a relegation dogfight and we're struggling' but I'd want something else rather than 'We were unlucky, we've got a good bunch of lads, and we're still only 10 points off the playoffs or whatever'. Trying to paper over the ever-increasing cracks is a dangerous one. I'd like to think we'll take a win from one of these next two away games, at least, but I'm not holding high hopes right now.

I won't ever stop following the club, but it just seems like there is an air of complacency coming out from Plainmoor right now.

[AustrianAndyGull]

I had posted a huge reply to you Andy - but deleted it as I don't really want to start world war three - besides which it would be boring to those that actually just want to read about football matters. What I will say is this:

NOBODY is, or has, forced you off the site - you went by your own free will as you felt others weren't supporting your view - that's what a forum is all about. If you can't get that basic of concepts, don't come on to a forum.
Why ANYBODY supporting this club can take delight in us losing, and seeing it as some sort of victory over those who have tried to be positive about things, is truly beyond me....I can take the greasers or gargs coming on here and having a laugh (although the muff haven't got much to gloat about either), but one of our own supporters taking delight in it? I honestly couldn't believe what I read last night from you to be honest....and the fact that you are unmoved today is just, well words can't really describe what I think, so will leave it there.

Scott, i appreciate your views and comments and the fact that you refrained from posting your reply shows you to consider what you post before actually posting it. I don't do that, i post and then regret it or congratulate myself on it later.

You are entitled to your opinions about me but not for one second have i said on this forum that i wanted Torquay to lose. I may bet against them from time to time not because i want them to lose but because i think the other team will win. If i lose the bet and Torquay win then brilliant, if i win the bet and Torquay lose then Torquay would have lost anyway and i win some cash. I have NEVER EVER said that i delight in us losing and if you can find where i said i'm glad we've lost then please do and show it to me. You are putting ideas out there that make me look an even bigger knob than i already am and that isn't fair. All i was doing is taking advantage of ANOTHER bad result and ANOTHER inept performance.

I actually feel extremely angry that all last nights posts and threads were things i had been saying for months and when i read them i felt angry that i was actually persecuted for holding the very same opinions that most of you had come out with last night. I don't expect anyone to understand but can anyone not see why i might be p*ssed off at what i perceive as unfair treatment? I don't want violins and i don't want more abuse, all i'm after is for some of you to accept that maybe some of your comments against me were harsh and that i had a point. It's not for some big crusade to say i told you so it's more to highlight to some of you that it is actually YOU that have had a major contributing factor to me leaving this forum and it's not all down to me being a bit unstable.

Not having a go at Nickgull but his post last night about we're a shambles really annoyed me. Not the title or anything but what he actually said in his opening post as these are the things you yourself Nick were so unhappy about ME posting months back yet you now seem to have accepted we're sh*t and not worth paying to see and that somehow because you have said it everyone now goes along with it. Again, it's not a brownie points contest but can people not see where i'm coming from?

It was Nick who told me to change the record when i complained every week about Lings negative tactics and how he was obsessed with defending, how he goes out trying not to get beat rather than win, how every game plan and performance was the same and how it was becoming more and more difficult to stomach actually paying to go and watch this. All i was doing is posting what i saw and what i felt, I wasn't making things up to stir in the sh*t, that is what i saw, that is what i knew we would keep seeing and that is what we are seeing now STILL, so why am i in the wrong and why is Nick still great?

I'm not negative for the sake of it and i'm not generally a negative person, i've met a few of you from here and i stand regularly with a few of you and we all get on and i really enjoy it. I sing my b*llocks off every game and shout words of support to all players, even Bodin during a game. I'm just a bloke going to watch my team and wanting us to do well. If i wanted Torquay to do sh*t then why would i complain that we were playing sh*t and dropping down the league like a stone? Surely i'd be happy that our performances were making us lose and i wouldn't have to come on here and complain about them because i'd be getting what i wanted right?

Contrary to popular belief i CAN accept other peoples opinions that are different to my own so long as they are directed at me in an appropriate manner. Take USA's response to my post on the Lingy thread, all i posted was support for Dave forever when he said that the club should let us know what was going on with regards Lings absence and how a lack of info causes rumours to circulate. I posted in agreement and then i get USA sarcastically saying why don't the club get Lingy to print his doctors note in the programme? I like banter on here but what was the point of that response and was there any need for it? Ok i may be sensitive to some sh*t but what was the f*cking point of putting that? It just got my back up straight away and BOOM!

His response wasn't banter it was a deliberate sarcastic remarked aimed at belittling me and i certainy don't need any help in that department. It was uncalled for as i was making a valid point in support of one of the more sensible, understanding and knowledgable members on here in Dave forever. Pathetic.

So at the end of the day believe what you bloody well like but all my outbursts have been a response of provocation, the key in my back being wound up by people who come on here claiming to know better. I do honestly hold the view that i have been forced off the forum as i never have any problem getting on with people in real life, maybe if i can see peoples facial expressions when they are talking to me i can interpret their intentions better whereas on here i just feel like i'm an easy target. Maybe some of you are these online bullies or trolls or whatever they call them but so what. I'm not and everything i have posted on here was genuinely what i have thought and i have only ever wanted to get involved and contribute to the forum.

I'll go on supporting Torquay and spending money i haven't got, i'll make sure i sing my knackers off during the games, i'll make sure the lads get plenty of support on the pitch where it is essential, i'll make sure i spend money in the club shop, i'll make sure my little un gets to follow the Gulls. All this from someone who doesn't support them.

Yep, i always knew i was crazy.

[chippygull]

Agree with Renault. Some people have short memories. Roberts? Cornforth? Cornforth's dog? Webb? 786 attendance? Buster Philips giving up vs. Notts County? Come on! We're on a bad run. End of.

[The Farmers Friend]

for god sake, call your self supporters, i thought we are suppose to support through thick and thin, weve seen worse times than this, we have a good five seasons and they will come back, i know its poor but if we dont stick with it there will be no club to support, look at the sh*t arygle have had to put up with if recent seasons, yet they still get 6000 plus gates.
shame on you so called supporters, its an sad to hear it.

Not disagreeing with your sentiment, but I don't think Argyle are a particularly good example of supporters sticking with their team through thick and thin: 6,000 is actually pretty paltry bearing in mind their historical support and the size of their catchment area.