Torquay United Fans Forum

Favourite/best - AJB

Best/favourite - Thea Bristow

best, boyce
rowe
worst, webb
roberts

With Bateson it was a case of the TWO Roberts moments that will haunt him - Not buying Jason Roberts when the chance arose, and he had million pound stamped all over him (200k I think was the figure needed) and Chris Roberts the plank who fooled Bateson into the unthinkable.........

Sorry, but I don't think Bateson was that bad. We had some good years under his Chairmanship. His biggest mistake was selling the club to Roberts (how did he fall for that?), but to be fair to Bateson he did come back to sort that out. Roberts and Webb were the worst, nobody else at Plainmoor comes close. I remember the first game at Plainmoor under Roberts, I saw a fleet of black limos parked outside and thought then that the writing was on the wall. No wonder people spat at him in the street. David Webb was a "colourful"character shall we say.

I thought that Tony Boyce was the best, a first class Chairman.

It's Webb and Roberts for me. Someone tell me what Webb was doing. Was he an asset stripper. With his connections he should have bought in some players who could play better than the rubbish served up. With crowds under 1000 it was a depressing place. Perhaps he turned the finances around, I can't remember now but all I know is that the club was in a right state. Roberts was a total disgrace and luckily some other board members took decisive action or else we would have been in the cart. That episode unfortunately reflects badly on Bateson who let the club go to a Walter Mitty.

BAD: Roberts, Bateson.

May as well go the whole hog and evaluate Chairman/owners as well

Since I have been watching Torquay, the chairman or owners have been...

Tony Boyce
David Webb (in all but name)
Lew Pope
Mike Bateson
Mervyn Benney
Mike Bateson again
Chris Roberts
Keith Richardson
Mike Bateson yet again
Mervyn Benney again (albeit for about 10 minutes)
Alex Rowe
Simon Baker
Thea Bristow

This list probably covers all since the 60s (unless I have missed anyone glaring out)

Obviously, Mike Bateson will probably divide opinion the most. I wasn't a fan at all and could list plenty of reasons as to why but I think that Webb and Roberts were worse.

Mervyn Benney was essentially a puppet, so shouldn't be counted, he had about as much influence as Algernon, whilst Lew Pope always gave the impression of being a bit incompetent but he did chair a board that appointed two excellent managers in Cyril Knowles and Dave Smith - Mike Bateson would never have been so imaginative.

So the best for me are Tony Boyce for what he did in the 60s but the 70s and 80s were very poor, with Rowe/Baker/Bristow (even though mistakes were made last season) probably the best for the way they have completely rebuilt the club. I sense we are in for a fallow season or two under Knill but they delivered a complete recovery of our club after the Bateson/Roberts debacle.