Torquay United Fans Forum

I think maybe it's time us as a current football league club began petitioning for another automatic promotion place for the conference. Not only could we benefit from it in future but it also makes the conference more of a spectacle. If one team runs away with it and 2nd and 3rd are comfortable then it makes them less competitive as they know they can't go up and a play off berth is almost assured. Why also do 4 drop? 2 up and 4 down, sounds a bit topsy turvy to me.

I don't mind being in the conference so long as Knill isn't here and we remain competitive. Sure we've no chance of winning the division but a play off spot is certainly achievable for a club of our size. My only fear is that like Lincoln you struggle and before half the season is over you have little chance of even making a play off spot meaning season over. A relegation battle in league 2 is one thing but to have one in the conference would be utterly soul destroying.

What would relegation mean? Well, to 'Bus Pass' fans like me (and not so old supporters), we would never see league football at Plainmoor again because I do not believe we would be in a position to return to the league as quickly as we did last time. Look at Luton - a much bigger club than us and they've been in the Conference for years, although it looks as if this might be their year for a return to the league. We shall become a team like Lincoln or Wrexham - permanent members of the Conference. And as Forever posted earlier, the Youth Academy which has to be the life blood of the club, would be under severe threat.

At the moment, almost every game seems to take us a step nearer the trap door to the Conference. Disheartening posting - but stark reality I feel.

We would need another Paul Buckle.. :)

[quote="AustrianAndyGull"]We won't drop through the leagues, nothing that dramatic. I think we'll still be competitive and sustainably run but there will be no way we'll be going up automatically. It will be a case of try our best to sneak into the play offs and hope to get back up that way. It won't be the end of the world.[/quote]

I expect fans of Stockport County thought the same.

We currently have the 17th highest average attendance in League Two. Last year we had the 17th highest, the year before 16th, the year before 18th, the year before that 17th. The year before that was the promotion season from the non-league.

So that would suggest we are very much a middle of the table L2 side, pretty much exactly as our 80 years of league history would support.

Anybody who thinks we would drop through the leagues clearly hasn't seen any conference south football this season. Even us at our very worst is better than that absolute shower.

What would it mean for the club? In my opinion, we'd be punching at our level now. Been contemplating starting a thread about whether League football is sustainable for TUFC anymore. When you throw in the factors of attendance, location, facilities etc I don't think it is anymore, so perhaps it would finally be succumbing to the inevitable?

We won't drop through the leagues, nothing that dramatic. I think we'll still be competitive and sustainably run but there will be no way we'll be going up automatically. It will be a case of try our best to sneak into the play offs and hope to get back up that way. It won't be the end of the world.

when we are relegated, that will be the end of of football league football for Torquay United for the foreseeable future, the conference is a strong league, and with an even smaller budget, we won't compete, and we will drop through the leagues!

I guess we will find out in 23 games time if we don't sort ourselves out.

23 points from 23 games, I guess we will need another 29 from the next 23 to stay up.

Not impossible if we can bring in a further batch of decent loaners for the remainder of the season. Don't forget we judged our squad based on the first ten games of the season and they were not up to the required standard.

Strangely some of my better memories have been Conference football.

I can't give you an exact answer Andy, there's an old saying in football, if he's good enough he's old enough. For me it has to be a judgment call from the coaching staff as to when a young player is ready for first team action, not an exact science either , that judgement call can be made to early, to late, or just got plain wrong, at all levels. Gazza prime example had trials with Ipswich as a schoolboy, and was rejected by the same manager who took him to the 1990 world cup, David Platt was another who went to that world cup after being released as a youth player by Man.U, so who knows.

Look at Rooney, Barkley etc, etc, there's the big difference, we're working with a lot of young players who have been picked up from exit trials, players who have been in youth academy's of much bigger clubs and not made the grade, sometimes it can take longer to develop some may never develop to the level required.

There's often a clamour when results performances at clubs up and down the country are not good to throw in the kids , to me the most successful teams with just few exceptions have had a good mix of young, established and senior pro's.

[quote="AustrianAndyGull"]I'm not having a dig at anyone here and it is not really a response to the OP but Dave has reminded me of something I wanted to discuss. We apparently have a good youth set up yet apart from the odd appearance from say Yeoman, McKenzie and Sullivan I can't remember anyone getting a chance in the first team. People always say oh he's for the future, but when does the future arrive and these lads get a real crack? I don't know the ins and outs so maybe someone can put me right as I find it pointless having a youth set up if none of them ever get opportunities. Considering how rubbish our contracted players have ben these past 2 years then it makes it more worrying.[/quote]

There was an article in the programme v Exeter in which the contributor mentioned how Exeter recently had 5 members of their starting XI who were graduates from the youth team. There are probably that number again on the fringes of their first team. But they are years and years ahead of us. Saying that however, Exeter seem to be able to get better 'local' talent. We just never seem to have it from Torbay. There was of course, Dan Gosling and Jamie Reid at Exeter is a Torquay lad. But those two came through when Torquay had no youth system, so players who would have been breaking through now (e.g. 19/20 year olds) would already have been attached to either Plymouth or Exeter when they were 11 or 12 because Torquay didn't have a youth system. I suppose we were left with the ones they didn't select.

So it is probably the youngsters who are now around 15/16/17 where our best chance of getting some real talent is from.

I think up to now, the best prospects our revived youth set-up has delivered, have sadly not been quite up to it. I'm not quite convinced that the likes of MacKenzie, Thompson, Yeoman would even be good enough for the Conference but it will hopefully be from the batch after them, that some gems will come through - perhaps the lad Prynn.

I'm not having a dig at anyone here and it is not really a response to the OP but Dave has reminded me of something I wanted to discuss. We apparently have a good youth set up yet apart from the odd appearance from say Yeoman, McKenzie and Sullivan I can't remember anyone getting a chance in the first team. People always say oh he's for the future, but when does the future arrive and these lads get a real crack? I don't know the ins and outs so maybe someone can put me right as I find it pointless having a youth set up if none of them ever get opportunities. Considering how rubbish our contracted players have ben these past 2 years then it makes it more worrying.

I believe the biggest loss would be the ring fenced funding for our youth set up, it would make running a youth academy on the scale we do now very difficult, parents do not pay training fees that's covered by the funding, in fact I think football league clubs can't charge parents training fees (although could be wrong there) How many players would we lose from our 8-16 age groups if parents had to pay for training as well as kits, especially if Exeter and Plymouth are still football league clubs.

Should imaging our current player budget as low as it is, would have to be slashed, this is only guess work, seem to remember a number of clubs saying being in the football league was worth £500k more in total revenue, to repeat that's guess work, should imagine a fair few of our current young crop of players could find themselves be promoted into the first team set up.

Have a feeling crowds would drop to around 1500, didn't last time I know, however we arrived in the conference with a new board, new hope and a new beginning, of late that's gone sour, personally I had a lot of confidence we wouldn't be there long last time, not many clubs return from a second drop into the non-league, looking at state I believe the club is currently in, unless new investors came along, and why would they, I personally think we may never return to the football league.

Everything has to done to avoid relegation, pure and simple.

[quote="hector"]I have just been reading about the financial problems Bolton Wanderers are facing, since they were relegated from the Premiership.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25559504

£163m in debt.

Now obviously the scale of finance is massively different but I wonder in the context of TUFC, whether relegation to the Conference would be similarly devastating, in terms of the revenue streams we would no longer have access to.

I'm sure a season, and certainly a few years of lack of access to Football League funding, would dwarf the amount it would cost to get rid of the manager doing a good job of taking us down to the Conference.

As for Bolton, with a debt that massive, you wonder how a club that size could ever reduce it enough to avoid administration. However, it does seem that most of is owed to their owner, so they may yet be ok.[/quote]

Thanks for spreading more doom and gloom over the forums! Although yes it may be reality it isn't needed to be addressed

I have just been reading about the financial problems Bolton Wanderers are facing, since they were relegated from the Premiership.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25559504

£163m in debt.

Now obviously the scale of finance is massively different but I wonder in the context of TUFC, whether relegation to the Conference would be similarly devastating, in terms of the revenue streams we would no longer have access to.

I'm sure a season, and certainly a few years of lack of access to Football League funding, would dwarf the amount it would cost to get rid of the manager doing a good job of taking us down to the Conference.

As for Bolton, with a debt that massive, you wonder how a club that size could ever reduce it enough to avoid administration. However, it does seem that most of is owed to their owner, so they may yet be ok.