Torquay United Fans Forum

Guildford Gull wrote: ....and to one of our relegation rivals.

Thats putting a different spin on it to say the least. Again, people having a pop at the club for no apparent reason.

Yes, Hurst has been our best player this season but the guy clearly has issues. Shocking work rate (to the point where Nico was having sly digs at him), toys out of the pram when subbed and then to top it all going and getting himself in trouble on a Saturday night.

We don't know the full ins and outs of the story and never will, but the club has obviously decided that the merits of keeping him - i.e. his performances on the pitch when things were going "well" - were outweighed by his seemingly disruptive influence. Now it is clear to my why such a talented player has had so many clubs and never settled anywhere.

And so what if he's gone to one of our relegation rivals? It was probably a case of getting shot of him ASAP to whoever would take him - if we were suspending him we don't want him bleeding off the wage bill for too long. And who's to say he's going to be a star player for Guiseley? The guy clearly likes a bit of rough-and-tumble after a night on the pop, he's now going to be out on the beer in Leeds all the time. I'd say he's fairly likely to find himself doing some time at Her Majesty's Pleasure some time soon.

Do I blame the club for taking a punt on a troubled soul? No - its always worth a risk. For example, if I was Nico and found out Zebroski was released from the nick tomorrow, I'd be straight on the phone to get him down here. Sometimes, it is possible to make a bad boy turn out OK. In James Hurst's case, it didn't work out.

A blow to the club as he was a talented attacking player, but with his work rate and attitude it balances it out. Hopefully Fairhurst coming back - a good, solid pro with years of demonstrable experience at this level - will take up the mantle

kevgull wrote:Our best player leaves, excellent news, well done to Nico and the board!

....and to one of our relegation rivals.

Our best player leaves, excellent news, well done to Nico and the board!

he'll score the goals to keep them up this year, no doubt about it. With the affect that he's had on the changing room, he needed to go

Regardless of what has and hasn't been made public, the reality was that Hurst was on his way out of the club BEFORE ( he said his goodbyes at the Altrincham away game, remember !) the events of THAT weekend - clearly he (Hurst) had an attitude problem (witness the walk straight down the tunnel when he was subbed off in the Grimsby game) and had a very poor work ethic (not prepared to track back all too often). Unfortunately, what cannot be argued though was the fact that he has been head and shoulders our BEST player this season, simply because of what precious few highlights there have been this season have almost exclusively come from him!

Nico clearly didn't rate him, or like him it seems, as it was noticeable on a couple of occasions in post match interviews with Radio Devon that he singled him out for comments, like when he mocked him by saying something like "even Hursty was tracking back" after one game and then the comment where he said that in the next couple of years he (Hurst) would either be earning a very good living in the Football League or he would be stacking shelves at Tesco's!!! His move to Guiseley suggests that the latter is probably more likely than the former at this stage in his career, but you never know.

As for the incident that happened in Torquay town centre, I am not sure there is anything else to say on the matter quite honestly. David Thomas in the Herald podcast states that as he understands it (and it backs up what I had heard) no charges have been made - and so that is probably the end of the matter. At the end of the day, in cases like this, where you would imagine that drink was involved, if the "victim" of the alleged assault doesn't want to press charges then there is no case to answer.

No doubt Hurst is a very talented player and it is no coincidence in my opinion that two of (probably) our poorest away performances of the season - at Basingstoke and Barrow - have come when he was not in the team. It certainly is a massive call by Nico to let him go, rather than try to patch things up with him, but clearly whatever issues they had have been building up since he took over - and as the poster (Lucy?) informed us recently he (Hurst) has been wanting to leave for around a month or so - well his wish has been granted! How this will effect the team, well I guess we will find out over the coming weeks, hopefully the return of Fairhurst and eventually Marsh, and fingers crossed Campion comes good, will mean that we won't miss him as much as I fear we will!

You lot really cannot make up your minds, can you.

You yack on and on and on and on... And **** on and on and on about how you want TUFC to behave professionally. The one time they do, you **** whinge about a lack of communication.

Of course they aren't going to keep us, strangers, updated on the progress of criminal proceedings involving one of their employees. Do you see such a facility on the websites of John Lewis? Coutts? McDonald's? Manchester United?

A statement has been made. A decision has been made. Both have been communicated in a reasonably punctual manner. You're not going to get the gory details, the juicy gossip, the dirty laundry, because, guess what, to reveal those details would be horrendously **** unprofessional.

Any well adjusted adult knows what happened. The stupid **** got pissed up and twatted a random member of the public. He has been sacked-by-proxy, if you like, as a result. The club don't need to issue a statement to that effect because it caters for those with three-digit IQs and a decent appreciation of the way the world works.
Hugely remiscent of the Jeremy Clarkson situation. He wasn't sacked, he merely failed to have his contact renewed. The stupidest 10% of people (or the stupidest 90% of Torquay fans, if you prefer) questioned why he hadn't been sacked for what he did. The rest of us understood that he had.

Hurst is an idiot. He'll never make it in the game because he's **** dumb even by football's standards. Sadly, this is where we are as a club. Forced into a position where we attract either dreadful, talentless players or talented timebombs. This one is the latter and, sadly for us, he had exploded very soon into his time with us. A season down the line would have been fine. We'd have had 18 months out of him. He'd have scored the goals which kept us in the division and we'd be on a more secure footing. As it is, this hasn't happened and, as seems to happen every month or so, TUFC have been kicked in the balls.

Matt.

The lack of official communication is shocking. If I hadn't read the account given on this forum, all I would know is the club have suspended and subsequently loaned out our best player to one of our competitors because of an "alleged" incident last Saturday.

A statement was promised early this week and all we've had is confirmation that he's gone to Guiseley, with no reason given.

Laughable really.

Why all the secrecy from the club? I ask again, have the police charged him or not?

An eye-witness account is "gossip"?

So what has Hurst actually done? Have the local police charged him or not? The story on the OS tells you nothing. From being suspended to being loaned out.
Have I missed some actual facts rather than gossip etc?

From Torquay to guiseley, what a big move for James. Good move by the club, we can't have any player acting like he did. They can get rid in January.

"I live in Leeds now".

I found this such a sad statement. From someone who is not master of his own destiny. There's an inevitability about it - it almost goes unsaid that he will say "I live in ....... now" at some point in the future. A lost soul. And unfortunately, Torquay's loss.

Probably for the best - for all parties.

Emergency loan until January 1st 2016 according to the OS.

http://www.torquayunited.com/news/artic ... 07145.aspx

I have no problem wishing him all the best. He went from being, seemingly happy down here, playing well scoring goals for fun ( something that hasn't escaped my notice) to having problems virtually overnight, something clearly went wrong for him behind the scenes and very quickly.