Torquay United Fans Forum

Yea I remember the kits of the 86 87 season...yellow rotolok...few mates had them and my brother..
Merse you mention ribero ...seem to remember playing red star Belgrade in a friendly and for months I wanted a top but out of stock...unless my dad was fibbing me....
I've still my Wembley t shirt with all the scores on the back from the previous games....white with tufc logo on front....

I remember loads of kids at school having the buckta kit from 79/80.

As far as I remember, Stuart Morgan (who Dave Webb appointed) resigned to go to Weymouth. I'm not sure he got the contract he was after at Plainmoor and as such Cyril came in. Pope also appointed Dave Smith. Two proper managers, the like of which we have rarely seen since, and it is shame that neither had more time than they were given.

[quote=wivelgull post_id=200075 time=1485970603 user_id=119]
It was Ken Gibbs who shouted for Lew Pope to jump. [/quote]

....... and then the rest of us quickly joined in ! :)

[b]As a matter of fact, replica kits were first made available in 1977 and they were made in Plymouth by Pilgrim Sports; a company introduced to Plainmoor by Mike Green.[/b]

They didn't go down at all well as did neither the actual kit worn by the team manly I think because it had replaced the iconic triple striped white kit of the Malcom Musgrove era that he had commissioned by Umbro after seeing similar kits in Holland.

The Pilgrim kits only lasted one season (1977-78) and were superceded by a higher quality Bukta range ~ Bukta actually being the same marketing firm as Umbro ~ who remained the kit supplier until David Webb commissioned Oscar and the hated 'Chelsea' look of 1984-86.

A firm called Henson then produced a return to the traditional yellow and blue followed closely by Coastline, CS and Ribero......remember all those?

In recent years, Vandanel, Sondico and Joma have all been the suppliers. Now under different ownerships but at one time all in the same stable as Vandanel who I personally remember as a home assembly set-up using a prefabricated shed in Shernal Street Walthamstow to finish off products that were manufactured in a host of homes around East London.

As far as I remember my first replica shirt was for the Sherpa Van Final in 1989. I cant recall shirts being available before then ?

It was Ken Gibbs who shouted for Lew Pope to jump.

Wow so interesting. Lew brought Cyril in I guess....anyone know how there relationship was. And did stuart morgan leave willingly or if so why. Seemed to do a good job with what he had and went on to manage in lower divisions.

Merse may know this one. Could you buy replica shirts back in the day...I don't remember many being around...my brother had the yellow rotolok one but before that never remember them blue ones being seen much

[quote=hector post_id=200056 time=1485931044 user_id=8068]
I'm not sure if it is just an urban myth, but I seem to recall the crowd shouting to Pope to jump. [/quote]

No urban myth, Hector - it is fact ! My recollection is that it was a typically grey, windy winter's day at Plainmoor and as Merse has posted, Lew was up on the grandstand roof trying to hammer down a sheet of corrugated iron that was flapping around. I don't remember who we were playing but it was a boring match and the best 'entertainment' was watching Mr Pope on the roof and the caring fans on the Pop side chanting 'Jump Lew'.

It has always been my understanding that Lew Pope did a great deal of unpaid maintenance work around the ground, but after reading Merse's post, it seems he sent out his mate, Neil, to do the work. That's what I like to hear. Don't do the work yourself. Delegate. ;-)

[quote=MF68 post_id=200060 time=1485939524 user_id=22710] [i][b]I was a ballboy whilst Merse was Club Secretary and I seem to remember Martyn Goulding (Excellent local cricketer) also being there. That was the era of the yellow and blue squares on the front of the programme, priced 12p[/b][/i][/quote]
[b]
I was never club secretary ~ Dave Easton was throughout my time at Plainmoor ~ but became Business Manager after the commercial department was split in two to allow Alex Jackson to focus one hundred per cent on the all important lottery operation.[/b]

Dave's brother Neil was a colleague and his late father Fred was the person I replaced as he was suffering from a terminal illness. Martyn Goulding was not my immediate successor but came in further down the line.

Those programmes were part of the incredibly heavy workload we incurred as they were wholly produced, designed, printed and assembled in-house until such time as I was able to devise a commercial project once again utilising a commercial printer (Duplex Litho of Newton Abbot) that depended on a high amount of advertising revenue and on utilising every single unsold copy to be exchanged for other club's unsold programmes and earn revenue in the club shop........very few small club's programmes made money in those days!

All that advertising was sold 'in-house' too and one of those clients was Mike Bateson who then expanded to becoming a pitch perimeter client too and after I had left joined the board as a director soon buying out the other board members to achieve the autonomy he wanted to drive the club forward into being more business like.

Not surprisingly, I remain of the opinion that a hard working and successful commercial operation will in turn benefit the club through attracting like minded people like Mike Bateson who ~ whatever criticism that has been thrown at him ~ [b]DID[/b] very definitely save the club from going out of business during another depressed and unsuccessful period in it's history but I think would back me up when I say that not only is an ethos of hard work and energy essential in running a small football club, but that those concerned need to retain the ability to recognise when their batteries are running down; their energy spent and the need comes to move on.......you cannot keep pulling the same rabbits out of the same hat!

Cheers mf68 this is great stuff.

I've been in contact with south weSt film and television archive over the last 6 months. They are currently searching and editing down footage from the 1970s and 1980s era. Footage from grimsby from 1978 when one of our forwards handballed it in the net is included.

They are run by volunteers and I'm making a contribution for there efforts in all this. They do charge for this service and it's money worth spent.
It's taking time bit soon will be available if anyone fancy clubbing in a bit of money then it would be a great cause. The guy I'm dealing with is called mike and I'm sure they would appreciate it. It's time consuming but if we could raise a couple quid I'm sure it would speed the cause up.

Either way I'm excited and going to enjoy all what they find for me to share with you guys...

Search northdevondutchy on youtube. Thats me

I'm very interested from the years 1975 to around 1987



I've permission to share with fellow gulls on this forum

Hector is definitely the right person to ask about TUFC facts from the eighties onwards.
The all blue kit was reminiscent of Chelsea/Dave Webb and I remember one Christmas or just before going to Leyton Orient for an FA CUp tie and we only had the bare 11 which included a front line of Webb and one of either Dean Mooney or Benny Laryea.

My recollection of Bateson was when we refused to sign Jason Roberts for a reported £100k when it looked for all the world like money in the Bank at a later date.

I was a ballboy whilst Merse was Club Secretary and I seem to remember Martyn Goulding (Excellent local cricketer) also being there. That was the era of the yellow and blue squares on the front of the programme, priced 12p

Thanks merse and hector I'm fascinated with your memories...I could listen all day long. I personally can't remember those benches not being in mini stand but I started going in the 1985/86 which was just after the fire. Which was the blue kit which started with no sponsor and ended up rotolok on there during season

So in a link to this conversation ...I won't google his name but I remember there was talk of the owner of rotolok being a director or even buying the club. He owned plymouth afterwards and a island .was he called Dan ??
Info or memorys anyone ...honestly just remembered his name...Dan mccauley ..I know times were hard during the 1980s but I wonder if the right people if things could have been different ?? Could have been worse !!!
How did webb and his circle of people end up leaving ...did they get brought out or did they do some dealings where they effectively ending up leaving with there poctets lined.
Did webb own club out right..were there other directors or company involved. How did they ever get involved. We all know the history of them 2 years but what was it like on the terraces. I was a young kid and my main memory was the lanky mario walsh and the magical mark loram. Who for years after we would be in awe at his skill. My dad's mate was manager of brixham villa where loram played before going to tufc. We used to holiday twice a year with them and got some lovley stories to tell.

Sorry to waffle on but I'm really interested.

I'm not sure if it is just an urban myth, but I seem to recall the crowd shouting to Pope to jump. I had forgotten about the benches in the Mini Stand. When I started to watch TUFC, the Mini Stand was where the more youthful, skinhead element would stand, until they gravitated to the Pop Side. Crowds in the early 80s weren't any bigger than recent years but somehow the atmosphere seemed less flat, especially the 79/80 season, with Cooper/Lawrence being supplied by Donal Murphy. One of my favourite sides, until it all went wrong in the Spring of 1980.

Don't know if Lew actually had to hold any shares other than the ones he already held to be the chairman once the Webb gang got hold of it and when he was a director on the Boyce board, the problem was the inequality between Mr Boyce's financial commitment and the sum total of all the rest put together. I'm pretty sure that when Tony departed the share holding status quo remained; just that he withdrew from the very onerous, time consuming and personally expensive role as chairman because he wanted to be the chair of the local health committee (which he became) and there wasn't room in anybody's life to be both.

Anyway, Tony Boyce had done more than his personal share in keeping the club afloat for many more years than was personally beneficial for him; and that cannot be argued with.

Weren't those benches put in the Mini Stand as a result of seats being lost in the Grandstand fire?

Lew owned a hotel on the road that leads from Torre Station to the sea front, was a builder by trade and employed his next door neighbour and fellow hotelier 'Neville' as the Plainmoor handyman. Bullied the poor sod rotten he did and many a quiet morning was punctuated with Lew bellowing at the downtrodden Nev as if he was Baldrick! =D

Do you remember Lew being up on the roof one windy day, hammer in hand desperately trying to avoid a game being abandoned because of high winds with some corrugated sheeting coming loose? Silly old sod; I bet if they'd breath tested him they would have got a result. But downtrodden as Nev was; he wasn't daft and Lew had to do it himself !

[b]My last memories of Lew Pope are of him performing in his Druid role at Stonehenge[/b]. :whistle:

[quote="merse btpir" post_id=200049 time=1485902058 user_id=23969]


[b]I worked for the club when Lew was a director and quiet he wasn't![/b]

He could be irritating, irascible, combustible and unpredictable; but he loved the club with a passion and could never be found wanting in his one hundred per cent commitment to it. Hence his willingness to step forward as chairman when Tony Boyce decided to call it a day, during a time of ever deepening gloom for the club as a business, the game of football and the country.

Those were tough days struggling under government legislation that was punitive in the extreme, in an economy that was depressed and with the resulting spectacularly decreasing gates. I would equate those days with those of the Dave Phillips regime and whilst all around him were haranguing Lew for 'selling out' to the David Webb consortium he knew only too well that it was the only option on the table for a club facing closure and extinction.

I was gone by then, had seen it coming and with a young family to support wanted no part of it. Through contemporaries in the game, I knew what the Webb years would be like but knew they would have to be like that in order for the business to survive. Very close parallels to today I would say; which leads me to view the current situation in the manner that I do: that it is inevitable, will be unpleasant but necessary.
[/quote]

Thanks merse for the response. I'm a bit of a observer on here than a contributer and remember you on the original forum 10 plus years ago. Would love to pick your brains the 1980s was my era and it's really interest me.I could listen all day about your memories ... Spent my youth in the mini stand smelling cigar smoke ...glory days as a kid ...remember some fatish bloke with a beard always shouting witty things all the time in that mini stand. ( surly no one knows who he was ) used to sit in the middle and alwsys shouting stuff...loud voice and quite distinctive. ..
So lew was a director...sold to webb and then again back as chairman as I remember in the dog bite year....
Did he buy his share back...did webb actually sell in the end...

I'd love to know I'm fascinated