Torquay United Fans Forum

Fair points made Nick, but again Burton was on a bank holiday Monday in the midst of a massive promotion push, bit harder to attract the masses this season methinks, but definitely worth a go. Burton, Cheltenham and Shrewsbury last season, and Bristol and Aldershot this year were all class atmospheres. Bigger following, better atmospheres for sure, lets give it our best shot.

Surely it would just feel like any other away day if we took 500 mate? To make it feel like a 'special day' on tour we would have to really push the boat out. I do believe this is very likely against Argyle, as good a chance as we will ever have to go down there and wipe their noses in it. We played them on Boxing day 10 years ago and took well over 1000, if we can advertise it about plainmoor {in TQ1?} then i reckon we could do the same!

Its a great idea Nick but we will never be able to generate that number of participants. Take the Rovers away game, we took what?, about 750 fans? Shrewsbury last year in the playoffs, 800? Each away game is at the least a 4 hour round trip and that I am sure puts a lot of people off. Asking 1700 to do an away game is basically asking the entirety of an average plainmoor home gate to travel, whereas for Rovers its only a quarter of their home attendace, or less! Plus it was a short journey for them too!

Our best chance of doing something similar would be at Home Park, and even then with it being around the holiday season it may not be so popular. Generally whenever the away support is decent in number we normally make a racket anyway. Easier to embrace each away game as it comes and try and create a decent atmosphere at each one, as opposed to target one special game i would say.

No question that there is still a lot of work to do with the team, but there is still a lot of time left for that to happen. Nobody was expecting Martin Ling to walk in to the club and perform miracles straightaway. There are things we are doing very well, there are parts of our play that are terrible, the nature of an average side.

We have lost 3 matches out 12, and only really got slapped against Crawley for 50 minutes. That's not too bad. Lets see where we are after the next 12 games when I do feel it will be justifiable to form reallistic opinions of our performances and players. In that time we should have played many of the 'lesser' teams in the league, a point that Lingy was quick to bring up after the Morecambe game.

Don't get me wrong, we were awful against Shrewsbury and again on saturday. Stringing 20 passes together is fine at 0-0, but not when 1-0 down, or even worse against 10 men. Lingy changed to a 'plan b' at half time and that didn't work either. That tells me that we just didn't play well enough, not that we've been 'found out.' On saturday we were missing our best attacker in Bodin, and our only natural left sided attacker, which may go a long way to explain why we looked so imbalanced. Our already small squad was stretched, which is why as I said in my match report there should be no issue or shame in dipping into the loan market. Personally a left winger is a must in my eyes, and a fox in the box type striker.

Incidently, against Macclesfield earlier this season Mark Ellis got a 5 minute pity 'cameo' role upfront and caused a fair bit of mischief, I would like to see this avenue investigated further in times of need such as Saturday, he attacks the aerial better than anyone in our squad and is a real handful. Just a thought.

It is 6pm and my embryonic twitter account is a hub of activity.3 TUFC players have voiced their disgust at today's languid performance, i feel it appropriate to open them up to a mass audience as a sort of pre-cursor to the the day of misery to follow.

Eunan O'Kane wrote 'apologies to everyone who travelled to bradford to watch us today'

Kevin Nicholson wrote 'wasn't going to tweet as very angry but thanks to those who backed us today and believe me we'll work very hard to get it right!!'

Lee Mansell wrote 'Words can't describe how im feeling,thanks for the great support again, unfortunately as a group we did not turn up'

They weren't wrong.

After going to Shrewsbury two weeks prior, I wasn't going to bother with Bradford, such a lacklustre display didn't deserve my finanical and emotional torture. But after a more than satisfying performance against top of the table Morecambe my faith had been restored and i was ready again to plunge face-first into the hopeful randomness of another TUFC away day.

I went to the Bradford game last season, a match in which we played at our best for 90 glorious minutes, playing a sterile Bradford team off their own park, winning 3-0. a result which comfortably flattered the Bantams. I was not expecting the same today. I was picked up at 7.00 by two long suffering TUFC stalwarts, who haveprobably amassed more than 1000 away days between them. Asked how i was feeling, i replied with the now customary 'buzzing' however the truth was that i was not looking forward to the long journey north.

Being a TUFC fan, you have to get used to the long journeys, in some seasons the nearest away game can still be a 2 hour drive each way, which is why you need plenty of topics to discuss, being a TUFC we have all these moans and whinges in abundance. Having stopped for a pub lunch just outside Bradford, in a dreary little village called Drighlighton,we were ready for the football. Sadly at this point it absolutely started bucketing it down, this i felt could be a bad sign of what was to come.

As soon as you approach Bradford, you see the stadium straight-away, it sticks out like a collosus, sort of like a poor-mans St James Park in Newcastle, it certainly is an impressive sight and one would imagine very intimidating. however once you get inside you realise it isn't. It must be galling to be a Bradford fan, 11,000 is an impressive average attendance for league 2, but very poor for a stadium that holds 24,000. As a result you get vast areas of empy seats, the two upper tiers completely empty and serving as a bitter reminder of when their team was half decent over a decade ago. The fans who they do have don't sing either, i get the feeling this is a club stuck with a losing mentality having slowly worsened over the last 10 years.

TUFC lined up in a 4-5-1 formation, Stevens into the team in place of the injured Morris, and Howe coming back in for the absent Bodin, Daniel Leadbitter on the bench for the first time. TUFC kicked off and straight away O'Kane kicked it out of play whilst attempting a simple pass to Oastler, unfortunately this set the tone of our afternoon. From way up high this looked like a match between two ordinary teams, two teams failing to communicate properly with eachother which led to a very scrappy and mistake laden start. The only moments of note were a couple of long shots easily gathered by Olejnik.

The talking point, and as it turned out, the turning point of the game came on the half hour. The continually enigmatic Danny Stevens ran towards the Bradford area, slightly over-running it allowing the Bradford centre-back to intercept, he won the ball cleanly but followed through on Stevens after, who fell to the floor quite heavily. My first thought was that it was a good tackle and had one of our lads done it to them I would have been applauding loudly. The referee had a decent view of it though and must have deemed it to be 'excessive force' and 'studs showing' as he had no hesitation in brandishing the red card, it was out of his back pocket before he had stopped the play. Although it should obviously have given us an advantage i think it worked against us for 2 reasons.

First, it woke the crowd up. They had been silent up until then, but for 20 minutes it became a cauldron of hatred towards Stevens, The Ref, or any TUFC player who erred. I think the referee realised he had dropped a clanger here because he too lost his head for the rest of the half, drastic inconsistency seaped into his decision making no doubt under pressure from the armies of fist clenching, angst ridden fans in the stands.
Secondly it paved the arrival of Guy Branston, on as substitute to shore up the depleted defence. Here was a man with a massive point to prove, to the Bradford manager, his team-mates, to the fans who have yet to see the best of him, and of course to us, who he left for 'better things' in the summer. It seemed to me he was a mission to get the match won, he was excellent, a reminder of the cult hero status he had established in the short time he was with us. I am a big fan of the man and it was nice to see the mutual respect between him and us, he wrote a nice bit in his programme notes about us, and came over to thank us at the final whistle. He is yet to rediscover the form that earned him a place in the league 2 team of the year however, but this performance will go along way to proving to Bradford that he is capable of it.

You would think with a man advantage that we would dominate, sadly not. No doubt galvanised by the injustice of the sending off Bradford upped a gear and the left winger in particular was rampaging against Oastler, firing in a couple of dangerous crosses which yearned to be tucked away. The only goal of the game came a bit later however when a bit of a scramble in the box allowed Fagan a bit of space at the back post to finish smartly through the legs of the keeper, it was poor defensively, symptomatic of the whole lack of communication throughout the team. The goal was certainly deserved and Torquay needed to react quickly.

Until half time was probably our best spell of the game, Danny Stevens fired just over from 25 yards, Nicholson found space after a delightful 10 pass move, and shot across goal making it disappointingly too easy for the goalkeeper to save, and then Nicholson again had a 25 yard free kick well saved down low by the keeper. However we did not score in this little period and the half time whistle blew to a cacophony of boos.

The talk of half time was still mainly positive, with the exception of Shrewsbury, Lingy has normally sent the players out in the second half more determined and attack minded, so we were all pretty confident that our fortunes would change, whilst obviously chastising our boys for a woeful first half. A double substitution welcomed us as we took our seats for the second half, Macklin and Leadbitter on, Oastler and Lathrope off, a change to 4-4-2, 2 out and out wingers, two strikers, the message; to attack. I was curious to see how the new right side pairing would get on, close friends off the pitch, i hoped they had a good understanding. Against Bristol City in pre season they certainly looked exciting, and finally Macklin had been given an adequate amount of time on the pitch to make a difference, now was his chance to shine.

He didn't, none of us did. What followed was an unbelievably fustrating 45 minutes of football. We are proficient at passing the ball around the middle of the pitch, it looks professional, we can string 20 passes together easily, unfortunately it doesn't get us anywhere. The most important of those 20 passes is the final ball and with us it is severely lacking. There were times were it opened up for a shot, test the keeper, we didn't, there were times where the spare man was in acres of space and it was blatantly obvious to pass to him, we didn't. There were times where we matched and outnumbered them in the box if a cross of quality could be delivered, it couldn't. As we threw more men forward Bradford played brave and nearly caught us on the break a couple of times. In one instance a breakdown in communication left Fagan with a free run on goal and Olejnik in no-man's land, Fagan's audacious lobbed effort hitting the post and bouncing free. Minutes later on another break, the flying winger was felled as he ran through on goal, the resulting free-kick brought an impressive diving save from our goalkeeper. For all our possession and territory, it was they who created the best chances in the second half.

With the minutes ticking away, everyone was getting more impatient, the players growing increasingly fustrated that nothing was working, the fans equally irate that we couldn't fashion a chance against a man less. We won a succession of corners in the dying minutes and with a 'smash and grab' vision sprawled across my mind, Olejnik raced up to join the attack, from the ensuing scramble he nearly got on the end of something, but he was rushing around like a man possessed, he wanted it, it was nice to see that sort of passion. The referee finally put us out of our misery and as always out of duty, i stayed to applaud my team off the pitch,they probably didn't deserve it, but we all travelled the long distance together, we are a team, and we have a hell of a lot of work to do, and we will all be there next week to hopefully put it right.

And so, as i trudged the walk of shame back to the car, with my eyes on the floor, in the pouring rain, in a grim northern city, i allowed myself a few minutes quiet reflection on the performance. We could easily have won this game. The decision to go to 4-4-2 at half time with 2 wingers was definitely the right call. unfortunately certain members of the team let themselves down, didn't play to their optimum standard, or their optimum standard just isn't good enough for this level. In light of recent events i won't name names but i do think we lack quality in certain areas and would implore Lingy to delve into the loan market. As proven by Bodin, there is genuine quality out there to be approached. At the moment i would say we are carrying 3 or 4 players, and the only consistent performers thus far have been Mansell, Nicholson and Olejnik. The quality we know other players possess has been only seen fleetingly and this inconsistency is fustrating and the difference between picking up 1 point, or 3.

I still don't think its been too bad a start from the team, we have had to play alot of good teams recently, and in some of those games we have been scratching our heads at how we didn't win. It was only the Shrewsbury match, and today were we have not turned up and given a decent account of ourselves. Today apart we can create chances, enough chances to easily win games in this division, it just didn't happen today and that is extra galling considering how poor Bradford are. They are seriously poor and it can't be much fun watching such a big club struggle in league two - the £5 a head entrance fee special only added an extra 1,000 on the gate. It is at the other end of the pitch were we are struggling. We are leaking goal far too readily. I worry that Bobby Olejnik will get bored of conceding so many goals, of being generally overworked in every game he plays, we are very lucky to have such a capable keeper for this level, we need the defence to be busting a gut to protect him, much the same way that Branston did for his goalkeeper, who incidently did not have a single second half shot to save. There seems to me to be no communication about the back 4, and a cavalier approach to defending. All good teams are built on a good defence, and i am slightly worried by this considering we have a specialised defensive coach. A lot of work needed methinks, some players are taking their place in the team for granted.

I have yet to miss a league game this season, I think we are an average team, we win some, we draw some, we lose some, sometimes we play well, sometimes we don't. I think the 15th-20th area is reallistically where we will end up, and for a team with our budget that is acceptable. In spite of this bad day I will be there next week, and the week after that because we are a work in progress. Hopefully one or two parts of the machine will be working better by then. I have yet to see anything that tells me 'we are doomed' this season. But i do think its crucial to add to the squad, not only to add quality, but to give those already in the team a much needed boot up the behind. And anyway it could have been worse, we could have just been beaten 3-0 by Oxford.