Torquay United Fans Forum

Saah
Howe
Ellis
Atieno
Jarvis

Howe
Nico
Ellis
Manse
Morris

All those that said Southend and Crewe will bring six or seven hundred so there won't be room at the away end for Torquay fans, well that maybe the case, but what I'm saying is we have a very small capacity, so why do we have to give them that many tickets? Can't we give them 400 and share the away end. At Crawley our fans shared an end with theirs, at Plymouth, I believe Argyle fans were behind the corner flag at our end. I think no-one seems to know if the home club can dictate how many tickets away clubs can have.
Secondly, I maybe in dreamland, but I don't reckon Crewe or Southend fans or most in our division are troublemakers. Travelling away fans in particular are nearly always decent bunches, so I can't see a problem with sharing. At many recent away games I've been in pubs where both sets of fans mingled. Even Oxford, where we have had odd nasty incidents, today after just denying them 2 points in the last minute our fans happily chatted with theirs in a pub by the ground.

So if wimbledon with nothing to play for decide we're only getting 625 tickets, why can't we tell southend and crewe they're only getting half the away end (or less). I don't even think Southend will fill it with their recent bad run and automatic promotion looking over while play-off looking safe. Who's to say Crewe will either?
This is so daft. We finally win these new fans we've been craving and hope to keep next year, and now we lock them out, possibly even for the game that clinches promotion. Last Friday will end up our biggest home support of the season, just when it was building up bigger each game. We'll be back at square one next year with the usual 2,300 and all the newcomers not venturing to Plainmoor until the climax of our next tilt at promotion whenever that might be. The only problem might be if we've already sent the 1,000 plus to those clubs and they've sold most of them. What other club would give us 25% of their ground? Let's hope Hereford do.

For anyone who wasn't at Barnet, it wasn't a new chant but when Ian Morris came on as sub he got a rousing "There's only one Ian Morris" to show support when he came on and ran straight to the touchline where our fans were and gave them a clap back.
He also played well and made a difference and we started attacking a bit more. And when he was scythed down by the last defender, the Barnet guy was possibly lucky not to get a red card. I think he got yellow because they were both going for the same ball but Morris got there first and the defender made a desperate lunge and took Morris's legs. If Morris was through and dribbling with the ball and the same foul came in it would probably have been a red.
But then again they would argue Bobby should have got a red before their penalty.

Lingy said after Tuesday he wasn't looking for any loans unless it was Bodin so he must have asked if he was available. Bit odd this, as surely Swindon don't see us as a threat either. Unless Crewe offered Swindon or Bodin more money to go there. For all the brilliant job Lingy has done this season I still think he's boobed here by going on endlessly about how fantastic Bodin was. As well as making Swindon think again, it would only have alerted every other club and we've no divine right to second choice on Bodin. It's a money-orientated competitive market that dictates where people go so we need to act stealthily However much Bodin might have likedTorquay money will talk if other clubs want him and it will be another Stanley scenario. Lingy is a bit too talkative and honest to the media, there's always a new interview on the BBC. The whole world will know now Bobby Olejnik is worth buying and Lingy has even gone on about how keen he is on Jarvis, when he doesn't even start games.
It probably didn't help Di Canio feel favourable to us after our fans spent half of tuesday singing F*** off Di Canio at him either
It's a bit worrying to see our play off rivals and end of season opponents strengthening their squads yet again, except for us.

How life in football goes up and down. It seems everything makes you proud to be a Torquay fan at present. Everyone wants to be a Torquay player these days - this from Bradford City forum!

Block B Bantam wrote:
Its Guy Branston to Lincoln City. My mates an imps fan and they have come back in for him!
Bet he regrets leaving Torquay!!! From the Play-Off final and 3rd place this season to Conference strugglers after a torrid time with us, how things changed! I was delighted with signing Branston too.

Anyone heard this rumour that Crawley wanted Kee as replacement for Tubbs and we would have got a nice cut of the fat fee, but Billy didn't want to move. If so, and if it's true, any idea how much of the Tubbs' £800,000 Crawley were offering?

Did you see already Robbo has had his first taste of Bristol Rovers fans-style treatment on the Preston NE forum. One fan pulled him to pieces after his debut, although admittedly the responses were all 'give the lad a chance'. I hope Robbo isn't the latest to find the grass isn't greener as he deserves better.

Apparently Graham Turner has said he doesn't rate our chances of maintaining a promotion push after Shrews 1-0 defeat. Let's show him.

As well as Bodin scoring a great goal for Swindon, Di Canio was raving about him afterwards. Time to kiss goodbye to even thoughts of Bodin in the summer and look seriously elsewhere for the extra striker.

I know it's been said so many times - persuade someone to go to Plainmoor - but I really hope tomorrow there really is a crowd boost to reward this astonishing run. The club's fortunes should be snowballing as by now we should be getting nearer 3,000 home fans which would make so much difference to finances that we could get the couple of loanees to finish the job and clinch promotion. We may not get in this position again for some time (our top players could be bought this summer), so it would be a shame not to give it 100% shot after losing Robbo and Bodin.
On January 1 our squad may have been as good as any for a top 3 place, but worryingly since then everyone else going for that finishing line has strengthened eg Oxford, who'd spent enough already, added to their squad in the transfer window and when they thought that wasn't enough since then they've got Kerrouche and now they've got a Southampton forward. Swindon added Ritchie for £200,000 and others, Shrews have a non-stop line of new loanees every time they think they need a bit of improving.
As we're now effectively on an equal footing with the other top 5 at the promotion start line, I don't want to settle for a play off place as that probably means missing out and who knows what next year. If we were getting bigger crowds at least it would be setting us up financially for next year, but we're not getting as much of an attendance boost as our successful past sides have got. Swindon, Oxford, Shrewsbury, Crawley would probably be challenging next year, but us I'm not so sure. I've heard Graham Turner has said this week that we won't last the pace, well the current squad may prove him wrong, but I'd just like another striker and maybe someone else to add that final push. Away I think we can expect draws at least and hope to keep pinching wins, but I think we need a little bit more to dominate teams and ensure home wins, particularly if either Atieno or Howe gets injured. The last 3 home wins were a bit close for comfort. We're so close now, the fans should get to Plainmoor and the job should get finished.

I think Chris McPhee deserves far more backing. He scored a lot of goals from midfield in a very ordinary Conference side last year which is a good sign (although admittedly there's been little evidence of that so far for us), he has local connections so really wants to do well for us - other clubs in the league were interested but he chose Torquay.
But most of all a club with our budget cannot afford to have 2 pricey, quality players in every position, so to cut costs and keep the star men, you need to have a few McPhees in the squad, particularly ones who can play in various positions, to fill for injuries. No-one probably claims he's a Division 2 stand-out player in any one position, but his versatility for an affordable wage for someone who won't be playing every week in my view makes him a worthwhile signing. If you didn't have your McPhees, maybe we wouldn't have been able to afford to offer Olejnic a better deal, which isn't to say I think McPhee is rubbish. I'm willing to back Lingy's assessment of what he saw of McPhee last year, unless I see a string of bad performances to show otherwise, and don't forget McPhee was in the Ebbsfleet side that beat Buckle's Conference championship contenders at Wembley.

I know it feels unfair levelling any criticism at Lingy (i was pleased with his appointment from day one) and the board after the great job they've done getting the club within touching distance of automatic promotion, but I think Lingy has definitely boobed with his pronouncements over Bodin, and also there may have been a clanger dropped over Robbo too.
Swindon would barely have paid any attention to Bodin at the end of his loan, and I reckon he would have been floundering in their reserves now if it wasn't for the way Lingy kept publicly "bigging" him up as this great player, initially declaring he was his big target for January and he would wait until February. As would have happened if we'd loaned someone out and then they'd got rave reviews from a boss desperate to keep them, on their return there's suddenly renewed interest in giving them another chance and re-evaluating their ability. Swindon fans have been commenting on how we rated Bodin on their forums and suddenly Di Canio decided this player he didn't want was worth something. He suddenly plays him and he's scored.
Then I couldn't believe what Lingy said publicly this week (on BBC website) "I think the biggest club interested in him now, IF THEY'VE GOT ANY SENSE, is Swindon", "I've always felt he was good enough to be within Swindon's squad", "he's having more and more value to Swindon", "I felt, and I still feel, that he's a first-team starter in League Two and LEAGUE ONE".
Anyone would think Lingy's on a bung to get Swindon to keep him! At the very least it would have talked his price up and alerted other clubs and reduced any hope we might have had even for the end of the season when he's out of contract.

As for Robbo, everyone seemed pleased when contract talks started with him, Ellis and Lathrope in JANUARY. Now, I don't know, they may have started before Christmas and I may be doing the club a dis-service if the players didn't want to sign pre-Christmas, but if talks did not start until January it was far too late. In the month when other clubs could come in for them, there was no way they'd sign or their agents would let them before they had a chance to see what else would come along, especially with all the talk about clubs being interested. Thank goodness we didn't lose the other two. But if Robbo had signed something before all the talk of other clubs interested, then we would have got far more than the paltry £50,000 we had to accept because we knew he'd go for nothing in the summer. Compare his barely worthwhile £50,000 to Tubbs's £800,000 to go to another Div 1 team, or Matt Ritchie £200,000 to a Div 2 team) Match-winning headers and tackles like Robbo's at Home Park are as valuable as Tubbs's goals.
On the plus side, at least Eunan was signed up so we weren't forced to grab whatever under-valued offer we got for him. Apparently he's such a top bloke that I've heard a major reason why he signed was so that Torquay don't get shafted by cheap bids.