Torquay United Fans Forum

If he came back to assist and give Kevin Nicholson advice it'd be a great boon to the side. It's utterly ridiculous that some on this board are attacking him because he left for a paid job when we were paying him magic beans before. If he fancies six months helping us out to stop himself from getting bored then bring it on.

Stucolls wrote:And there's always a nice little Wembley trip at the end too!!

Doubt we'll be seeing that this season.

This being said it was a nice day out all those years ago, we must have taken what 10k up there? Only to put in a rank performance and lose to a team we really should have beaten.

I wouldn't worry too much, Truro will be beating us next season any way...

Good luck to Martin, a top bloke. Here's hoping it's the start of him rebuilding his career.

I honestly think Exeter have the dirt on someone at the FA, their luck with FA cup draws when they need money has been ridiculous. Meanwhile we reach the 4th round twice in three years and get bloody Coventry and Crawley (who then got Man Utd in the next round).

Yorkieandy wrote: Forget Kelvin. Suit wearing schemer.

Only if you could prize him out of a cardigan.

Yeah this is exactly the kind of player we need to being signing to move up the table....wait you mean we don't need to be signing players with only a handful of appearances at the level below us and spent most of their career in level 13 of the footballing pyramid???

Either it's a great little draw which will hand us a much needed entry into the 1st round or Basingstoke will score their only win before Xmas against us. The latter is probably more likely given Torquay's usual luck

tommyg wrote: Nothing to do with luck, Si. Another individual error costs us a point. The players simply aren't good enough. Most of them are Conference South standard and that's exactly where we're heading. We have 10 points from 15 games. By my reckoning, 50 is usually enough to stay up which means we need to win 12 from 31 and pick up a few draws along the way. It's not going to happen unless we bring in fresh faces - and with crowds of 1,200 that's not going to be possible. The supporters don't deserve this but everyone has a breaking point and it's only a matter of time before our attendances dip below the 1,000 mark. One thing that will help is a decent FA Cup run but we'd struggle to beat Truro so I can't see us even qualifying.

...and three of our next five matches are Grimsby, Woking and Wrexham.

The run of the last 5/6 games was supposed to be were we put points on the board to get into a stable mid table place, given the quality of opposition we've played and instead we've picked up 1 point from all of them. We're in very very deep trouble, regardless of whether it was a better performance, the performance isn't what matters, the points are.

We're getting to the point where it's going to be very hard to recover, look at the number of games already played people, not nonsense like 'its just October and give Kev time'. Remember that the Conference rattles through it's games and finishes before the league.

Kit_robin wrote:I am not of the opinion we should overspend (that is why were in this mess, after all), but if we do spend some money on players doing it now would be wrong (other than some free loans) . Better in January. Why?

Nicholson (who is our manager, for better or worse) will have a handle on who is with him and who isn't.

Heslop can be released if needs be.

The turnover of players is high. Players who were on the fringes of league 2/1 squads suddenly find themselves replaced and looking for a move.

You can spend the same money in better quality, because you're only paying it for 6 months not 8. I would rather have a good player in January than another average one now.

We're already six points adrift of 19th....how many points adrift will we be by January with the same squad?

Dazza wrote:There seems to be a statement or presumption on here that Nationwide South means we have to go part time. It maybe a financial reality but can anyone advise me whether it is fact a league ruling? I am not sure it could be?

It's not a league ruling but the average attendance at Conference South level was 640 last season. Away attendances are much much lower, think 5 men and a dog. If Torquay dropped down to that level, our attendances would probably level down to 1k if we were lucky, more than likely they would be worse given how the Torbay public only turns out when the team is doing well/playing big teams. We'd get next to no away fans visiting except a couple hundred Truro fans if we're lucky.

It would simply be financially unsustainable to have a full time squad. So we'd have to go part time and without the large number of high paying jobs that part-time teams in the South-East can rely upon, we will attract no part time players of any quality down here beyond Sunday League players. This would impact the quality of the team, we'd be scrapping away with Truro towards the bottom of the table, as the part-time south east teams and sugar daddy funded clubs bypass us and the death spiral will continue to it's logical conclusion or the club will become a permanent CS level team drawing about 600 fans rattling around the biggest and best stadium at CS level.

Simply put, the relegation to Conference National level was bad but not a deathblow to the club, the relegation to Conference South would put the club in very very serious problems regardless of who was in charge at boardroom level. We can't allow the club to be relegated.

Scott Brehaut wrote:What nonsense.

The Board didn't want to throw good money after bad, which is what the previous Board were doing (well Mrs Bristow anyway) and, rightly, restructured the club to ensure that it could operate within its means.

Investing in the club structure the way it was is what got us into this mess in the first place.

While I don't agree with Yell's agenda, it's totally pointless to run the club at a slight profit or break even if we get relegated to the Conference South. Our crowds will collapse further, we can't go part time due to the regional economy and the club will die. It'd be rank stupidity to run a small profit and be left with a dead club.

It'd be far better for the club to go into debt to survive this season and then pay it off by ambition restricted mid season campaigns in the next two years, which we should be able to achieve with a hopefully increased budget once our financial liabilities are off the club books. Given our attendances there should be no trouble whatsoever in putting mid table squads in any season other than this.

If we're never able to repay the debt and kill the club...well it won't be any different to the alternative of being relegated into Conference South and killing the club anyway because that's the seriousness of the situation currently.

Torquay 1-4 Dover. Appointing Kev #legend Nicholson will be the final nail in our coffin. 4th highest attendance in the league this weekend and we can't even put together a decent team or pay a proper manager. Kevin Nicholson with his sum total of zero experience will not turn this around.

Richinns wrote:The players fund is shy of 9k. A grand effort thus far but as Phil says not enough to bring a full time pro in for six months yet. Nico has stated he wants to see if the answers are in house and once he identifies what he is lacking (if anything) then perhaps we can utilise this but once it grows to a level where it can fund a senior pro there is no point pissing it up against the wall on (for example) gamble loans.

Ah that makes a good deal of sense. Quite impressed by £9k, not Grimsby levels but given the small fan base that's pretty good.

tommyg wrote: Why is the money in the player fund untouched? Surely the point of this idea is to use the money to improve the team rather than stash it away for a rainy day.

It is a bit baffling, given how piss poor the current squad is and the lack of experience we have in the squad. Haven't watched the video yet, surely it's just a bit of poorly worded explanation rather than stated policy?