Torquay United Fans Forum

Yes he did ~ at the cost of accepting loans from GI that have ended up in what?

Something a lot of people are unsure and unhappy about; yes he kept us in the National League and yes that was an achievement borne of a terrible start under him and a seriously underfunded budget and only then being given the scope to bring in players that he wanted........but repeatedly avoiding relegation by the skin of our teeth; is that what we're at?

You can't justify keeping a manager who is (again) fighting relegation just because he avoided relegation last season can you?

I don't dislike the guy ~ liking or not liking is irrelevant ~ and in my heart I fear it has all been left to late to effect a defining change, but it's looking horribly ominous and the consequences don't bear thinking about.

westyorkshiregull wrote: ↑15 Feb 2017, 23:15 Merse your points you make I admire and your experience I value...is there a difference with a with a experienced manager working with a low budget and being paid a decent salary and one on peanuts doing same job with more passion
...I'm assuming we can't afford a manager that can do it on low salary and paid good money. ...though I dont k ow what nicho gets???
Say steve tully comes in...what's difference

It could (and needs to be) as simple as being able to set a team up, drill it and achieve clean sheets. Achieve a pattern of play that can deliver the ball intelligently to the striker(s) in the manner that best suites them and (I would say) get this goalkeeper to go back to distributing the ball as he did when he first came here....that he has changed his style cannot be simply down to him but a management insistence surely. It would help too of he commanded his box and stopped parrying instead of catching but let's not ask too much of the Popside's favourite American.

It's experience of working with low budget in a level of football that we exist in that is needed. There are managers doing it; there are managers doing it better than Nicho and there are managers who would come in and do it. 'Passion' doesn't come into it; where is his passion getting us?

I appreciate there is a huge swell of support for Nicholson and how revered he is but look at the league table, look at the downward trajectory and look at the increasingly possible consequences. Very soon the club will have no choice but to sit back and accept relegation if this continues.

westyorkshiregull wrote: ↑15 Feb 2017, 18:25 No one can argue that nicho has the club at heart but where does the line draw between loyalty and poor results and under achieving. I know it's sitting on fence but part of me would be happy for him to go if we got a manager with the proven record and or potential. However part of me thinks to be given a proper chance he should have a decent budget and sign players that are just not rejects.

My point of view too........no-one can argue he hasn't got the club in his heart or that the budget is low but that is immaterial if you take a businesslike and dispassionate view of it.

The job is NOT one for a learner, it is one for someone who HAS managed a low budget club and made a good job of it. The two implacable arguments will remain and there will always be those who love having a guy like that as the manager but also recognise there are those who believe it is a business and needs to be someone who CAN do the job under these circumstances.

There's no point in going round and round in circles. The club will either go down under him or just escape again and he'll be lauded as a hero by those with those expectations.

westyorkshiregull wrote: ↑15 Feb 2017, 16:07 who will do it for peanuts and peanuts to spend

You'd be better off asking who in the football club knows the people who undoubtedly exist who could and would within those constraints, have already worked within those constraints....it is my contention that the inability of the boardroom to recruit and select the right sort of qualified person to manage the club that is the root cause of the problem. Twice gifting the job as a retirement sop to their favourite ex player was not the road to go down and Thea Bristow (for Hargreaves) and the Balsons and Philips (for Nicholson) have to carry the can for that.

I know these managerial selections have been very popular amongst the same mind set in the fan base; and to some of you to criticise either of these unsuccessful appointments, the individuals themselves or the people who appointed them is tantamount to sacrilege but for God's sake look at the state of the club; wake up and smell the coffee!

It has positively the worst footballing infrastructure of any professional or semi professional club that I know of; an undeserved but reasonably loyal fan base it is incapable of utilising and a commercial dept that is incapable of maximising the facilities it has been gifted yet many other clubs in this league would die for.

Neal wrote: ↑15 Feb 2017, 14:33 If we are in the bottom 4 after the next 5 games Nicho should go. Doesn't mean a new manager would save us but might just might give us some hope. But he wont be sacked because GI don't care what league we are in unlike the fans. Wont want to spend money paying him up, less profit for them and less for development.

I think you're wide of the mark there; their acquisition becomes more of a liability in a lower league with lower crowds and less revenue coming in and if the manager is on the standard type of contract common in today's game; a place in the relegation slots makes him cheaper to fire than ever. As it is he must have missed most if not all of the targets in his contract and be skating on thin ice.

As it was Pete Masters who directed the manner in which he was engaged; I see no reason why Nicholson should be on any other type of contract and would be surprised if he wasn't......one more defeat should do for him.

I trust the club have already got the replacement lined up and ready to hit the ground running; I know Masters had but he didn't acquire the club as he expected to and so Nicholson survived.

It's a two way 'look at one another' arrangement as part of his work experience as a scholar pro who's current two year contract runs out on June 30th........don't knock it; we have just lost the pace of Fitzpatrick (he has it) and are down to bare bones yet again.

He's not the striker the manager is looking to sign either; but part of being a non league club at our level is working with these types of emerging player. It's the law of the jungle and the way of the football world.

tomogull wrote: ↑14 Feb 2017, 23:30 One of the six clubs Merse refers to is Eastleigh. For all their £££s, chopping and changing managers at least once a season hasn't helped them, has it?

No it is not Eastleigh! The clubs I was referring to are Sutton United, Braintree Town, Solihull Moors who are part-time, and Boreham Wood who are full-time on a very small budget with players supplementing their earnings by working in the club's development/academy system. Chester are the other full-time club in that group running on a very low budget.

It's not what you spend, it's how you spend it. The biggest playing budget in the Ryman League this season is at Billericay Town (c£9K a week) and they only sit halfway in the table! Eastleigh are an example of a club in the midst of change, are steadily increasing their gates to (now) better than Torquay's and are on a journey from Hampshire League football to who knows where. What sort of trajectory have Torquay United taken during that time?

You can bang on about 'Kev driving the bus', 'Kev doing the rounds of the local hospitals and schools'; 'Kev having a rough deal' as much as you like but the bottom line is his team are sinking and sinking fast towards relegation ~ a relegation that will be even more damaging than that of that other #legend Hargreaves when it crashed out of the Football League.

tomogull wrote: ↑15 Feb 2017, 00:12 Actually, I thought Fred Binney was the one player who wasn't given a fair chance by Frank O'Farrell, but he was at the club at the same time as Stubbsy and Tommy Northcott so his chances were limited. I think Frank was rather lukewarm about Binney's all action, hustling style. But he went on to be a prolific goalscorer, playing for Exeter (where he is still fondly remembered by old gits of our era), Brighton and Plymouth. Oh that we had a Fred Binney at Plainmoor now .....

Fred's dilemma was that he was just not good enough football wise to easily fit into a United side that was light years ahead of what we have now.........this was a top third division side pressing for promotion and as such Fred was trying to make the huge step from the South Western and then Western League and working in the dockyard for a living, training two evenings a week after travelling up from Plymouth to full-time status.

He overcame that lack of culture with sheer hard work and determination and in going to Exeter on loan at the time sent him to one of the League's weakest clubs of the time with just 16 professionals (rather like United now) and no other footballing structure. They provided a great grounding for the lad and he seized it with both hands.

Martin Gritton did a similar thing with Argyle under Kevin Hodges when he brought him in from Penzance and in the past Fred's contemporaries Mike Bickle and Derek Rickard did very well at Argyle when coming on from the South Western League.

I played against both Bickle and Rickard in that league and they were light years ahead of the norm. The SWL could have those players in those days because the structure of non league football in the south west was not what it is now........Tiverton, Dawlish and Exmouth were still in the Exeter & District League and they were the next step up available for any likely south Devon lads. United employed just two apprentices and a smattering of groundstaff boys from the Republic of Ireland and Scotland who (due to their nationality) were not eligible for apprenticeships. We all trained at Plainmoor on Tuesday and Thursday night after a day at work/college/school and those of my ability level were farmed out to Newton Spurs to play in the SWL or South Devon Premier League as teenagers in a tough men's environment.

We took some horrendous hidings in the SWL but with the experience of people like Don Mills, Tommy Northcott and George Northcott amongst us it never did us any harm. The 'nursery club' arrangement was a great idea and previously Spurs had been the nursery for Exeter City where some very good emerging youngsters first cut their teeth.

To my mind if United have got any sense they would be looking at Peninsula wannabees Watcombe Wanderers (now moved into their new ground at Newton Abbot, Liverton or even Buckland Athletic to be able to place young talent they take on next season where they can play at weekends whilst getting a more cultured involvement in a midweek league alongside the local development centres in the the U19 National Development League.

In that south west division they would have games against three different Chelsea Foundation set ups (from Devon & Cornwall) Swindon Town FICC, Argyle, Birmngham City (south west development centre) AFC Bournemouth (SW dev centre) Portsmouth (SW dev centre) and Exeter City.

Until Christmas I was managing (not coaching) a north London community project in a similar league going head to head with development sides from Crystal Palace, Barnet, QPR, Southampton, Cambridge United and Leyton Orient at weekends as well as midweek showcase visits to EPPP academies like Barnsley, Rotherham, Chesterfield, Luton, Yeovil, AFC Wimbledon , Oxford United and Cambridge United giving young academy drop outs and potential academy incumbents from north and east London a second chance and at the same time showing the pro' clubs just what is out there in comparison to what they currently have signed on.

You can see from this league set up how much competition there now is in the south west to monitor and hoover up developing football potential. United need to get busy and get busy NOW!

Alpine Joe wrote: ↑14 Feb 2017, 10:32 The calculation that I'd like merse to do, as he's at least likely to be able to make a more accurate guess than most of us,is the percentage decrease between what Lathrope was on and the new amount that Aldershot were offering to pay him.

I was told it was half his previous deal and you're assessment of how players are 'eased' out by managers who don't want/rate them is spot on; but then being pretty sure of your background 'Joe' I think you are familiar with that anyway.

Alpine Joe wrote: ↑14 Feb 2017, 10:32
At the moment, I can't help feeling the new deal might have been so pathetically small that Damon might have given it less than 10 seconds consideration or insinuated he'd be better off taking a job sweeping the Aldershot streets. ......and I'd be surprised if he hasn't taken a pay cut for this season in comparison to last.

Indeed, a derisory wage which you know the player isn't going to accept, in order to help ease him out the door and look for another club. Gary Waddock has been busily filling his squad with ambitious (3 to my knowledge; one the son of a friend of mine and another a playing acquaintance of my son) young players on rock bottom money combined with their educational packages. Players who have failed to get scholar pro' deals at top academies who decided to accept what Aldershot had to offer and then take up full (young) pro' terms on their seventeenth birthdays. Two of these three ~ Luca Wrightman-David and Manny Oyeleke (now 24) ~ have been immediately loaned out to Ryman Premier club Canvey Island to get competitive experience as well as continue to play in the Shots u18 side in midweek; the other ~ Idris Kanu ~ has gone into Waddock's first team squad.

That's what a manager with a proper footballing infrastructure can do and he won't want deadwood with fitness issues like Lathrope cluttering up the scene.

A lot of the players going into National League first team squads at a young age began their football journeys at the top academies; Wrightman-David at Arsenal and then Spurs, Kanu at West Ham and Oyeleke at Chelsea and then QPR proving that if you know your youth football you'll find your targets. It all boils down to contacts.

Good thinking Batman!

tomogull wrote: ↑13 Feb 2017, 22:20 As for losing to teams with part-time players, this has been discussed ad nauseum on here. Most of these part-time sides are situated in, or near, cities where it financlally pays better players than what we are able to attract (for £300 per week) to have two incomes. Options for similar part-time work here in Devon is limited.

I'm not advocating part-time status for Torquay United. In reality given that most weeks the players are given Mondays off and then might be travelling on the Friday they are only putting in the same three mornings a week clubs like Dover, Sutton and Bromley are. Maidstone stand almost alone as a part time club with evening training (just two and then sometimes only one if there is a midweek game) who are planning to go to the three morning a week arrangement next season.

What United need to do is take advantage of their full-time status and use their time as efficiently and sport scientifically as some of those part-time clubs.

Barrow overcome their particular geographical isolation by basing their training in Manchester, only going into Barrow on home match days. Dover do their's at Greenwich University and years ago Yeovil used the Metropolitan Police club in Molesey when they were a Ryman League club.

There are ways to overcome the perceived factors which some people see as the reason for the under achievement and those are three examples of clubs thinking outside the box to overcome their's

tomogull wrote: ↑13 Feb 2017, 22:20 If, for example, the player you are referring to is Dan Sparkes, that would not be surprising because he was part-time at Braintree.

It is not Dan Sparkes it is a player who was full-time last season; and I need to correct my original statement because the doubling of the money was double of what he was offered by his old club for this season and it's not 'knowing what goes on at Plainmoor' that came from within his old club.

arcadia wrote: ↑13 Feb 2017, 22:56 I am thinking that next season could be our last as we are in GI hands and they are not interested in the club. The council need to support the club by perhaps giving part of the land to the club so we have a stake in Plainmoor, all that money that the lady spent could have bought the ground.

But GI own the club so giving part of the land to 'the club' is giving it to GI ~ the worst thing Thea Bristow could have done was purchase the freehold for the club because the club was being run into the ground with reliance on her benevolence and when the club inevitably fell into someone else's hands the ground would have passed with it. It's far better that the ground's freehold stays with the council or falls into the hands of the trust.

Had Thea Bristow 'bought the ground' and then given it to the trust that would be a different matter wouldn't it; but under the previous board and with them under the influence of Pete Masters, the trust have been treated as pariahs

tomogull wrote: ↑13 Feb 2017, 22:26 It's not the 'judgement of the management'. Jamie Reid plays because he's what we can afford. Full stop.

There are managers with smaller budgets in this league than Kevin Nicholson; managers who are achieving more.....the managers of five of the immediate six above Torquay United for a start ~ and three of them are part-time.

It's not YOUR judgement though is it; it's the judgement of a failing management that sees the club in the position it is in the table ~ a management team that has persisted with Reid all season