Torquay United Fans Forum

culmstockgull wrote: 13 May 2025, 13:40 Your comments in the short time you have been on the forum all seem to be about what the club are not doing well and even what they are doing is wrong or insufficient to meet your exacting standards, kowoing we are under new ownership, effectively debt free what exactly do you propose that is realistic enough to be achievable by any club in the south let alone Torquay.

culmstockgull wrote: 13 May 2025, 07:36 As the saying goes, Rome was not built in a day, there can be little arguement that we over achieved last season considering the starting part. To rebuild a club is not an overnight operation and while we keyboard warriors argue whether this or that potential signing to be of benefit to the team behind the scenes the baord are building long term infrastructure where there was scant little before.
Part ime or full time, what the last two seasons have shown me is that it matters little, we have been turned over by any number of teams who on paper should have run out of steam by halftime. Local players or from the islands of scotland, again its the strength of character that matters most, going home after each match to see family in an environment that you have grown up in as opposed to a room in the gulls house must be a bonus to any player.
This coming seasons acquisitions will be more measured, will they all be a success, definetlely not, I believe trawling the lower leagues for that one rough diamond for us is a waste of time, it is a full time role for many clubs with far better scouting set ups and more shrewd eyes than we can bring to bear.
We have a defensive line up as good as any in the league, at times a talented forward line and we all agree where the strengthening needs to occur and
more inprtantly so does Wotton, lets just see what he pulls out of the bag.

Taelee73 wrote: 12 May 2025, 19:30 Who were you expecting them to bring in?

Wotton did a fantastic job at Truro, he knows this league, he’s based fairly locally I assume, he knows Warnock (even if it doesn’t mean a never ending supply of loans, it does add his well known name to Torquay Utd and his experience for Wotton to use if necessary). Im guessing Wotton was probably not too expensive to prise away from Truro or was he out of contract, I’ve no idea, same with his salary here or for how long, but maybe it’s a prove yourself deal. He’s up and coming, the right age and experience, good connections with Plymouth and Yeovil. I really don’t know who else we could have got at short notice, that was available and fancied the challenge.

A fantastic choice by the club and the fact they sold the idea of where they wanted the club to go to someone who knew we still owed money, the budget wouldn’t be huge, and we had one player on the books as we entered June was it?

As for next season, I assume we’ll try a mixture of experienced players, some unknowns, maybe a ‘marquee’ signing from the names suggested, maybe look at Lapslie, Booth, if WJD has no interest from elsewhere, then if Wotton has interest in him. In our position we have to look around us, to Truro, Yeovil, Weston, even Exeter castoffs, to bring a player from further away we would have to sell the idea to them, as everyone will be looking to do the same from every club around the country.

In the future maybe we can start paying pay a fee if it’s justified, but we’re not in that position yet, we have to see what our ST sales and attendances stay at next season. Will the prices stay the same? You’d hope the 3000 mark becomes the new normal no matter the football on display although hopefully now we have a strong defence we can start to add pace and guile. If they budget is based on guaranteed sustainable income then will it be increased slightly? Funds need spending on new ways of bringing in revenue, maybe Plainmoor needs more money spending on it. I’m sure they are looking and learning from the season just gone, and hopefully we’ll hear about plans for the youth development soon, as the opportunity to bring on our own players will benefit the team and our bank account if we sell them on.

In my mind the owners and Wotton have got far more right than wrong.

Dave wrote: 11 May 2025, 18:29 Well the 5000 crowds would never happen from the start of next season, the acid test will be whether attendances return to the 3,000 plus of last season or not, and the fact that, despite the football being dire more often than not our attendances only got bigger as the season went on, showing most fans are backing the club, and would rather line the pockets of TUFC, than DAZN as small numbers others seem to prefer (of course that doesn't apply to those who can't get to the games) If an individual fan support next season for TUFC is conditional on who our club signs, then I suggest, each person should question whether supporting TUFC is right for them and maybe they should consider Liverpool or someone. But enough of that, don't want this thread going off topic because of anything I've posted.


For a start this whole we might pick a few up from Truro is just pure speculation, and Wotton isn't sat at home waiting rubbing his hands together at the thought, that said, if the right player from Truro became available, of course he'd interested, this may be hard for some to comprehend, but over 46 games they were better than us, so why wouldn't he.

If some TUFC fans are waiting in the hope the club spunks north of £1.5 million on wages for ex EFL players to smash up the NLS, they're going to very disappointed. And this notion that some how if a player isn't from London, the North, or outer Hebrides then their no good, just shows how utterly narrow minded some of our fan base really is, good job Brentford and Aston Villa didn't think that way, or England as the humble lad Watkins who was is from Newton Abbot regardless of being born in Torbay hospital scored the winning goal v Holland at the Euros. Not forgetting those teams full of South West based losers who finished 1st and 2nd, the theory doesn't stack up so well.

Wonder what some would say if maybe Wotton signed Coulson and Pearson from WSM, I went to 1.1 draw up there, these two players were head and shoulders better than anything we had, but they play for Weston and they only finished 8th, so signing them would obviously be poor, and lack ambition ( not suggesting them as potential signings) As long as new recruits are better than what the club had, don't care where they've come from.

culmstockgull wrote: 11 May 2025, 09:01 Your comments make no sense.

UnitedinDevon wrote: 11 May 2025, 08:14 And you appear to have no concept of what a budget is

There's no endless pot of money here, if we can pick up some squad depth for good money to then enable us to add some pace and quality - that's going to cost more - then I'm all for it

UnitedinDevon wrote: 10 May 2025, 17:28 Seeing as we signed a whole new squad last summer i think you know the answer to that

An opportunity to pick up a title winning player or 2 who would be interested in playing/ live locally / will fit into our budget structure sounds pretty sensible to me

Southampton Gull wrote: 10 May 2025, 10:24 Tyler Harvey would be welcomed by me.

UnitedinDevon wrote: 10 May 2025, 08:50 They'll be a 1 or 2 in from Truro if a couple of rumours I've heard come true, their change of circumstance will leave some with a decision around their part time work

LikeaPatOutaHele wrote: 08 May 2025, 23:26 Not the slightest bit surprised that Will Jenkins-Davies was released by Plymouth.
Plenty of energy, not a bad in front of goal but basically just a reasonably ok NLS player.
I am continually surprised that so many supporters rate him so highly.
Torquay are obviously short of the quality necessary to win this division. It is essential that we sign a number of players better than what we have at present.
He is far from being our best midfielder in an area where we are deficient and in need of significant improvement.
Let's not fall into the lazy Gary Johnson ploy of re-signing players simply because it is easy. It will take a lot of work, but we must strive to recruit to progress the squad.

culmstockgull wrote: 06 May 2025, 14:11 Your inference that bigger crowds bring promotion was one you assigned to a comment I never made, I said bigger crowds equates to more finance and therefore the opportunity to obtain better players and logically winning more games with promotion as a goal.
I am not sure what you know about the club but from someone who has actually been supporting the club for well over 50 years we have advanced more in one season than many clubs evolve in two generations. We are a debt free club, we are run by fans for the fans , how many clubs can claim that statement. Many have said, myself included that promotion this year was always a tall order, if you saw the way Boreham ran us ragged on saturday then the gulf in class shows we were never ready for promotion , that was not on the club or the manager or even the players as a whole just that we lacked the quality needed for that final push.

culmstockgull wrote: 06 May 2025, 10:03 You are being economical with the truth and more inprtantly the facts, we were not sure even in June last year whether we had a club to play in any league, the team was thrown together from amongst what was generally available and with what we could afford, because of the time constraints there was no scouting, very little pre season trial players, what we achieved with that group was amazing and surprised many.
Th season before under johnson was just civil war, the fans on one side and Johnson and the owners on the other, I am convinced Johnson knew full well the ultimate plans of our previous owner were , certainly even before the more well informed fan did. So the two last seasons are as different as chalk and cheese. What a strong fanbase and bigger corwds brings you is finance to achieve that next step.

UnitedinDevon wrote: 04 May 2025, 10:43 Bizarre