What a difference ........

[CP Gull]

..... two years can make!

Two years (and a couples of weeks) ago, we had just survived relegation out of the Football League under Alan Knill and season ticket sales stood at 834 !!!!!

http://www.torquayunited.com/news/artic ... 28671.aspx

Two years on, and with the absolutely disastrous management of the football club both ON and OFF the field, not only are we faced with the club (or more accurately Thea Bristow) having posted estimated losses totalling £1 million for the two years ending at the end of this month, but we are also no longer a member of the Football League and are in a complete state of limbo with the ownership of the club. ... and now we learn that the club has sold the princely sum of 57 (yes fifty seven!!!) season tickets so far for next season!

http://www.torquayheraldexpress.co.uk/T ... story.html?

Personally I am struggling to comprehend what has happened over the last few months to bring us to this sorry situation. The whole process has, in my opinion, been horrendously mismanaged by not only Thea Bristow but the whole of the Board of TUFC.

I fail to see why Thea Bristow needed to go to the totally unnecessary expense of "employing" Kelvin Thomas in the first place - money that would have been better spent on TUFC! He ( Thomas) has been an unmitigated disaster as far as his main role was concerned - disposing of Thea's shares, and is now no doubt sitting by his poolside in Florida patting himself on the back for a job well done in earning himself a nice little pile of ( Thea's ) cash over the last six months or so, whilst at the same time (incredulously) still finding that Thea wishes to thank him enormously for all the help he has given her!!!!

In my opinion, Thea should have saved her money, used the people she has confidence in ( Alex Rowe perhaps???) and not have gone public on her desire to dispose of her majority interest back in January. Instead she should quietly have put out feelers to those who may have been interested.

Let's face it, as things stand, the most likely (fingers crossed) new owners of TUFC are likely to be made up of a consortium led by her own Commercial Manager and it seems a group of loyal fans and sponsors .... in other words, they were right "under her nose" and yet she has seen fit to waste (no doubt) tens of thousands of £s on the "consultancy" advice of Kevin Thomas .... who, we should remind ourselves, only came to HER attention because he represented a body of people that had expressed their own interest in buying TUFC!!!!

Her next mistake was to hand over her shares to the "remaining" Directors of TUFC a couple of weeks ago following the failed bid by Truro City Chairman Peter Masters (allegedly) which fell through ( allegedly) when his team (Truro City FC) gained promotion to the Conference South - in other words just one league below us! Given his (alleged) withdrawal based on the result of a football match ( the Southern League Play Off Final - which Truro won) you really do have to question what it was that possessed Thea and Kelvin Tnomas to give them ( allegedly) exclusivity rights when if these facts are true,he appears to have been more concerned with Truro City and a potential ground share at Plainmoor than he ever was in running TUFC (allegedly).

As for the Directors she has entrusted her majority share with, with the greatest respect to Messrs Phillips, Palk and Coote - the "remaining" Directors we are led to believe - how can it be that those who have probably contributed (financially) close to the least amount of £s during the existence of this consortium - based on information freely available from Companies House - are now, it seems, left with the whole future of TUFC in their hands??? Whilst not wishing to denigrate the efforts made by these gentlemen - I don't know the inner workings of the Board sufficiently well to make such comment - it does seem strange that those who seemingly have "contributed" the least (well almost) financially are now trusted with the responsibility of choosing the next owner(s) by the ONE person (Thea Bristow) whose contribution (together with her late husband Paul) has completely dwarfed that of these three gentlemen - to the extent that, in the words of Bill Phillips himself, you could call their contribution "small beer" (a rather disparaging remark he recently made about the funds available to TUST) by way of comparison.

Personally, my first doubts about the competency of this Board started several years ago when they first posted a huge loss (c £700k?) in June of that year .... after a Fans Forum in January of that year when the then Chairman Simon Baker suggested ( when asked) that we were looking at a more or less a break even figure for that trading year!!!! Unfortunately, nothing they have done since has suggested that they were ever really on top of the finances - the impression being that everyone just sat back and let Thea write out the cheques regardless of the consequences for the future .... and sadly (for her personally) just to prove the point, as we know, Thea ended up having to write off loans of c £3 million - which only goes to prove that that was surely pretty much what happened in the intervening years.

All that is left, is the hope that there is a "future" for TUFC. I stop short of saying "a better future" for TUFC as I am not sure that that is possible given that Thea Bristow seems to have personally underwritten losses of c £500k it seems for the last half a dozen years - not sustainable surely without a mega rich individual with more money than sense rocking up - which as we have been " FOR SALE" for 6 months or so ow, seems highly unlikely to say the least!!!

I just hope that the Edwards consortium can get their takeover of the club through and that we can stabilise the club (our best hope for now) but you do worry that there are "skeletons lurking in the cupboard" .... no doubt based around ££ ... which might still see this deal fail. For the future of TUFC you just hope and pray that any problems can be overcome.

[Southampton Gull]

In Thea's defence she had little choice but to get out while she could. Not sure how you can conclude that Kelvin Thomas cost her a significant sum but even if he did there were few options open to Thea. For her sake I'm glad she no longer has to fund the losses, her family have done more than enough to get out without any criticism. I do think giving the current board her shares was a mistake but it was her decision to make and I'm sure she did it with the best intentions.

Without her or her late husbands generosity we would have been in this position several years ago. The warning signs were always there and we now face what we deserve for allowing total amateurs to run the club. I preached about this time and time again but take no satisfaction in being proved right, the situation now has long been on the cards. Fingers crossed we will still have a club to support next season, no matter what league we find ourselves in, that's what is most important.

[Dave]

I just hope that the Edwards consortium can get their takeover of the club through and that we can stabilise the club (our best hope for now) but you do worry that there are "skeletons lurking in the cupboard" .... no doubt based around ££ ... which might still see this deal fail. For the future of TUFC you just hope and pray that any problems can be overcome.

That's a cracking read as normal Chris, I haven't quoted it all for the sake of those who administrate this forum, however this paragraph ties in very nicely with this paragraph in the latest H/E article.

Edwards, whose group has been grappling with a problematic report (due diligence) on the club's finances, has remained positive about their takeover hopes this week.

http://www.torquayheraldexpress.co.uk/T ... story.html

There's has been reports coming out for some time that Thea was leaving the club debt free, I've wondered all the way along whether this was truly the case, and have posted about this for many weeks, even before the season ended. Only reading between the lines here, it maybe the case that the club has greater financial liabilities then first thought, maybe greater than the finances of the Edwards consortium, as said theory only.

[PlainmoorRoar]

In Thea's defence she had little choice but to get out while she could. Not sure how you can conclude that Kelvin Thomas cost her a significant sum but even if he did there were few options open to Thea. For her sake I'm glad she no longer has to fund the losses, her family have done more than enough to get out without any criticism. I do think giving the current board her shares was a mistake but it was her decision to make and I'm sure she did it with the best intentions.

Without her or her late husbands generosity we would have been in this position several years ago. The warning signs were always there and we now face what we deserve for allowing total amateurs to run the club. I preached about this time and time again but take no satisfaction in being proved right, the situation now has long been on the cards. Fingers crossed we will still have a club to support next season, no matter what league we find ourselves in, that's what is most important.

[CP Gull]

Not sure how you can conclude that Kelvin Thomas cost her a significant sum but even if he did there were few options open to Thea.

Just surmising Dave. It is based purely on the assumption that Kelvin Thomas himself has gone on record, I believe, in saying that a club like TUFC with a turnover of what £2.5 million - probably couldn't afford to employ him as a Chief Executive - from a little while back! In other words, a professional person like him doesn't "come cheap" and given that he was effectively acting as CEO for much of his time (4 months or so) here I can imagine it may have been quite a costly exercise for Thea particularly given that in the end he failed in his "mission". I don't have any facts to back this up, nor is it based on hearsay, I would imagine that in reality only Thea and her closest confidants know how much he (Thomas) really cost her, but my gut instinct tells me that someone like him, spending 4 or 5 months away from his other business interests, not to mention his family, back in the U.S. would not do so for small change!

As for other options, I am sure her good friend (for one) Alex Rowe could have provided similar support and advice ... the fact that she didn't feel confident in the other members of the Board to assist her ... speaks volumes to me.

As for the rest of what you say Dave, I am in full agreement, I have every sympathy for Thea and am truly grateful for all the money that she (and her late husband Paul) has put into the club over a number of years, I just feel (as I am sure you do) that she has been badly let down by those around her and just feel that if she had her time (and that of TUFC) over again she might have made different decisions in the running of the club. The first and foremost of those should have been in appointing a fit for purpose Chief Executive/Finance Director to make sure that EVERY penny of the FORTUNE that she spent on TUFC was invested wisely .... rather than frittered away, which sadly seems to have been the case in some instances.

In conclusion, I should add that I do not wish to come across as in any way attacking what Thea Bristow has done for this football club - you only need to look at Plainmoor today for evidence of that - the infrastructure at the club has improved massively over the last eight years - but I just wish that she had done things a little differently in terms of how the club was run. I believe she probably feels exactly the same way too, given her recent comments about how she wished she had employed someone like Kelvin Thomas a lot sooner than she did. At the end of the day, losing half a million quid a year - on a turnover of little more than £2-3 million a year is clearly not sustainable for a club like TUFC .... and ultimately not for the Bristow family either.

[PhilGull]

Agree that Thea has done more than enough to avoid criticism. I knew (as did many) that she has been covering running losses for a long time - losses which would likely have seen us disappear before Hereford and co.

Can you really blame her for not looking to her commercial manager et al. as potential owners of the club though? It's hardly an attractive option to someone who wants the best for the club, as the newspapers have had us to believe that they will have limited resources at best? We know that the club has been haemorrhaging cash for a long time, especially in recent months with p*ss poor gates, a rapidly apathetic core of support and a management and playing staff that looked completely incapable. I can't see how we can "cut our cloth" drastically enough to fit our likely reality next season, of having more poor football, a further reduced budget, and gates of under 1500 - without having ownership that can continue to put some money into the club whilst we gradually reduce our outgoings to something more sustainable. Now, although the reality is that few people are likely to want to invest their money (with no return) into TUFC without some existing affinity to the club, can we blame Thea for putting the club out there into the national spotlight in the hope that some investors with clout and a love for football might take up the offer?

As for "skeletons in the closet" and red flads, surely the operating costs would be the red flag in the due diligence compared to the break-even figures from the gates and commercial revenue? As I assume that at the moment, these are some way apart??

Kelvin Thomas - I don't have a clue what he has done since he arrived. Shouldn't the other directors have been able to provide the support that he's supposedly been brought in to provide? All I've seen is this c*ock up with the Truro guy Masters.

I can't say I'm surprised to see it come to this. Lack of ambition when we were on the brink of League 1, selling players too cheap, poor managerial appointments and handling of the Ling situation, 2 year contracts under Knill, a complete lack of communication with the fans and allowing the support to fall under a growing cloud of apathy were poor moves, financial neglect and and large wages on average players are all obvious mistakes. I think if the club had been open with the fans about the situation, then a lot of the animosity and apathy would have kept the fans onside and the clubs reputation would be a lot more credible. As it stands, we're flogging a dead horse IMO as so much damage has been done in such a short space of time.

Sums it up pretty well. When the original consortium took over in 2007 they identified their lack of knowledge in football and appointed Colin Lee, since he left we seem to have been devoid of any football knowledge at board level.
We seem to have this reputation within the game as little ol' Torquay, quaint Torquay, they're lovely people down there, not a frigging clue what they're doing and ripe for a good fleecing but lovely people. The transfer fees we have received over the last few years just seem pathetic. When you think what Mike Bateson used to get for players 15-20 years ago and we get similar fees or less now, despite seemingly every other club able to command much higher amounts. I remain convinced that had they been somewhere else both O'Kane and Olejnik could have been million pound players or certainly more than a few hundred grand each.
I was a fan of Buckle and Lee but there always seemed to be something bubbling under ready to explode in everyones faces. We've been on a downward spiral ever since they left really. From 4 play-offs in 5 years to mid-table Conference mediocrity, so sad.
I read Garry Nelson's book a while back (for the umpteenth time), we seemed so amateurish, scrabbling around for a bit of grass to train on, desperately looking for any old players to scrape a squad together and yet so much more stable than we have been for the last 5 years.

[Neal]

Cant believe Im hearing some positives re Bateson. As he has been slaughtered on forums over the years and at the time he owned the club. I know probably not the same people but I was always a supporter of his so Ive noticed the negativity towards him. He actually used to contribute to the forum until he got fedup with all the sh*t being espoused on it.

I agree with some of what you say PhilGull and some I don't. I also was a fan of Buckle, and he has been slaughtered on here too, in fact on a personal level he is a good bloke, and I do know that from a personal level. And he was a success for us. However none of us know the what was going on behind the scenes financially, and what state we were actually in then. But it doesn't matter now, its what it is now. And to harp on why we are where we are wont help, what will is supporting TUST and being ready to roll up "YOUR" sleeves.

[PhilGull]

Cant believe Im hearing some positives re Bateson. As he has been slaughtered on forums over the years and at the time he owned the club. I know probably not the same people but I was always a supporter of his so Ive noticed the negativity towards him. He actually used to contribute to the forum until he got fedup with all the sh*t being espoused on it.

I agree with some of what you say PhilGull and some I don't. I also was a fan of Buckle, and he has been slaughtered on here too, in fact on a personal level he is a good bloke, and I do know that from a personal level. And he was a success for us. However none of us know the what was going on behind the scenes financially, and what state we were actually in then. But it doesn't matter now, its what it is now. And to harp on why we are where we are wont help, what will is supporting TUST and being ready to roll up "YOUR" sleeves.

I would agree that we need to concentrate on now and the future but we need to make sure we learn lessons of the recent past. How we went from being one of the richest clubs in the Conference to the verge of League One to now end up where we are is a story that needs telling so that we don't end up making the same mistakes.