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Maybe a HE reporter should sit behind the goal as a target for our players?
I am sure D Thomas or R Hughes would oblige!!

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

...the worst thing is, he gets PAID to write an article about how he got hit in the face with a football. Without much invention or style, either, although with plenty of passive-aggression towards the abilities of 'young Mr Hancox'. What a tit.

madgull wrote:...the worst thing is, he gets PAID to write an article about how he got hit in the face with a football. Without much invention or style, either, although with plenty of passive-aggression towards the abilities of 'young Mr Hancox'. What a tit.

Exactly my thoughts when I first read it. Yet another example of a journalist who believes he is the news rather than somebody who reports the news!

got hit in the face in the Mini Stand when I was very young by a blaster from Micky Cave. painful briefly, but a moment I still 'treasure' !!!Perhaps I should write an article about it Guy ?

Oh come on-the article was very "tongue in cheek" and Guy's column is one of the best things in the Herald these days.He's a Gulls supporter through and through-and has supported them all his life.Some of his articles in the past about what it's like to be a TUFC supporter are excellent and witty, and his love for the club always shines through.

I thought it was quite a funny write up - anything is better than banging on about our 'relegation battle'. If you listened to the HE podcast you'll know that Guy rates Hancox.

It's always funny to see people being hit with the ball. Don't know why but there are always huge guffaws of laughter. Can remember a ball being hit up so high it was beyond the glare of the floodlights - it emerged from the darkness into light. A young bloke was walking along the bit in front of the old stand towards the Ellacombe End with his girlfriend - hand in hand - the ball hit him on the right side of his head and then hit his girlfriend on the left side of her face. The whole stand erupted in laughter.

Same happened to me once a few year back. I had just started to walk round from the Pop side with my money bag and I got an almighty thump on the back of my head from a wild clearance by Nicco. I clung on the bag and got back up to find that there wasn't much sympathy from the stand but Nicco was very apologetic!

As to any criticism of Guy, fair enough if it's objective but, as has been stated by others, he's a fan even if he is a Welshman! It was all very tongue in cheek as his pennings often are in his regular column.

He writes in a style that reminds of the late Brian Carter's wonderful articles on local football that were the other reason that I would buy the 'buff' in the old days.

Will Hancox may feature for Bideford at Dorchester Town this evening.

Sorry to here of your misfortune, I just wanted to thank you for giving me my first belly aching, tear rolling, read this year. you really should have taken a photo for us! sorry....rtflmao. sorry....

can confirm; it's funny. Happened to me once at Plainmoor. We were playing Northampton in our glorious 03/04 season. Hockley did a typically Hockley challenge, blasting the ball into touch...hit me square in the face. Glasses flew off, got a nosebleed.

My friends thought it was hilarious, the swines.

I'll give you a funny but embarassing one, it wasnt funny at the time, but I am pleased to say not many saw it.

Torquay used to train right by where I lived at Clennon Valley a lot when I was a kid. Sometimes I would stroll past and watch them train, sometimes a few of us were having a kick about.

This day we a few of us were kicking about, the team were training, a ball comes our way, I was nearest. Here we go I thought, kick the ball back, show my team what I can do, chance to impress, I'm gonna send one of my cultured, accurate long balls over. Little step up, concentrate, here comes my guided missile, watch this TUFC - booted it, sliced it, ball hardly got off the ground, skewed sideways and I landed on my ass. My mates and a few of the players who saw were pissing themselves. :Oops: :no: :no: :-|

I did end up at TUFC under 16's a little while later though, but thats another story.

Tomogull, stefano, brucie and other connoisseurs of the past will remember John Spencer. The funniest incident I ever witnessed at Plainmoor was not a spectator being hit on the head with the ball, but a player. I was an afternoon match in (possibly) late November in the old Fourth Division, we were playing York City and losing. Spencer, a left half (number six) was returning to the Torquay half after York had been given a goal kick. Their 'keeper took it quickly; Spencer was unprepared, trotting casually back to his half as the ball entered into a trajectory aimed straight for his head. The crowd (always over 4000 in those days [we were known as 'the faithful four thousand']) saw what was coming. The shouts started, grew louder..and louder...and lou der... but Spencer carried on regardless. The inevitable happened; he was hit square on the back of the head. And, as the singers of 'Tell Laura I Love Her' observed, 'the crowd roared...'

My uncle always relays a tale from Plainmoor in the 50s or 60s, where in the old Cowshed at the Ellacombe (Pre-Mini Stand apparently), a stray shot hit a man in the head and bounced over the stand to the area where the swimming pool is.

When the ball was hit back over from someone outside, it apparently hit the same man on the head again, on the way back in. Sounds a bit urban myth to me but my uncle often repeats this tale and swears it's true.

I remember the cowshed, but wasn't there some kind of primitive roof on it?