Torquay United Fans Forum

I suppose it shows how quickly contacts can achieve outcomes! Shame we don't seem to have any...

Paul Trollope? Charlie Oatway? Alan McLoughlin?

Embarrassing!

The football world must be laughing at us.

We might as well have told the world that Messi had signed for us and kidded ourselves he would be happy to do that for free and unformalised without anyone else noticing and pinching him.

So we have a manager that the fans have no confidence in, the board has no confidence in and the players have no confidence in but is seemingly unsackable - meanwhile the one man who might have provided some stability in terms of a sensible retained last and a eye on several potential players for next year sails off into the night.

By the way I don't blame Paul Sturrock one bit but I am extremely bitter that the leadership vacuum at this club has taken us to this new low ebb.

Clueless. This is where complacency anout performance on the pitch gets you...

Would be happy to see Young, Bowman, Briscoe, Ajala, MacDonald, Richards ( please someone help restore this poor lad's confidence which has been destroyed this season by poor management) here next year - Downes, though I like, has been making game losing mistakes for two years, ditto Rice, Pearce - under the right manager should be the stand out player but again frequently costs us matches ( often through poor positional sense).

Guessing Ives will go anyway but wouldn't want him to have to be first choice left back next year.

We need wholesale changes in defence - birth full backs and a partner for MacDonald ( agree- experience crucial).

Its ironic, and perhaps symptomatic of how far we have fallen, to reflect on the difference Nicholson, Oastler, Lathrope and Mansell could have made to this side .

Totally agree with tomogull

I really want to hear how Chris Hargreaves accounts for the dazzling form in September after an awful start and why the team was never able to recapture anything close to that form - if he is unable to analyse how he turned it round after Gateshead etc and then how and why the form dipped again then how can he conceivably have a future here - yeah yeah we know they're young, inexperienced, inconsistent etc but what was it? I think given the disastrous disciplinary problem that helped signal the end of the form that the dressing room was lost from quite early on.

Yes I was very surprised to hear Dave Thomas effectively comment this afternoon that this standard of footballer was all we could afford so there was no choice...mmmm...when you've seen the self same group perform much much better and then also look at the teams with even smaller ( often much smaller) budgets looking down on us from above you have to criticise and ask questions - motivation, spirit, discipline, work ethic, application, development of talent - LEADERSHIP! A decent manager or coach - and let's not forget Hargreaves was actually a coach so should be all about player development, would be getting more out of these guys - it's never looked like they were playing for him from the beginning - we started abysmally in August and I'd like to explore how this was turned around and translated into our successful run as it can't just gave been luck! What brought about the reversal in fortune first time round and why was that reversal impossible to achieve thereafter?

Hugely positive and , crucially, timely. So often we've seen appointments made too late, with retained lists already decided and then the close season almost over before anyone of any gravitas is brought in to effect change. Sturrock has contacts, he has respect and experience - leadership! Finally! Can't see hodges post being viable for much longer and then it's a case of egos and personalities - ultimately thus must signal time on Hargreaves' tenure. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point. Sturrock will have absorbed all the necessary data and has seen at first hand how each individual has(not) performed - how long Hargreaves will feel able to dance to Sturrock's tune will remain to be seen.

Leadership, as the previous posters cited, is exactly what has been missing since Martin Ling became unwell. That is at every level - pitch, management and board level.

So so many mistakes this season.

I have to confess that releasing Mansell and Nicholson would have been my choice too, however experience is exactly what this side lacks.

A director of football is desperately required. We need contacts, some objective thinking and experience upstairs - sadly had this been forthcoming two seasons ago then we wouldn't be where we are now.

I wonder who will do the job for a couple of buttons and magic beans?

Just a thought...how about a greatest ever goals feature?

Thanks for this fascinating feature! It's helped throw a little sunshine onto an otherwise awful season.

I was one of the tardy posters who didn't get his act together to vote and is now regretting not getting Paul Smith, Wes Saunders and Jim McNichol on the board - travesty!

Remember Elliot Benyon giving Barnes an absolute roasting for his attitude and team ethic in a game when he was on loan here ...how fortunes change!

I think Rodney deserves it - that night against Scarbrough with his two ruthless and single minded assaults on goal, the actual assault on him leading to the Scarbrough red card, that wonder goal from Steve McCall which was just a thing of aesthetic beauty and the team goal for Gibbs - together with the atmosphere was just sublime. Kind of summed up his contribution to the club that night - if only we had hung onto Jason Roberts for the run in ..

Actually, it struck me having seen players of the like of Sturridge and Roberts in the list, that until quite recent retirements a team of former Gulls operating in the football league / premier league could be quite handy!
1 kelvin davis ( Southampton)
2 Adam smith ( Bournemouth)
3 Liam rosenior (hull)
4 Garry monk ( Swansea)
5 Mike Williamson ( Newcastle)
6 Ben Pringle ( Rotherham)
7 eunan okane ( Bournemouth)
8 Ashley Barnes ( burnley)
9 Jason Roberts ( reading)
10 Jamie ward ( Derby)
11 muzzy caryol Middlesbrough)

Not a bad side!

Amazing when you consider some of the forgotten players....

Wes Saunders, Paul Smith, Phil Lloyd, Ian Twitchen, Charlie Oatway, Paul Trollope, Sean Joyce, Paul Hall, Dean Edwards, Alan McLoughlin, Don O Riordan, Phil King, Colin Anderson, Jim McNichol, Justin Fashanu, Duane Darby, Steve MCalll..all significant players from the past - certainly amazed Saunders didn't make the list!