Paul buckle

[Bridportgull]

I see Paul buckle is on our list of top 5 managers for us to vote on ???
Does anyone know where he is now ?? Just interested , when you way it up he was one our most successful managers ?
Your thoughts would be appreciated

[Glostergull]

I am pretty sure you will find he now lives in the US with his wife Rebecca Lowe. Who he married on 13th June on a Greek Island called Santorini.
Rebecca Lowe was recruited by ESPN for their programme following the Premier League in the States, It is possible they still both live in the UK as the Premier league is over here but I suspect they have left our shores.
He will always be remembered as the guy who got us back in the league and did have quite a large measure of playing success here, But that will always be tempered by the knowledge that he signed a contract with Bristol Rovers 4 weeks before he left all the while telling us he hadn't decided to leave until after the Wembley final. All the Time Rovers Chairman was telling us he had signed 4 weeks before.
How he could possibly have not known the Rovers Chairman was saying the opposite to him I really don't know. The rest is Geography!!
So he won't figure as highly as most. It must also be remembered he sank us at Wembley and actually played more Games for our Arch Rival than any other team. I know it's not really relevant to his managerial career, but I suspect he was a Grecian at Heart.

[Bridportgull]

Thanks glostergull was Rebecca Lowe the pretty lady??
Understand what you meant about rovers but he sank very quickly after wards Bristol , Luton and now?? But as was written he did rebuild our sqaud and 3 are still here today

[usagullmichigan]

Just google the word cock and Buckle will be the main results or find the anagram of his name in Scu nthorpe. Happy days

[cambgull]

For all the cons that Buckle brought us, I still think the pros outweigh them. He took us to Wembley multiple times whilst playing good, enjoyable football. I would certainly put him in my top 5.

[lucy6lucy]

In my opinion he did dig us out of the brown stuff, we where a team in turmoil when he took the job. In the 4 years he managed us we had 3 playoff seasons, a promotion and wembley cup final. This success led him to look bigger, sadly for him he got it wrong, we all make mistakes. His biggest mistake was his ego. I will vote for him over rosenior and knowles purely because we had 4 years of good feel factor

[Fonda]

Buckle did a decent job, but he had significant advantages our other managers never had - essentially money. He was very fortunate to take over at the one time in our history that the club benefitted from a more than competitive budget, expectancy was low, and he received the kind of back-room assistance others didn't. He was pretty much playing Championship manager in that season, simply identifying the best players in the division and asking Colon Lee to go and get them, which he did.
Leroy will always be my personal favourite. He achieved automatic promotion - into League 1, with none of the 'advantages listed above. He inherited a decent squad, but played the most cavalier attacking football of any Torquay team I remember. There were some excellent teams in the division that season, but we were widely considered the most attractive. At no other time have I visited an away ground supporting Torquay, and having the away fans clapping our coach as we left due to the quality of entertainment our team provided, as happened at Cheltenham.
Cyril's team was also superb and it's only the style of Leroy's team that puts him above Cyril (who I have to be honest, is probably more deserving). Kevin Hosges was also somewhat underrated.

[tktufc91]

I'll give Buckle credit for getting us out of the conference in just two years. Even though the board gave him the finances to sign the better players, getting out of the conference is a difficult task. Just ask the likes of Luton, Wrexham, Kiddiminster etc who are still down there.

We went from a team with hardly any players and club morale at an all time low to a team who finished both seasons in the play offs, 2 Wembley appearances, a record unbeaten run (I happened to witness the painful end to that run at a cold Eastbourne) and ultimately promotion back to the League.

The way he handled the Rovers situation really was bad but in the end, all I have to say to that is Bristol Rovers 1 Torquay United 2. What an away day

Just wish he stuck around long enough for the return match.

[stefano]

I think the club got it spot on with the 5 they put forward. Football is a results business and Buckle achieved results at least on a par with the others on the list so he could not be left out. For me it is a toss up between Eric Webber and Frank O'Farrell with I think Webber just edging it. Our longest serving manager and an immense influence in the centre of defence at the start, he took us to the brink of Division 2 (Championship) missing out on the last day on goal average to Ipswich Town managed by future England manager and World Cup winner Alf Ramsey (Ipswich went on to win Division 1 (Premiership) just 5 years later). Other highlights included hauling us out of the newly formed Division 4 at the 2nd attempt, thrashing Leeds United captained by the legendary John Charles 4-0 in the FA Cup after a 2-2 draw at Elland Road, and in his last season that momentous comeback to draw 3-3 with the mighty Tottenham Hotspur with such legends as Jimmy Greaves, Alan Gilzean, Alan Mullery, and of course Cyril Knowles.

But Buckle? Of course he should be on the list.

[royalgull]

To win promtoion from the conference is a hell of an achievement, especially in the timeframe that he did it in. Not just that but back to back top 5 finishes + a Trophy run + 2 decent FA Cup runs + a season like his last one for a club like Torquay was an outstanding tenure. You only have to look at our neighbours up the road, Oxford, Luton, Cambridge, Wrexham, Stockport, Hereford, Lincoln and a cluster of other ex Football League Clubs who couldnt' do what we've done, in fact some are still there years and years later, clubs who get double and in some cases treble our crowds.

Championship manager? i wouldn't go that far, although we weren't paupers like some we didn't really spend any money like a Fleetwood or a Crawley, what he was lucky with was he inherited next to no squad so the relegation doom and gloom had gone by pre season. Can look at it two ways, to build and gel a squad in 2 months takes some doing or you've got a blank canvas so it's easy to cherry pick players and have the best team. It was a new team that he gelled together very well at the end of the day. I wouldn't overestimate the pressures either, had we lost that game v Cambridge the gig was up, we'd be them now. We'd be playing in front of 1200 people losing to Alfreton Town on our way to 16th place every season.

He did an excellent job here, the way he left wasn't great but there rarely is the perfect way to leave a football club. Fans with their blinkered tribal outlook on life that anyone who dares to leave their club is some sort of devil worshipping, sh*t anyway Judas, when the reality is they are in the business looking for their next better job, players, managers, sometimes even chairman.

Because of Bucks and the team our 2 seasons in BSP was enjoyable, we won loads of games played some good stuff, were on TV lots and had a brilliant day at Wembley. Will always remember those times very fondly.

[AustrianAndyGull]

Don't like the man, smarmy and a complete ponce but you can't argue with his record here despite having a 'bit of cash' when we were in the conference. He got us to Wembley finals, took over a team in complete disarray, got us out of the conference, kept us up in our first season back in the FL and got us to the play off final the year after. Apart from the bloke himself - what's not to like?

[Fonda]

Winning promotion from the BSP was an excellent achievement. But it was made much easier, simply by the budget we were working with. Buckle was literally able to cherry pick the best players from that division - team captains, top scorers. I give him credit for knowing the league, but that is after all why he got the job. Masterminding victories over Droylsden and Northwich with a relatively expensively assembled squad, doesn't compare to getting the better of the likes of Swansea, Hull and Doncaster for me.

[royalgull]

He did that as well in his last season.

[Bridportgull]

Iam glad this tread has generated a good discussion , from my perspective I really enjoyed the leroy era the football we played was a good as anything we played in a long time .Once we got promoted to league one I felt leroy was then out of his depth and we became a relegation team before we kicked a ball . That was the one only year I bought a season ticket so I did watch every game comuting from Ilminster for every match .

[yellowforever]

I think to say that he only did a 'decent' job is a disservice to him. Yes he's a bit of a d***, but what he achieved here was miraculous.

Anyone else that was lucky enough to go to every home game in that relegation season will know just how bad we were, and for him to recover that squad, replacing all but 2 player and to get them fighting for promotion in a tough league was fantastic.

Yes he was backed with a big budget, but that only gets you so far in that league, as we have seen recently with Luton. After the disapointment of missing out in the playoffs first season, he immediately got back on track the next and went one better, took us to wembley and won us promotion.

First season in the league was difficult, but we were comfortably safe in the end thanks to much better form in the second half of the season - perhaps he learnt that we couldn't keep the same team and expect to do well in a better league.

Season after that again, he got us to the play off final, playing good positive attacking football, most games fielding around 4 strikers, which was over kill but was exciting nonetheless. Then came Roversgate, which had he not been tapped up, I'm confident we would have won that game against Stevenage, and he would have established himself as perhaps our best manager ever.

I'm ready to be shot down in flames with that last claim, but if you look at our record under him, it's hard to argue against.