Torquay v Southport Saturday 29th October 3pm

[Scott Brehaut]

Do you really believe that Scott?

Do you really believe he will go onto achieve great things in management elsewhere if it doesn't work out at Plainmoor?

I don't see it.

Yes.

He's one of the few good things we've got going for us at the mo, and it's vital that we keep him.

I'm happy to be ridiculed - but I know things will come good with Nico there. He just needs the backing to do what he wants to do.

[Dave]

Scout them.

And get these scouts from where?
Pay them with what?
Sign these players with what?
House them with what
Provide them with kit with what?
Pay Gareth Law to fitness test/treat the with what?

Matt.

To help Matt out here, I've scrubbed out the questions that were not in anyway relevant.

Where could we scout players from, take a leaf out of the books of a number of part-time clubs, who are working off the same or in many cases less money than TUFC, and are doing alot better than us in the league, look where they've sourced their players from, certainly not from the league above.

How do we pay those players, yes that's difficult, but if you look for the right players, at the right age, desperate to break into full time football, it wouldn't take a huge wage to attract them.

There is indeed no such thing as truly free signing, there of course is a cost attached to any signing, but 5k to sign a player on a free transfer at this level, think you're barking mad. I'm only suggesting that a couple a pacey wingers are needed, if that means 1, or 2 have to leave to make room, so be it, we're not short of utter tat footballers.

Housing costs, probably incorporated in the signing on cost, or part of the players pay deal.

Provide them with kit, oh a training top, tracksuit and a jumper, about £40 a player at cost price.

Pay Gareth Law to fitness test them, heck nearly died laughing at that one, see notes regarding Damon Lathrope. That's not a criticism of Gareth Law, it's more than highly likely our club doesn't fitness test potential new signings, again see notes, regarding Damon Lathrope.

If our players didn't spend so much time overloading on protein shakes while pumping iron, maybe we wouldn't so many injuries to treat.

[Gulliball]

Today was awful, there's no getting around that. We should have been 2-0 down before we scored, and the goal changed the half. It came from nothing, but it was a great bit of skill from Williams to pick up the ball in midfield, beat a few players and curl it in the corner from 25+ yards - you don't get many goals like that in a season. From the 25th minute till half time was our best spell of the game without managing to add a second.

1-0 up at half time, having not played too well, was a great position, but we threw it away with an appalling second half. What makes it so much worse is that Southport were low on quality as well, and it was there for the taking. Aldershot had 6 dangerous players last Saturday and attacked very well, Eastleigh had quality players on Tuesday night that made the difference for them - Southport had none of that. They fired aimless shots wide whenever in a good position and didn't have any players that stood out or played well, but we let him have so much of the ball that they managed to score twice. Aldershot would have scored double figures if we had played like this the week before. They were happy to slow play down in the first half and play for a 0-0, it was only us going ahead and then letting them control the game that made them go for the win, and they completely deserved to take all three points.

I've been down in Devon for a week and have been to the last 3 games, the only ones I've seen this season. Last Saturday was a disjointed attacking performance, but Blissett was missing and we defended well to get a good result. On Tuesday we played well against a better side and 0-3 was a false scoreline. Adding in the game today and the worry I have is that we don't look dangerous at all.

Last Saturday was disjointed, and today was even worse for it. We played 4-3-3 and had no width from the midfield or the full backs. This meant that when the midfield got the ball there was literally no one to pass it to. The front three swapped positions between them but didn't link up - we hit long balls to Blissett but no-one was running off him. We had three forwards out of the game because they didn't have any supply or didn't do anything with what they had, and three central midfielders on top of each other. Going forward we didn't have players in the right positions to launch attacks and Southport were able to control the game. It looked like they had twice as many players because no matter where the ball was on the pitch they had more players involved with the play.

Our sum of the last three games is one goal and one point - the goal out of nothing and the point due to Brendan Moore last week. We have individual players that can do things like this, but the overall style of play today was my biggest concern. We don't have pace, we don't have width and we don't have players feeding off Blissett. The consequence of this was that even when we had to chase the game and Southport would have been happy to defend their lead, we didn't have the tools to worry them and create chances. Sparkes looks to be a big miss and could have given us the width we've been desperate for.

Luke Young was the exception, and he drove forward trying to make something happen. But there was no-one wide in space or running in behind the defence for him to find when he was on the ball, which wasted all his efforts. I've been disappointed with Chaney in the last week - you can be small and lack strength, but you have to make up for it in other areas, and he doesn't have the pace to cause problems, nor has he shown any skills to unlock a defence. He's probably an example of the performances we've given in the last week in that there's no clear style of how we will cause problems or create attacks. It wasn't so much that he or any of the players put in bad individual performances (although LRT had a very poor game and looks a worse option than Nicholson), it was the lack of fluidity or any style of play that was going to cause problems for Southport and create chances.

Today was a golden chance to get a valuable and much needed three points thrown away, but ultimately still only one bad performance, and we can recover from it. There's work to do with the squad and we have 2 weeks now to get players back fit and linking up together. Guiseley are a team we can beat if we play well, and all it would take is a win or two to put us back safely into mid-table and on par for what we should expect. We are ahead of where we were 12 months ago, and I trust Kevin Nicholson to improve the players and get them playing together.

In any case, this is almost inconsequential. Our biggest problems and biggest battles are off the field, and this is the week we have to make a decision on how we will pay back these six figure debts.

[Dutchgull]

Southport have a manager we don't.

Matt,we have some of the better attendances in the league. Where is the money going ?? Clubs which have half our gates are better run in a PROFESSIONAL manner.

For fecks sake we are in this position because of the sheer ineptitude of the club on and off the pitch. Jeez how many times do we have to be embarrassed by so called part time teams and everybody else before the penny drops and EVERYONE involved in TUFC grows some balls and actually does their **** job !! From the clowns in the boardroom to the clowns on the pitch. What an utter shambles we have become in such a short time....we have never been that good at it but now .....fecking ell !!!

Blah Blah Blah we have no money well commercial department go out there and fecking get the money in !!!!

Can our LEGEND manager coach / teach the players how to play the fecking game ..it appears not. Does he actively ask past friends of TUFC for advice ? Frank O'Farrel Bruce Rioch even Neil Warnock ?? Gary Monk at Leeds !! I am pretty sure people are out there who would help us but has anyone been asked ?
These are truly desperate times but is there anyone in the club actively doing something about it or we are like a mini Titanic just slowly sinking and nobody gives a toss ?...........

[gullpower]

Today was awful, there's no getting around that. We should have been 2-0 down before we scored, and the goal changed the half. It came from nothing, but it was a great bit of skill from Williams to pick up the ball in midfield, beat a few players and curl it in the corner from 25+ yards - you don't get many goals like that in a season. From the 25th minute till half time was our best spell of the game without managing to add a second.

1-0 up at half time, having not played too well, was a great position, but we threw it away with an appalling second half. What makes it so much worse is that Southport were low on quality as well, and it was there for the taking. Aldershot had 6 dangerous players last Saturday and attacked very well, Eastleigh had quality players on Tuesday night that made the difference for them - Southport had none of that. They fired aimless shots wide whenever in a good position and didn't have any players that stood out or played well, but we let him have so much of the ball that they managed to score twice. Aldershot would have scored double figures if we had played like this the week before. They were happy to slow play down in the first half and play for a 0-0, it was only us going ahead and then letting them control the game that made them go for the win, and they completely deserved to take all three points.

I've been down in Devon for a week and have been to the last 3 games, the only ones I've seen this season. Last Saturday was a disjointed attacking performance, but Blissett was missing and we defended well to get a good result. On Tuesday we played well against a better side and 0-3 was a false scoreline. Adding in the game today and the worry I have is that we don't look dangerous at all.

Last Saturday was disjointed, and today was even worse for it. We played 4-3-3 and had no width from the midfield or the full backs. This meant that when the midfield got the ball there was literally no one to pass it to. The front three swapped positions between them but didn't link up - we hit long balls to Blissett but no-one was running off him. We had three forwards out of the game because they didn't have any supply or didn't do anything with what they had, and three central midfielders on top of each other. Going forward we didn't have players in the right positions to launch attacks and Southport were able to control the game. It looked like they had twice as many players because no matter where the ball was on the pitch they had more players involved with the play.

Our sum of the last three games is one goal and one point - the goal out of nothing and the point due to Brendan Moore last week. We have individual players that can do things like this, but the overall style of play today was my biggest concern. We don't have pace, we don't have width and we don't have players feeding off Blissett. The consequence of this was that even when we had to chase the game and Southport would have been happy to defend their lead, we didn't have the tools to worry them and create chances. Sparkes looks to be a big miss and could have given us the width we've been desperate for.

Luke Young was the exception, and he drove forward trying to make something happen. But there was no-one wide in space or running in behind the defence for him to find when he was on the ball, which wasted all his efforts. I've been disappointed with Chaney in the last week - you can be small and lack strength, but you have to make up for it in other areas, and he doesn't have the pace to cause problems, nor has he shown any skills to unlock a defence. He's probably an example of the performances we've given in the last week in that there's no clear style of how we will cause problems or create attacks. It wasn't so much that he or any of the players put in bad individual performances (although LRT had a very poor game and looks a worse option than Nicholson), it was the lack of fluidity or any style of play that was going to cause problems for Southport and create chances.

Today was a golden chance to get a valuable and much needed three points thrown away, but ultimately still only one bad performance, and we can recover from it. There's work to do with the squad and we have 2 weeks now to get players back fit and linking up together. Guiseley are a team we can beat if we play well, and all it would take is a win or two to put us back safely into mid-table and on par for what we should expect. We are ahead of where we were 12 months ago, and I trust Kevin Nicholson to improve the players and get them playing together.

In any case, this is almost inconsequential. Our biggest problems and biggest battles are off the field, and this is the week we have to make a decision on how we will pay back these six figure debts.

For me the second goal just summed up the difference between us and a team we had to beat. As they broke they had 5 or 6 players running full pelt for the box. They had decided they could win it and were going to. As they streamed forward you could see it coming. If they hadn't managed it on that attack they would have had another go and another - because their players wanted the win more that ours did.

[ferrarilover]

To help Matt out here, I've scrubbed out the questions that were not in anyway relevant.

And then failed, quite spectacularly, to answer even one of your cherry-picked questions adequately. Quite an achievement, that.

Let's start at the very beginning and see if, by the end, you have a slightly better idea of what having nothing means.

You're the Chairman of TUFC. You want to scout a pacy winger from the pub leagues, but, as we know, what you know about football can be printed in gold for about 50p. So, you need someone to do the scouting for you. You do currently have some employees that you could pressgang into doing the job. However...

One is a man called Chris. He's the groundsman and has never so much as got the MOTM award right on the Super Sunday match. He did once vote for the winner on Match of the Day's Goal of the Season award, but unfortunately he used the wrong hashtag, so his vote didn't count.

Another is called Patrick. Patrick is a fat man with a degree in It Support and absolutely zero interest in football.

The third is Rob, he's the Stadium Manager and knows loads about paperwork. He reckon's Rooney is England's best player and that Heineken is the nectar of the Gods. Would you trust Rob's judgement?

So, with those three out, you turn to the one man you know you can trust, your faithful first team manager, Kevin.

Kevin already does 143 hours a week for his £300, but he'll do it, right?
Off you go to the old broom cupboard which you cunningly cleared out and put a light in when the FA came round and asked to meet the manager 'in his office'. In there you find Kevin. Unfortunately, due to the amount of work he's been doing lately, Kevin is dead. As a doornail. Heart attack, probably, or maybe sheer force of will. We'll never know.

So then, you're out of options. Your next job is to get on the horn and scare up some interest.
You flip through your little black book and see the names of three scouts. You decide to call them.

First person you call is Tim. He's chief scout for some club called Manchester City. He earns £5m/year, flies everywhere by private jet and gets paid entry to any match he so chooses.

Person two is Mike. He's assistant chief scout at Leeds United. You know him from his time dealing with Eunan. He makes £500,000/year and has a Mercedes S500 at his exclusive attention. Can get tickets for any match he likes, but has to claim them back through expenses.

Bloke three is Roger. Roger is unemployed. He gets £73.10/week on the rock and roll and knows a friendly bus driver who sometimes gives him a free ride into town. Used to be able to hop over a low wall out the back of Nuneaton Borough, but once got his bollocks caught on a nail while halfway over, so doesn't bother with football anymore.

In the words of a famous movie theme; who ya gonna call?

Bearing in mind, what we're offering is the following:

Salary: £0
Expenses limit: £0
Travel allowance: £0
Relocation allowance: £0
Other perks: well... Eerm... You see... Eerm... Nope, sorry, none.

Maybe stick an advert on Reed. Oh, no, that's out because we haven't got the £50/week or whatever Reed charge for their service.

So, you're recruiting for a job with no pay or perks with no advertising budget. COME ON MAN, YOU'VE HAD 15 MINUTES, WHY AREN'T WE SIGNING PEOPLE ALREADY!!!!!!11!1!!1!

Matt.

[Neal]

And then failed, quite spectacularly, to answer even one of your cherry-picked questions adequately. Quite an achievement, that.

Let's start at the very beginning and see if, by the end, you have a slightly better idea of what having nothing means.

You're the Chairman of TUFC. You want to scout a pacy winger from the pub leagues, but, as we know, what you know about football can be printed in gold for about 50p. So, you need someone to do the scouting for you. You do currently have some employees that you could pressgang into doing the job. However...

One is a man called Chris. He's the groundsman and has never so much as got the MOTM award right on the Super Sunday match. He did once vote for the winner on Match of the Day's Goal of the Season award, but unfortunately he used the wrong hashtag, so his vote didn't count.

Another is called Patrick. Patrick is a fat man with a degree in It Support and absolutely zero interest in football.

The third is Rob, he's the Stadium Manager and knows loads about paperwork. He reckon's Rooney is England's best player and that Heineken is the nectar of the Gods. Would you trust Rob's judgement?

So, with those three out, you turn to the one man you know you can trust, your faithful first team manager, Kevin.

Kevin already does 143 hours a week for his £300, but he'll do it, right?
Off you go to the old broom cupboard which you cunningly cleared out and put a light in when the FA came round and asked to meet the manager 'in his office'. In there you find Kevin. Unfortunately, due to the amount of work he's been doing lately, Kevin is dead. As a doornail. Heart attack, probably, or maybe sheer force of will. We'll never know.

So then, you're out of options. Your next job is to get on the horn and scare up some interest.
You flip through your little black book and see the names of three scouts. You decide to call them.

First person you call is Tim. He's chief scout for some club called Manchester City. He earns £5m/year, flies everywhere by private jet and gets paid entry to any match he so chooses.

Person two is Mike. He's assistant chief scout at Leeds United. You know him from his time dealing with Eunan. He makes £500,000/year and has a Mercedes S500 at his exclusive attention. Can get tickets for any match he likes, but has to claim them back through expenses.

Bloke three is Roger. Roger is unemployed. He gets £73.10/week on the rock and roll and knows a friendly bus driver who sometimes gives him a free ride into town. Used to be able to hop over a low wall out the back of Nuneaton Borough, but once got his bollocks caught on a nail while halfway over, so doesn't bother with football anymore.

In the words of a famous movie theme; who ya gonna call?

Bearing in mind, what we're offering is the following:

Salary: £0
Expenses limit: £0
Travel allowance: £0
Relocation allowance: £0
Other perks: well... Eerm... You see... Eerm... Nope, sorry, none.

Maybe stick an advert on Reed. Oh, no, that's out because we haven't got the £50/week or whatever Reed charge for their service.

So, you're recruiting for a job with no pay or perks with no advertising budget. COME ON MAN, YOU'VE HAD 15 MINUTES, WHY AREN'T WE SIGNING PEOPLE ALREADY!!!!!!11!1!!1!

Matt.

Quite amusing, not brilliant but gets the point across.

There is NO money, that is NO money!!!!

However scouting at lower leagues doesnt entail recruiting someone, its done by word of mouth. Friends, ex colleagues, people you know who you can ring to get information aboutplayers who might be worth a punt.

But the above is pointless as well becuase we have no money.

I will agree with some of the previous posts though. Be very interested to see our overall income versus our playing budget with respect to the part timers in this league. We dont seem to have ANY advantage over the clubs who are part time, that is odd surely! We should be fitter? We should attract better players? We should be more professional. Doesnt seem like it to me, so why is that?

[MellowYellow]

Matt,we have some of the better attendances in the league... Clubs which have half our gates are better...

It's a valid question that should be asked. I admit that nothing burns through money like a football club, but were not championship fodder like Leeds who lose don't own their ground and lose 1 million a month or Birmingham brought for 83 million and valued now at 35 million. We are a 5th tier in a league pyramid so the prize money is much lower, yet the outlay on wages and maintenance is still so great. Surely that's a fool's game?
But just imagine the potential earnings if that club have a great season or two!

OK I don't buy into that one either. So my question is what exactly is the clubs business model?

It appears we have an old 60s/70s model with the local businessmen done good that wanted to do something with their local football team. Full credit to an honourable gentleman but we need to redesign that model to this era to entice more private investors that are there to make some sort of financial gain from the football club and see a good financial return on investment.

How is that possible? Well lets look at the tax break model. What can be quite popular for business people is if they have a profitable company which is already paying tax in the UK or anywhere else on its profits and buy a football club which is making losses, then the profitable company can

1) Sponsor the football club. They could be the main shirt sponsor, stand sponsor or whatever else. Let's say the profitable company pays £1m a year for that privilege. The profitable company has an extra £1m for expenditure, so effectively it saves tax on that £1m, and the football club has an extra £1m of income, which, because it has other losses, probably doesn't have to pay tax.

2) Buy the football club. If a profitable company acquire the football club underneath their company, then what they can do is, when the football club makes a loss, they can surrender those losses to the profitable company. If that company is making say £5m a year of profit, it would have £1m of tax to pay in the UK. But if the company is making a £5m profit and a football club underneath it making a £5m loss, they can just offset the two. Overall there's no profit and no tax to pay.

There are of course, numerous other model, but so not to bore you I refrain as I expect you get the general gist from example above.

If supporters do not like the fluctuations of private ownership then being owned by a supporters trusts has to be the way, although I am not an advocate of this route and enough has been said already on this topic.

[Dave]

one of your cherry-picked questions adequately. Matt.

My questions were not cherry picked. See a lot depends on whether a footballer is directly employed or self-employed, are we really providing pensions for players on 1 year contracts, I mean really ?

Is TUFC insuring the players, IF they are, considering our squads collective value is about the same as some bloke called Marlon who turns out for Hull City's "D" can't imagine such insurance would cost that much.

But the point is, in our squad we have;


Chaney
Young
Richards
Sparkes
Verma
Lathrope
Ward.

Where is the pace, apart from Sparkes were is the natural width, so we've spunked all our cash on a bunch of central midfielders. One was known to have a persistent groin problem before he signed, another signed on loan from W.B.A who is not being used properly.

So move two out, and bring in the wingers I think our squad needs, if Nicho isn't going to use Ward long term send him back, and Lathrope's is going to spend much of the season getting paid to sit in the stands, so pay off him now.

And how some of the small part-time clubs must despair at listening to us cry about having no money, compared to what they have. But it's right our club is cash strapped, but then it's never been about what you do have, or do not have.

It's about how you use the resources you have, and that's something our club has not done well for some years, and certainly isn't doing well in the now, either.

[tomogull]

Matt,we have some of the better attendances in the league.

Sadly Dutch - we USED to have some of the better attendances but this is no longer the case. Of the 12 National League games played yesterday, only four had lower gates than us - Boreham Wood, Braintree, Gateshead and North Ferriby. Remember dear little Forest Green? They had 2268 - I think that's higher than our highest gate this season. Maidstone, just above us in the league, pulled in an impressive 2114 against Macclesfield.

Fans stuck loyally with the club last season so that the projected 'break even' average of 1800 was reached. This season, we are watching the same sort of football that was being served up twelve months ago and fans are saying 'enough is enough' as shown by yesterday's paltry 1400 odd on a dry, mild October afternoon, perfect for football. As others have posted, we are ploughing down the middle with no width and playing hoof ball with our two central defenders the main culprits. Hoof it up the field in the hope someone can get on the end of it. How opposition defenders must love playing against us ! Fans won't bother to come through the turnstiles when that's the best we can offer. The buck falls on Nicho and Robbie Herrara to change the style of play or else we're going to be dragged down into the bottom four.

[hector]

Pretty sure we would be attracting more than 2268 if we were running away with the league though. Our gates have dropped to an alarming level - lower yesterday than even Telford and a few others in the level below (although the Conf North does seem to have a plethora of well-supported clubs) but no wonder.

This is our 5th year of struggle. No club would maintain a fanbase when they are losing almost every week. Even Wrexham's gates have dropped by around 2000.

There is nothing to attract anyone to part with £15 other than the fact the club may collapse without the revenue. Yet even that would be a blessing to many - who trusts those in charge to use the money wisely anyway? Is the money we part with just going into the pockets of Masters/GI?

[TUST_Member_Rob]

Yes.

He's one of the few good things we've got going for us at the mo, and it's vital that we keep him.

I'm happy to be ridiculed - but I know things will come good with Nico there. He just needs the backing to do what he wants to do.

[PL21 gull]

Dead right Tomogull, it was squarely down to our management team to get things right against Southport, who showed us how to play the football basics - ball control, passing, movement, support - and teamwork. Southport started with 4-1-3-2 formation, then realised they did not need the 1 holding player and could therefore have the freedom of the park to push forward and control the game. We did not change our shape at all.

As ever we looked strung out across the pitch, our forwards not interplaying together (which is difficult when on different sides of the pitch) and our only tactic the long hopeful ball for Reed to get behind the defence. Pathetic and embarrassing for what is meant to be a professional outfit. Yes, we have a limited squad, but we have to make the most of what we have and at least attempt to give ourselves a chance of using possession purposefully. How on earth do we expect to be able to score when we do not play together? and when we cannot even do the basics?

[arcadia]

To help Matt out here, I've scrubbed out the questions that were not in anyway relevant.

Where could we scout players from, take a leaf out of the books of a number of part-time clubs, who are working off the same or in many cases less money than TUFC, and are doing alot better than us in the league, look where they've sourced their players from, certainly not from the league above.

How do we pay those players, yes that's difficult, but if you look for the right players, at the right age, desperate to break into full time football, it wouldn't take a huge wage to attract them.

There is indeed no such thing as truly free signing, there of course is a cost attached to any signing, but 5k to sign a player on a free transfer at this level, think you're barking mad. I'm only suggesting that a couple a pacey wingers are needed, if that means 1, or 2 have to leave to make room, so be it, we're not short of utter tat footballers.

Housing costs, probably incorporated in the signing on cost, or part of the players pay deal.

Provide them with kit, oh a training top, tracksuit and a jumper, about £40 a player at cost price.

The directors should have asked the right questions when interviewing their proposed manager. Have you contacts in the pro. game and who are they.
Have you any contacts in the top end of non-league who are they. The assistant should be an ex-manager who has experience and has contacts at the level we are playing at. Nicho did well last season.
Recruitment this season was poor and it has let down the better players that are at the club. Nobody knows the financial restrictions he's had but management is cruel an something has to change be it players or manager or we will be doomed we are back to the same situation as we were last season. A manager is only as good as the players he can attract.
I still believe with everybody fit playing the right formation and a couple of players playing different positions things could improve but big decisions
may still have to be made.



Pay Gareth Law to fitness test them, heck nearly died laughing at that one, see notes regarding Damon Lathrope. That's not a criticism of Gareth Law, it's more than highly likely our club doesn't fitness test potential new signings, again see notes, regarding Damon Lathrope.

If our players didn't spend so much time overloading on protein shakes while pumping iron, maybe we wouldn't so many injuries to treat.

[happytorq]

He's one of the few good things we've got going for us at the mo, and it's vital that we keep him.

I'm happy to be ridiculed - but I know things will come good with Nico there. He just needs the backing to do what he wants to do.

Take issue a bit with your statement here, Scott - "I know things will come good.." "he just needs the backing" (Emphasis mine)

Those two comments are contradictory - I think Nicho can do a good job if given the appropriate support...but it doesn't seem very likely that he'll get it. The dude is working his nuts off managing, training, and even driving the damn minibus while the people in charge do...what, exactly?

I'm not suggesting the board are fiddling while Rome burns, but you don't hear a peep out of them while results go down the toilet. Kevin Nicholson can't do it alone.