Your Ever Increasing Credibility Problem Mr O.

[Tavy Gull]

For the one ultimately in charge who has felt that occasional sweet words might soothe supporters who will still appear in August in National South for another season I do think you need to look at the credibility problem your actions have created. You need to start counting up some basic facts.

Persevere with the same failed management team, the same general manager, and you as the lukewarm football owner, but not supporter, muttering the same occasional words as absentee owner/chairman over new hope and new grounds no one can or will believe a single word. You will ultimately have no supporters worth the counting. Supporters live off hope and leave things as they are, there is simply NONE.

No one now believes Owers and Co are capable of achieving a run at anything whatsoever. They have proved that very clearly. They string nothing together - they fail to inspire whoever they engage as players. They have proved to be still worse than a very lukewarm track record. They simply won't achieve, can't achieve, and that HAS to reflect on the gates. This coaching team will struggle in the Conference South and even you know that. In football terms as a coaching team they are well past whatever was their best. You went for the cheaper option but cheaper comes at a cost.. they have delivered nothing and have shown no ability whatsoever to deliver anything.

Your appointee for day to day club management Geoff Harrop is universally disliked and cannot inspire a single supporter let alone a club. He is an utter disaster, very simply as proved daily the wrong guy in the wrong job. He may be your man but things are not that simple. Those who pay at the gate require some hope. He personifies the exact polar opposite.

Relegation and continuing failure worsens your case with the local authority and only total resurrection can possibly give you any chance whatsoever of belief towards anything you seek. How can the council ever believe you when you are manifestly failing at the very basics let alone your suggested involvement in a 'grand venture'. As United sink lower and lower so does very clearly any chance of any return from your involvement with the club.

A close season is a dire time in terms of a football club and we approach this one devoid of any hope.

IF you are to have any chance of having any future credibility you have to act now... to radically change things ...even if it is to move on yourself.

It's decision time Mr O.

[Dazza]

Absolutely spot on Tavy Gull couldn't have put it better myself.

[MellowYellow]

Relegation and continuing failure worsens your case with the local authority and only total resurrection can possibly give you any chance whatsoever of belief towards anything you seek. How can the council ever believe you when you are manifestly failing at the very basics let alone your suggested involvement in a 'grand venture'.

Good post Tavy Gull

DDoes Relegation and continuing failure worsens Mr Osborne's case with the local authority ?

Discussion must have taken place between Clarke Osborne an the Council re: Plainmoor sale/new purpose built multi event stadium. After all Clarke Osborne stated in the club update in January "The Mayor and the Council are aligned in this vision and are both supportive and encouraging" . To this end, it seemed appropriate to see what information the Council could provide over proposals on the freehold sale of the football ground at Plainmoor.

A recent request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI), was rejected, as the Council is not able to provide, any correspondence it holds over proposals on the freehold sale of the football ground at Plainmoor, claiming "it is exempted from the right of access". However there are often stories to be had from requests that are rejected as much as from requests that are successful.

Why block the 'right of access' ? And what are the grounds for this exemption? This may surprise a large contingent of Torquay United supporters and townsfolk, as according to the Council: "In all circumstances of the case, the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information."

So there you have it. In layman terms 'telling us nothing outweighs telling us something'

One would think with the promise of a new 'Riveria Stadium' prior to the sale of the Plainmoor freehold / with all its investment and spend to benefit the Torquay community, there is nothing to hide. Any harm caused by disclosure, surely, could only be minimal, so there is likely to be little public interest in maintaining the exception, especially given the presumption in favour of disclosure. So why is the Council adhering to 'telling us nothing outweighs telling us something' unless the harm is not minimal but something quite 'catastrophic'!

Regrettably we are not going to find out (not yet anyway) as according to the Council, "discussions at this stage in relation to Plainmoor are considered to be exempt from disclosure according to Council under Sections 40 - Commercial Interests and 41 - Duty of Confidence, of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and Exception 12(5)(f) - Commercial Interests of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004". Read into the above as you will. But it appears to suggest it is to protect the commercial interests and confidentiality of Clarke Osborne and is legitimate for the Council to take into account any harmful effect on specific Council functions where that results from a reduction in the flow of (voluntarily) supplied information from Clarke Osborne.

So maybe all is not as it seems - Should alarm bells be ringing ?

In fairness the Council did state "Any decisions made in relation to any Council asset would follow the normal decision making process which would involve elected members". But even that does not fill one with confidence given many of these elected members do not know themselves what is going on. After Clarke Osborne's statement of "The Mayor and the Council are aligned in this vision" Cllr Adrian Saunders was quoted as saying. " Where does he get this idea from? The Council hasn't discussed this or any other 'vision' for TUFC. It's claims like this that make me suspicious, and not just of the club's owner". Then there was Cllr Dave Thomas who told Torbay MP Kevin Foster there is no discussions with Councillors and no plans for a new stadium put forward for consideration.

It appears that alarms bells should be ringing when Cllr's say they know nothing about the vision for TUFC and yet the Council see fit to withhold information on discussion held in relation to Plainmoor based on it being in our interest to know nothing rather than know something.

In summary, we are to be left in total darkness as to what discussion are going on over proposals on the freehold sale of the football ground at Plainmoor and with whom. This almost has all the hallmarks of a 'behind closed doors' storyline of 'West Wing'.

Brief extracts of the FOI material have be reproduced under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (sections 29 and 30) for the purposes of research for non-commercial purposes, criticism, review and news reporting.

[merse btpir]

Surely the most damning of evidence that Clarke Osborne is industrious indeed on realising a return for his near £1 million 'investment' into what is superficially referred to as 'Torquay United' by the tame local media and swallowed whole by the more gullible members of this forum but of course is his slow burn way of turning the screw on the local politicians.

Give him enough time of strangling the life out of this football club and it's relationship with it's supporters, and it will drop so low in the football pyramid a cheapo ground something akin to Buckland Athletic will be put up as the so called Riviera Stadium rather like his 'IKEA style' self assembly job sitting in a South Wales yard still waiting to be moved to Swindon.

Let's end this pretence which is also perpetrated by Owers and Harrop that only Clarke Osborne's injection of capital is keeping this club alive that some posters on here use as ammunition to throw at those more diligent and sceptical than they are.

The council's refusal to grant access to what they have is both scandalous and undemocratic if not downright corrupt and who's to say it is democratically elected councillors Osborne is 'aligned with' and not salaried officers of the council?

Reference: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/contents

[westyorkshiregull]

One thing osborne has not shown us is a detailed or even a undetailed outline of a new stadium. Usually these things are made for tempting viewing when you can see what's on offer.
It would be embarrassing I bet. Anyhow won't be as good as plainmoor , plainmoor is league one standard.

[Forest gull]

I may be sceptical, but I fear...

Relegation = Osborne gets his wish = Plainmoor sold = new stadium will be Regional standard (Cheap) = no return to the league possible

[madgull]

I completely echo the concerns of Merse and Forest Gull regarding relegation meaning a lower tier ground. I said at the time that the whole bungling affair of this season, from sticking with Nicho and allowing him to build a squad to sack him after four games, to the ridiculous wait for a new manager, to the underwhelming appointment of Owers and Kuhl, all seemed too convenient when relegation might be in our owner's best long-term interests. Relegation = less support = less resistance, and as people have pointed out, less effort required for a new ground.

[brucie]

That maybe the case but the simplest way to achieve relegation would surely have been to have not sacked Nicholson.

That would also have been cheaper than paying compensation to another club for their manager.

[MF68]

I have forwarded the "Freedom of Information" to a local Torquay United supporting Councillor.
I will update when he replies..........as he always does.

Hopefully the gullible on here will finally realise that the all-singing and dancing, state of the art, concert venue is a complete myth.
And that Osborne had no intention of ever building one.
Oh and by the way there may also be a football pitch

[westyorkshiregull]

It's been a few months since Harrop said osborne would be liasing with the various media in conducting interviews ECT

So where is this ?

[merse btpir]

That maybe the case but the simplest way to achieve relegation would surely have been to have not sacked Nicholson.

Now we no longer suffer the indinity of of travellling to away games in a minibus driven by the manager but of sitting grandly in the Plymouth Argyle team coach as at Dover last weekend.

All the home comforts these wannabee professional footballers could wish for including i32 full leather seats all set around tables, entertainment system/wifi, CD player, DVD player, 5 monitors and 1 mini table monitor, toilet washroom, kitchen with 5 fridges and 2 microwaves, ice making machine, and inverter with sockets throughout coach.....everything except the ruddy contents of a bona fide professional squad inside it!

At least it's a step up of the utter humiliation of arriving in the Truro City bus as well!


So impressed with the i32 seats they took them into the ground with them too!

[Neal]

At last some common sense!

but are you all going to still hand over your hard earned money next season, I reckon you all will.

Nicho was probably sacked NOT because of results but because he wouldn't sign up to CO's plans and demolition of the club.

[Soupdragon]

Ah, I'm much more at home with this sort of stuff. Readers may be interested in the article at the following link ...

https://countrysquire.co.uk/2018/03/13/ ... hbourhood/

... much of which is not factually correct, of course. But the main thrust remains. And, of course, councillors don't in any way come under the purview of a local MP. He's not the boss of them.

Interestingly, Country Square Magazine appears to have it in, in a major way, for Torbay Council. I've been entertaining myself with wondering quite where the impetus for this has come from.

Again I remind everyone: in just over a year, this council reverts from a directly elected mayor who is answerable to the people (and at least we have someone to point at) to a leader of the council, who is answerable essentially just to his local party chairman.

[Goose9]

Nicho was probably sacked NOT because of results but because he wouldn't sign up to CO's plans and demolition of the club.

Of course that's a reason he was sacked. What do we think that Osborne is more interested in? Results on the field or the possibility of profiting through a property deal?

Nicholson said in an interview shortly after being sacked that some 'very naughty' things were going on behind the scenes. Who knows what's going on now that he is out of the way.

[tomogull]

Ah, I'm much more at home with this sort of stuff. Readers may be interested in the article at the following link ...

https://countrysquire.co.uk/2018/03/13/ ... hbourhood/

... much of which is not factually correct, of course. But the main thrust remains. And, of course, councillors don't in any way come under the purview of a local MP. He's not the boss of them.

Interestingly, Country Square Magazine appears to have it in, in a major way, for Torbay Council. I've been entertaining myself with wondering quite where the impetus for this has come from.

Again I remind everyone: in just over a year, this council reverts from a directly elected mayor who is answerable to the people (and at least we have someone to point at) to a leader of the council, who is answerable essentially just to his local party chairman.

Wow - that's a hard-hitting article. Verging on slanderous in some parts I would think. Interesting that the writer cites the 'tame local press'. Here again, no proper investigative journalism by the Herald Express which under the current editor, is a poor shadow of what it used to be when it was a daily evening paper.

Currently, there is a huge planning application for more 'little boxes' somewhere between the Brixham Road and Stoke Gabriel. It is not in the Local Plan and has previously been refused following a Planning Enquiry I believe. I am not fully conversant with the details, but if it is passed by the Council, then we might start to believe that councillors are 'in bed with local developers'. But as you point out, MP Kevin Foster has no jurisdiction whatever over Torbay Council and the writer should have known this.

Sorry guys - this has nothing to do with the credibility problem on Gary Owers. But you know how us old b*ggers love to wander off subject!