Uncle Clarke part 812

[dawlishmatt]

I can't believe that some people are starting to attach some of the blame on the owner for the current plight of our beloved football club. When Osborne took over the club, he had a 5 year plan which included getting Torquay back into the football league. For various reasons, including the covid pandemic, the 5 year plan has failed to become a reality. Don't forget however that Torquay failed by a penalty kick a few years ago to reach the promised land.
Since then we have been up against clubs such as Wrexham who do not win promotion, they simply buy there way into the football league. Wrexham have 4 players on over 4 grand a week in their squad. At present at least 20 clubs have zero chance of automatic promotion. You cannot expect Clarke Osborne to compete with such teams. Yes, Osborne has failed to act by sacking the manager, something he should have done last year but you have to remember it's George Edwards who is responsible for running the club not Osborne. Goodness knows how much the owner has wasted on the club, my guess is around 6 million. What more do you expect him to do?
I haven't counted the number of players Johnson has used this season, my guess is that it must be around 25. Also don't forget the waste of money being spent on an assistant manager and the shambles that is Peter Johnson.
We also have players out on loan, how many seasons has Olaf Koszela who is a full time professional aged 20 years old whose wages are eating into the budget. Koszela made his debut for the club during the 2018/2019 season and 4 years later he has only played 20 times for the club. " he's one for the future" says the manager, I'm surprised that Edwards has allowed this to happen.
So please stop blaming the owner, the predicament of my beloved Torquay United is down to one man, Gary Johnson.

[notnow]

If it wasn’t for Simon Mather’s incompetence, Jake Andrews refusing to get off the pitch when injured and the 20 minute delay allowing Hartlepool to regroup, our club would have indeed achieved the 5 year plan. Gary Johnson would not have lost all our players, in fact we would have had further quality additions instead of scrambling around for the best of a poor bunch left on the shelf, who I might add played well when they were looking for a contract, but haven’t performed at all since.

[DevonBee]

Not forgetting we were leading the table and so far ahead of the chasing pack. Injuries a depleting squad with no back ups.
Johnson should have made sure we got over the line, and got back ups to ensure we won the league.
Did he go to Uncle Clarke to make this happen ?
Was he stubborn and of the belief we were already back in the football league ?
Ashton Gate and refereeing was shit, however in my opinion it was lost way before the ref blew a whistle in Bristol that day.

[Chelston TUFC]

I can't believe that some people are starting to attach some of the blame on the owner for the current plight of our beloved football club. When Osborne took over the club, he had a 5 year plan which included getting Torquay back into the football league. For various reasons, including the covid pandemic, the 5 year plan has failed to become a reality. Don't forget however that Torquay failed by a penalty kick a few years ago to reach the promised land.
Since then we have been up against clubs such as Wrexham who do not win promotion, they simply buy there way into the football league. Wrexham have 4 players on over 4 grand a week in their squad. At present at least 20 clubs have zero chance of automatic promotion. You cannot expect Clarke Osborne to compete with such teams. Yes, Osborne has failed to act by sacking the manager, something he should have done last year but you have to remember it's George Edwards who is responsible for running the club not Osborne. Goodness knows how much the owner has wasted on the club, my guess is around 6 million. What more do you expect him to do?
I haven't counted the number of players Johnson has used this season, my guess is that it must be around 25. Also don't forget the waste of money being spent on an assistant manager and the shambles that is Peter Johnson.
We also have players out on loan, how many seasons has Olaf Koszela who is a full time professional aged 20 years old whose wages are eating into the budget. Koszela made his debut for the club during the 2018/2019 season and 4 years later he has only played 20 times for the club. " he's one for the future" says the manager, I'm surprised that Edwards has allowed this to happen.
So please stop blaming the owner, the predicament of my beloved Torquay United is down to one man, Gary Johnson.

Agree, if it wasnt for Osborne bank rolling the club there would be no club. There's been money to spend its just been poor recruitment

[jono_Gull209]

Poor recruitment goes hand-in-hand with a poor budget. This side is a bunch of players no one else wanted and a load of u23s. There’s no way in a million years we’d sign Kings Lynn and Dover cast offs if there was budget to recruit actual replacements for Lewis, Little and CLE, et al.

Gary Johnson had to take a massive punt with the budget he was given. So don’t just blame him, because the rot starts at the top with CO.

[culmstockgull]

We have known from day one that we have an owner that has little or no interest in football, he appointed a managing director to run the club on his behalf and several of the usual suspects from yester year stepped up as repeat directors, appointed Johnson who at the time and on paper looked a good appointment and off we go on a supposed five year plan, several years down the road there comes a realisation from the owner that Torquay is one big sink hole for his money, repeat his money, no one else's and his to do with as he wishes,
From day one he has received universal condemnation for his supposed underhand business dealings and what he would do to Torquay, take away Plainmoor , eat all our babies etc etc, you get the picture.
Well, we still exist albeit on life support,whatever budget that was given to Johnson last summer was totally skewed by his statements of wanting a bigger squad, so while in the past we have strengthened to meet a speciific shortage or weakness he went shopping on mass at the pick and mix. in the future when football managers reflect on how not to do things, Torquay will be up there as a business model that failed spectacuarly.
So blame the Owner, the MD the directors when in reality this isdown to the manager.

[knightmaregull]

For me the biggest question / concern is, what is Clarke's plan now. Will relegation cause him to finally show his hand? Will Torbay Council prove to be competent/ reliable enough to not get taken for a ride?

Hopefully my misgivings about Clarke are proven totally wrong. The Ashton Gate year will always be one of my best ever and the money he's put in doesn't tally with being solely focused on real estate. He's not a football man and has relied on Edwards and Johnson for that. The recruitment this year shows, very sadly, that this has not succeeded. I don't think any of us know how the 'fault' for this can fairly be split but ending up with no attacking reserves yesterday was beyond amateurish.

However, I remain very dubious about our future under this stewardship. The small minority of idiots taking pleasure from the woes of Southend, York etc may well find the boot is on the other foot soon.

[Smuffle]

I have to agree. Ask yourselves where would the club be without Osborne. The council scuppered any plans for a new stadium and his 5 year plan when refusing planning permission. He’s losing nearly £1m a year supporting a failing club who aren’t even playing entertaining football and are now almost certainly being relegated. If he pulls out who the hell do you think will swoop in and cover his loses and then invest the money we’d all like?
The clubs history IS important but would a new state of the art stadium with clean toilets and decent food have been so bad? If it had worked we would even have had more income to maybe spend on the squad.
GJ has had a good career and is respected as a manager, we can’t deny the past but he’s human, he’s out of date with the modern game and he has made dreadful decisions over the past two seasons that have cost us. His players and his tactics have been wrong from the start but it’s even the basics. How can we still be so bad at taking and defending set pieces? Why can we not drop the ball in a dangerous area from a corner rather than have it blocked by the first defender, what the hell do they do all week on the training ground?
Stay up or go down we need fresh blood in the club, as much in management as on the pitch, GJ should leave gracefully, it’s not been all bad but we need him to go so the rebuilding process can begin.

[brucie]

It may well be down to the manager but why on earth is he still at the club then?

Surely any owner worth his salt would have sacked Johnson and Downes months ago. The last four games have killed us. One point out of 12 against crap sides has been appalling.

Either Osborne couldnt care less what league we are playing in next year or genuinely thought that Johnson would stave off relegation. The latter seen hard to believe really but who knows.

That well be the case about the budget but the squad has been criminally mismanaged by Johnson. Having a lack of any offensive players on the bench week after week is just ridiculous.

[DevonBee]

Oh for an owner like the Oldham guy, somebody who cares and has rallied the loyal supporters who attend games home and away.
He is passionate about the town loves football and attends games.
A complete opposite to Osborne who appears could not care less what league we are playing in. With this in mind and an out of date
manager with dated tactics who has blown whatever the budget was on this embarrassing spineless bunch of losers and I guess this is what you get.
A once proud football league club that is currently on a life support machine.

[brucie]

i guess thats what you get for having a manager and assistant who live so far away from the club.

We need a manager who can get to training regularly, surely thats a basic requirement.

[Stickingitin]

You can call me a conspiracy theorist here but I actually think that with the big clubs in this league Uncle Clarke knew he didn't want to compete, his plan all along is to have his own stadium. And from that is where he gets a return and that's business.
Being in a lower league must have an affect on the plan to have such a stadium at a lower cost Vs the powers that be, which would make from a business point of view relegation a better prospect.
As soon as Hollywood stepped in Mr Osbourne knew the odds had been massively cut with progression a non starter and if you can't progress then you sink the price so you get what you're after, from there you build.
I don't think that GJ is lying when he say's he is the best man for the club at this present time, he knows both sides of what is happening and nobody can call him or his staff stupid or inept.
IF, this is true then we as fans have a decision to make, we either stick with the enterprise that brought Gary Johnson to this club, which was a massive coup considering all things, or we vent our concerns which are based on results on the pitch.
Had Mr Osbourne & Co received planning permission for a new stadium when the request was submitted things might have been a lot more rosy.
So, I ask the question.
Who is responsible for what is happening to this club in this present time?
Maybe, just maybe, when the next planning application for a new stadium for the history of TUFC, the fans themselves stand up to and for that application against a council/government that has the audacity to subdue the progression of this club!

[desperado]

Surely teams such as Wealdstone, Altrincham , Solihull cannot have playing budgets higher than ours ? Maybe easier to attract players yes, but our signings have been so poor. These teams play as a team and seem to know where each other are with more than one available option where we seem to make it up as we go along .
Brucie has a point with Johnson and Downes living 2 hours or so away (Gary even said it was handy Dawson living in Gloucester!) it's fine when things are going well but I remember when Leroy was struggling in his last season that was brought up then.

[standupsitdown]

Maybe, just maybe, when the next planning application for a new stadium for the history of TUFC, the fans themselves stand up to and for that application against a council/government that has the audacity to subdue the progression of this club!

But how is a new stadium that is owned by Osborne going to enable to club to progress?
There is no guarantee that any income from other activities would actually go to the football club, there would be rent to pay and no security.
We are far more secure at a stadium owned by Torbay Council.

[happytorq]

not going to get involved with discussion about a 'new stadium', which probably wouldn't be needed until we are at least a stable club in League 2. Seems a pointless discussion at this point.

You can call me a conspiracy theorist here but I actually think that with the big clubs in this league Uncle Clarke knew he didn't want to compete

But this comment has a ring of truth to it.
I was saying at the start of the season that it would be unreasonable to try to compete with Wrexham and Notts (and possibly Chesterfield) on a financial footing. Wrexham, certainly, have functionally an unlimited budget. We don't, so even if the Chairman had gone big it probably wouldn't have worked.

I maintain that the plan this season was to bring in some young players, knit a side together to consolidate, and then go for it next season - with presumably at least 2 of the big spenders in the division above. Actually not a terrible plan, except things have gone horribly wrong and those young players we brought in - Crowe, McGavin, Hanson to name 3 - have been hugely underwhelming. Couple that with continued injuries to Asa Hall and Dan Martin - surely two players who'd have been starting pretty much every game - that seems to explain some of our plight.

If we're able to escape this (chances of which I think are at about 20% now, sadly), maybe those players will be better next season? I believe we paid money for Hanson, and both he and McGavin were well regarded at their sides (despite their struggles). not saying we'd be world beaters, but I genuinely don't think we'd be more than 3 or 4 players away from a playoff side. A lot of ifs, of course, and there's been little evidence for us that Hanson is doing anything but stealing a living.