Where do we go from here?

[divingbboy]

I sure this won't be the most popular view, but I'll be gutted if Nicho goes, but think it's largely inevitable. I don't think getting rid of Nicho and shipping someone new in will solve the issues on the pitch but, again, accept that this seems likely at this point. I just feel desperately sad about the whole situation and gutted that a loyal and decent bloke looks set to take the fall for a situation that is not of his making.

[gateman49]

I'm totally with you divingbboy, it's a very sorry state of affairs.

[CraigUnder]

I agree with most of what you say DivingBB but you can't say Nicho is not at fault in at least some aspects of the downfall, his tactics and team selection is down to him. I feel for the guy because he actually has the club in his heart and if/when he leaves we are left with the vultures of GI circling to take the club down piece by piece.

Will never forget what Nicho did for us last year when all seemed lost but it's a horrible situation to want someone to lost their job.

[MellowYellow]

"I have made myself a servant to all.. I have become all things to all men" Corinthians 9:19-23

and that has been Nico failing. An experienced manager will not take on what Nico has done e.g. a player/coach, bus driver, community liaison officer, domestic engineer and person-centred integrative counsellor for underpaid/underperforming players. I believe he will pay the ultimate penalty for making himself a servant to the cause during the worst times in Torquay's history. With no funds and little support from the new and previous board of directors he has multi-tasked his role to the best of his ability for his love of the club. He was never allowed to be just a manager he was required to be "all things to all men" and for that he should be knighted.

This is his first managerial job and his CV will read a 34% win rate and a 'Great Escape' from relegation. Nico for your sound of mind and health be proud of your efforts to date and find a club that appreciates hard work for little or no reward.

For those who think Mark Yeats is the answer, his win rate at Crawley last season was 27.7%. He won 13 matches out of 47 so he is not exactly the Messiah!

[merse btpir]

For those who think Mark Yeats is the answer, his win rate at Crawley last season was 27.7%. He won 13 matches out of 47 so he is not exactly the Messiah!

It's Yates by the way; Yates.....get used to it if he is indeed the man.

I would imagine it's the managerial spells at Cheltenham and more appropriately Kidderminster on his CV that was of interest to Geoff Harrop. Yates took up his first managerial position with former club Kidderminster, a position which he took up in January 2006. In his first season in charge he steered the club to safety from relegation, and in the second secured a top-half finish as well as an FA Trophy Final place at the new Wembley Stadium. He was twice voted Manager of the Month in this second season, for the months of December 2006 and January 2007.

He was then was appointed manager of League Two Cheltenham Town in December 2009, with Neil Howarth joining him as first team coach. He led them to the 2012 League Two play-off final which they lost 2–0 to Crewe Alexandra. Yates guided Cheltenham to the League Two playoffs again in 2013 only to lose to Northampton Town 2-0 on aggregate. On 25th of November 2014, he was sacked by Cheltenham after almost five years in charge. Cheltenham subsequently appointed Paul Buckle as their next manager.

I agree he has thrown himself wholeheartedly into his first managerial job; but Nicho could never successfully hope to be all things to all men. The running of a professional football club demands that you do not have either the time or the energy to drive the bus, sell the advertising, visit the sick. A commendable but naïve effort by Nicholson I would say and I respect his point view as expressed to me personally only last week.

Of course it is not his fault that the club is in such a state; neither at all the board who appointed him. The responsibility for that lays with Thea Bristow and those who hid behind her apron strings failing totally to run a fiscally tight ship in the full knowledge that one day the bean jar would be empty without any infrastructure to maintain the show.

I'd heard that one of the club's impressed with Kevin Nicholson's first managerial attempt (and of course there are clubs) is Cheltenham Town ~ how ironic if it were there he resurrected his managerial career whilst their former manager Mark Yates takes up the baton at Plainmoor.

[Neal]

Why do I still see postings saying we have no money. We "didn't" have any money agreed but we are owned by a property developer with plans to develop a whole new big development with God knows what, of course they have money. They just don't want to spend it on Torquay Utd, says it all!! And should be a VERY big hint as to what is to come, but most on here cant see it, or wont see it.

[westyorkshiregull]

Hope nicho does well elsewhere ...°as much as we DO a change. Can't carry on like this it's rediculous. If we get a manager with experience then I wonder if he board will backhim....

Also has the loan window now shut...if the board wanted rid of nicho and bring there own man on would they have done while new manager had chance for his own player or 2 .

Nothing makes sense...no backing to nicho...no real chance now for new manager to make changes
.....all this talk about new mangers ....AS much we are a big club in non league and of course plenty of managers would take job....will any seasoned ones want a job on peanuts and nothing to spend. ..I suspect answer may be yes actually but where does that improve us.....

I want change but even that worries me...yes I think nicho should go...but not with out sympathy.

[merse btpir]

Why do I still see postings saying we have no money. We "didn't" have any money agreed but we are owned by a property developer with plans to develop a whole new big development with God knows what, of course they have money. They just don't want to spend it on Torquay Utd, says it all!! And should be a VERY big hint as to what is to come, but most on here cant see it, or wont see it.

Listen to what Clarke Osborne had to say on the club's YouTube channel and take it in.........the club (he says) are NOT a subsidiary of Gaming International they are owned by him and the company he set up ~ Riviera Stadium Ltd ~ with access to all of GI's expertise and infrastructure.

Like it or lump it; that is the situation; and as such the club needs to and must, stand on it's own two feet. Mike Bateson and Thea Bristow ~ both millionaires ~ never put ALL of their wealth into the club and why should they. As Mike used to say Neal...... "It's easy to spend somebody else's money" and that's what you are trying to promote.

The last board had no significant money and it was generated through sorting out and selling on a failing player who had almost thrown away his career. That was good management by Kevin Nicholson at the cost of losing his captain and best central defender on the eve of this season. We have seen the aftermath of that and it isn't pretty.

[portugull]

Kevin Nicholson is a fine human being who deserves to succeed but Pro Football is a brutal business and you are judged daily on your results and your decisions.
Leicester City sacked Claudio Ranieri and the new Manager who was his assistant has won his first two games as Manager.Why? Because the players had lost faith in their Manager despite what he had achieved last season.

As much as I admire Kevin for his many qualities I feel it would be in everyone's interest, including Kevin's, if the new owners appointed a new experienced Manager while we still have a chance to escape relegation.

[Neal]

Oh don't woryy I have listened to the clap trap and bullshit!

So there is no f*cking point of them owning us then, we would be better off with TUST, my bloody point all along.

I said on here months ago, TUFC will be an independent company with NO assets, actually with LESS assets.

If there is a new stadium, the few franchises that do currently exist (like food outlets Boots etc) will be run by RS Ltd AND THE MONEY WILL GO TO THEM! NOT the club, you will see in time. The club will have to survive on gate money ONLY! And whatever rent GI think of, God knows what that will be, less than now, you will be lucky!

I remember very well MB posting on the forum, I enjoyed it until he got fedup with all the agro. Not from me I might add!

The whole point is, and you fail to grasp it, is that GI have NO intention of running a successful football club, ONLY a football club that can somehow pay the rent, THATS IT, paying the f8cking rent, it doesn't matter what league we are in, as long as the rent is paid. We will have NO chance of ever moving up the leagues with a situation like that. Plus God knows what fees or whatever will be extracted, bet there isn't much transparency either, we shall see!

The posters on here who seemed to favour GI commented that why should they invest because the league had not ratified the club yet. Nice little excuse that. Well they have now! So whats the next excuse, lets here it.

[merse btpir]

[ i]So there is no f*cking point of them owning us then, we would be better off with TUST, my bloody point all along.[/i]

But TUST don't have the capital to run the club for even a month Neal ~ I'd love them to 'own the club' but it ain't gonna happen.

I said on here months ago, TUFC will be an independent company with NO assets, actually with LESS assets.

What assets did it have prior to the current ownership taking it over then?
You're just threshing around in the dark through frustration. I'm not pro GI by any stretch of the imagination but the brutal truth is they have now acquired the club and if they do run it in the manner you predict then we can only hope that they see a thriving club as a bigger asset in their 'grand plan' than you see a struggling one. When you identify a lack of resource to rise back up the leagues you are in fact pointing out the existence the club has been in ever since it last dropped out of the English Football League and it might well be that the club has to consolidate itself and promote life and the positives of it within the non league game allied to a more enveloping social structure whereby people come to the club and enjoy a fuller day out/week than they do now.

A commercial venture now owns the club and as such they will expect to exact a return on their acquisition. We have to face up to that and accept it because no amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth in the past has avoided that inevitable quandary; either curl up and die or accept someone like Clarke Osborne taking it off the hands of those who couldn't ~ despite their best intentions and efforts ~ make it work.

[portugull]

I cannot argue with those comments because that is the harsh reality like it or not!

[Southampton Gull]

Merse, that's the point, Osborne literally manipulated a situation where he could indeed "take it off their hands". If he hadn't been practically given the key to the clubs financials it might have been Smurthwaite instead of "Riviera Stadium Ltd" and I know who I prefer.

[hector]

He's been isolated for the duration of this season. No experienced manager would have stuck at it like he has as was proved only last season. Decision after decision has backfired and each time he's left to carry the burden on his own. He's not stupid, his name is doing the rounds!

Like you, Dave, I think Nicho's position at Plainmoor is untenable now. Whatever the circumstances of his budget, the background of the club etc, no manager survives the sort of run that we have endured lately.

Nicholson is an intelligent bloke and just the sort you'd imagine would one day could make a decent manager but as a rookie, without any reasonable coaching experience, this was always going to be a massive challenge but one that he appears to lack the wherewithal to overcome the current malaise. Better managers than him have lost their jobs and gone on to be successful. If his name is doing the rounds - I guess you mean KN - then I hope it is and that, assuming he is about to leave, he is not out of work for long. He is a decent man with a family to support and it is difficult, especially in the case of someone so entwined with TUFC, to feel that one would like a change made when it means someone losing their livelihood, although perhaps his lengthy contract offers him some protection. Yet, relegation would probably spell the end of our football club and more than a century of history and hopes, and in my mind that overrides any concern for KN, even though I do feel for him.

I'm sure he would get some work in football but he could probably do with some learning beforehand instead of what appears to be at times, him thinking he has all the answers when he clearly doesn't.

[Dazza]

That's what developers do. There was no way GI would just lend money unless they had some protection and the theoretical ability to get it back. Smurthwaite I am sure would have done exactly the same.

The situation, like it or not Dave, is we have GI. The time is just about as dire as could be imagined with regional and part time football now looking a certainty, with a manager and a team out of their depth and only able to half convince even themselves.

There is now no point or value looking back. There is nothing to be gained back there. The big question now is will GI who must be frightened by loss of income by relegation and the bad atmosphere that goes with it, invest in a proven manager and 3 or 4 players of his choice to keep us up or will they see it in their short term financial interest to sit on their hands.

We have reached the cross roads.