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i've put a few small comments up so far, and given myself time to digest what's happened, so here is my two penny worth.

my overriding feeling is buckle believes he has outgrown our little club. he has shown a blatant disrespect for the club, the players (other than those he's promised a pay rise to follow him to bristol), and us, the fans. even in his first interview since his move was anounced, he used the words "I'm someone who's ambitious.................." so, probably sees Bristol as another stepping stone until Sir Alex, Pep or Jose decide to quit.

ok, i'm not, and never have been, buckle's biggest fan. in my opinion, he hasn't learnt from his mistakes, but believes he is good enough to walk out on the club and players that put him where he is.

do i think he's a good manager ? No, not really.
do i think he'll get Bristol promoted this coming season ? No.
do i think TUFC will miss him ? No.
have i supported him during his time here ? Yes, 100%.
does the manner of his exit sour anything good he's done ? yes, damn right it does.
will i miss him ? hell no.

do i blame him for the way his exit has been handled ? not entirely.
do i blame Rovers for the way his exit has been handled ? not entirely.
do i blame TUFC for the way his exit has been handled ? not entirely.
who do i blame ? all of the above.

no matter what happened, i'd imagine Rovers made their approach legally, and by the book, at least i hope so. so, why at that point, that first conversation when someone at our club was asked "can we speak to your manager about our vacancy ?" - WHY was the caller not told politely to go forth and get ****ed ?? "thanks for your call, but we are pushing for promotion, our season is still very much alive, please call back in June".

do i have an opinion of who i'd like to see as our next manager ?? not sure really, but i do have a criteria i'd like the new fella to meet.

many have mentioned Greavsie as a potential new manager. not sure if i agree with that. i've got a lot of respect for the guy, and i believe he has a lot of respect for the club, so already ahead of buckle in my opinion. but there is a lot of work to do between now and may 2012, so i'd like to see someone come in who can hit the ground running. that said, if it is greavsie, i won't be unhappy with it, but he will need the right people around him.

paul trollope ?? well, he has some knowledge and experience, and lets face it, not many managers are out of work because they were successful in their last job, but there are far worse out there than him. AND he's another who knows the club, so should come in and settle quickly.

the one thing we should not forget. Division 2 next year is gonna be one hell of a tough division to get out of, maybe even survive in. the teams coming down will expect to be pushing to go straight back up, then there's the shrews, vale, crewe, accrington, crawl£y, gills, southend, bradford.

whoever comes in is going to have one hell of a job, but one thing is for certain. he will have my full support, and i'm sure, that of the rest of you.

I'm amazed that anyone would think he's not a decent manager nor will we miss him. 3 playoffs in 4 years, when does that happen at Torquay? On a shoestring budget for the most part, he's made a young exciting team that's done brilliantly this season.

You don't know what you've got till it's gone.

If Rovers stick with him, he'll get them promoted.

Decent managers dont play Hargreaves at centre half or Kee on the wing, case closed.

The team he's created recently is a credit to him. He's improved steadily and built a team that plays decent attacking football. He achieved more than i ever thought he would. But in terms of the promotion and his win ratio, it's very difficult to ascertain what kind of an achievement that was. We were stealing players from other big clubs in the conference, which would indicate our budget - relatively speaking was quite big. And he had more staff than any other Torquay manager in history probably. It's fair to say he had advantages other managers of this club never had.

Out of interest, how many seasons was he really on a shoestring budget? This season yes, but in the BSP? I'd have thought we should have been looking at playoffs in the BSP on that basis.

Some of the clubs that you could have said were bigger also had money problems at the time eg Cambridge and Oxford were going through a shakey finance period IIRC.

Southampton Gull wrote:Decent managers dont play Hargreaves at centre half or Kee on the wing, case closed.

Kee has played there for the latter part of this season when we've made the playoffs. He played Hargreaves there for a few games didn't work, changed it. All managers make decisions like that at some point.

Kee did not look comfortable on the right-wing in any game.

Hargreaves was an immediately obvious mistake, he was too stubborn and persisted until even a child could have seen it was a huge error.

Kee was wasted, end of.

There are so many threads going and replies flying in my head is spinning right now,just a thought ,i have heard a lot said on many threads about Buckle coming back and taking all our players,one question here,how many of our players are accually that sad he has gone?

As for his abilty as a manager,he is about to be tested on that more than ever now,so we will see.

Fonda wrote:Kee did not look comfortable on the right-wing in any game.

I don't think it's his best position, they did interchange in games and it was a system that worked for the team. Ideally we'd have had someone a bit technically better out there but we won games with him in that position, he scored a couple of goals.

A system used to try and get the most out of our attacking players, and one which worked for us.

I think it's pretty sad really to beat the bloke about two players playing in certain positions over a 4 year tenure. I've seen Steve Coppell twice voted LMa manager of the year playing Doyle at right wing, Stephen Hunt at left back, a centre half up front. The Stevenage manager played a centre half up front on saturday. Managers of clubs do that with players all the time. Sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. Mansell at right back?

It isn't about two players though, is it?

He has a habit of making the same mistakes again and again.

Is Robertson a right back?

Did Robinson have a left foot?

How many times did Benyon have to play up front on his own for him to realise he isn;t a lone striker?

I could go on and on.....................

They all did a job and those mentioned had many a good game in those positions. I know me and you have moaned at Robertson at right back but he was justified with the results both at the back end of last year and the start of this season. As a short term measure he can play there. Robinson has played the whole time wide cutting in, again I'd say on the whole he's had more good than bad there.

I don't like 1 up front personally but it works for some teams, managers tinker with formations and players in different roles up and down the country at every club. The new manager will do exactly the same, and if he doesn't and we lose he'll be criticised for not doing so.

The only thing that matters.

Is the club better now than when he took over? Unquestionably. That's how a manager should be judged on his final performance. 4 years, 3 times in the playoffs, two runs to the FA Cup 4th round for a club like Torquay. Doesn't happen normally.

Southampton Gull wrote:It isn't about two players though, is it?

He has a habit of making the same mistakes again and again.

Is Robertson a right back?

Did Robinson have a left foot?

How many times did Benyon have to play up front on his own for him to realise he isn;t a lone striker?

I could go on and on.....................

You forgot the biggest mistake of them all.

Playing Martin Rice in goal......... :~D

Ian, you're obviously playing with the vas, face facts, Buckle has and will always have severe limitations.

I judge a manager not just on what he achieves but also how he achieves it.

Is he really responsible for any part of the club that is better now than 4 years ago or are you crediting him with things that others were responsible for?

How can he not a lot of the credit for the team being 7th in League 2 from being out of the league 4 years ago?

Every manager has help/hindrence from other board or staff. But he's been the manager of the side, he's developed this team to what they are. I don't deny he has limitations and I don't deny he's made mistakes over 4 years, but seriously tell me a manager who hasn't made mistakes over the same period.

He's been a big part of the succesfull last 4 years, there can be no doubting that. It's a shame to see him go, I understand why the bad feeling is there but I just think some of the commments (not neccesarily yours Dave, i'm just responding to your point) are harsh towards him.

Bloke love him or hate him has done an excellent job and leaves the club in a better state than when he took over as manager. Fact.