The Gaffer

[Jack]

I don't know about the rest of you but I am getting a bit brasses off with the quotes from "The Gaffer" as reported on the Club website.
The Gaffer, definition "a person in charge of others; a boss" seems to blame everyone but himself for the current position that we find ourselves in. His latest thinking is that "we" are too nice! Gaffer I have news for you; the buck stops with you!
You are probably getting desperate having failed to deliver because you have been given far more resources than your predecessors . In the week that you were able to loan out three players your predecessor exactly twelve months earlier had himself, Will Hancox and Charlie Duke on the bench. Not much chance of tactical substitutions there!
Gaffer the truth hurts but it is abundantly clear that you lack the interpersonal skills to motivate others and you are probably alienating the playing staff rather than getting them on board. In our working lives we have to get the best out of what we are given sometimes and you can't keep on ringing the changes in personnel. The Gaffer creates the working environment and develops the culture within the organisation. Get it sorted!

At least the previous regime was able to motivate individual players to raise their game. Tyrone Marsh, Iffy Allen and Jordan Lee readily spring to mind.
Solihull Moors appointed Mark Yates as their manager on Thursday, he signed a striker on loan from Coventry on Friday and yesterday that striker got the equaliser against Maidstone!
Hmm, time for a strong cup of coffee.

[Yorkieandy]

Let's not forget the real culprit in all this. Clarke Osborne.

First of all that month or so he stalled when deciding who to appoint as replacement for Nico was very costly indeed.

Secondly he appointed Owers instead of a proven league manager who was used to firefighting and could get the club away from the bottom in quick time by using his experience and motivational skills.

I believe that if Osborne had appointed someone like a Yates et al within weeks of Nico going then the club could have survived.

Ok so we know Owers is useless. One win at home against a side of tired part timers is all he has since arriving. Totally unacceptable especially when you have clubs like Guiseley now scoring freely, picking up points and knocking out league teams in the FA Cup because they went for an experienced motivator in Paul Cox.

The club took far too long in replacing Nico and when they did chose the budget option and those key decisions will cost the club it's NL status and maybe it's survival.

All part of the plan.

The club has 4 desperately tricky games coming up where the likelihood is they will be 4 or more wins behind the safety line in the NL and that is unassailable I'm afraid.

Osborne has to sack Owers now and do what he should have done in the first place and pray it's not too late. That of course won't happen and the club will go down.

Not all Owers fault of course but my God is he terrible.

[merse btpir]

The tiresome and over-used term emanates from the limited vocabulary of Patrick Tinkler; not from the manager himself!

I read your summing up of the situation as it stands and would counter that under Owers, I've not been aware of any capitulation or performance such as those against Solihull or Boreham Wood before he arrived . Comments around me as I left the Boreham Wood game at the time that "we were lucky it wasn't 4 or 5 or 6 nil" were clearly heard and it was obvious that the management needed to be changed.

In all of Owers' ten gamesI can't recall a performance where we have been outplayed, outfought, outmaneuvered. No-one is now saying or posting 'we were that poor we should have been dicked 5 or 6 nil' or 'they should have ran away with it'. That's because it hasn't happened, and all of our results under Owers have been narrowly contested. It'll take time to turn this mess around.

I think great attention should be paid to Owers recent comments, about the attitude of not only the players but the club as a whole. About it being too nice, too cosy. "Everyone associated with Torquay United needs to be more ruthless if the club is to retain it's National League status."

Owers has more to do than to sort out the personnel on the pitch, he is also needs to counter the inherited culture, a mentality that we have become so accustomed to. Culture becomes engrained, it manifests itself over a long period of time therefore it becomes hard to eradicate. That in itself is a massive, massive job; it will take longer than this season even; yet needs to be largely achieved forthwith.

The damage to the club and it's standing has been done over five years of mismanagement and unwise direction. From an irresponsible baling out by the one time owner, incapable oo making a wise decision and being conned by a slippery snake oil salesman in her haste to rid herself of the onerous responsibility; the well intentioned but naïve intervention of a group of genuine supporters with a little bit of money between them but nowhere near enough and the insufficient calibre of management that their best efforts could secure.

Now the worrying prospect of being owned by less than trustworthy creditors of the last ownership who at least have appeared to set to rights the total lack of financial structure behind the previous management. They have got to be allowed and given time to do their job whether referred to as 'gaffer', boss' or 'GO'. I think the Officlal Website's lack of vocabulary is the least of the club's problems to be honest!

[Jack]

I really don't think Owers is the man for the job.
His record at Forest Green was abysmal and his only other "Gaffer" role was a part time one at Bath City.
He doesnt seem to have the charisma to bring the Club together. The fans on this website seem pretty indifferent toward him if the comments on the match day threads are anything to go by and they seem to have difficulty identifying five players for MOTM if they can even be bothered to contribute. As well as getting tactics right, managers have to inspire players and teams to play above themselves. Slagging players off in public doesn't engender togetherness and team spirit.
Sorry but I really don't rate him as an all round manager.

[Yorkieandy]

Thanks to CO, the one thing any new manager didn't have was time. Owers needed to come in, hit the ground running and nick a few wins whilst simultaneously striving to improve the squad and performances. That hasn't happened sadly and now he's in the quicksand trying to keep his head above the sand, and whilst credit is due and he is trying valiantly, the fact remains that results (not necessarily performances) since he arrived some 10 or more games ago now have been less than could anyone could have expected. In short, as i've said before he's failing in his job and not succeeding.

Ok so he may be tightening the side up a little and making them more competitive but the club still aren't winning any games. That's the crux.

This has nothing to do with the culture of failure as Merse says although over a period of time longer than 10 games or so i would agree that this is why many clubs struggle but Owers and Kuhl were fresh faces. They came in and in the space of a few months have not had the desired impact and i don't see how any culture can be absorbed by anyone in the short space of a few months.

I'd like to be able to say that famous quote from Ghostbusters is what Owers and Kuhl would be saying to Torquay fans in a few months time......

"We came, we saw, we kicked it's ass!"

but i guess we'll have to settle with "We came, we walked, we took the cash!"

Just like everyone involved at Torquay these last 5 years or so. They come in, fail and get paid. Great.

[kevgull]

Is this our worst ever start to a season?
20 games have vanished into thin air, no Saturday win and only 11 measly points.
Looking for a Statto to help?

[hector]

We have had some poor managers since Ling went sick. Based on their first 10 league games in charge, where they all faced similar issues of having to take on someone else’s team, a team not doing especially well, we saw the following:

Knill 12pts - a better ratio than he managed later with his own team
Hargreaves 10pts
Cox 10pts
Nicholson 6pts
Owers 8pts

Knill inherited the strongest team, while Hargreaves inherited the mess Knill had squandered so much money on.

Cox had a tough job trying to assemble a scratch team in the face of a difficult situation and things seemed even worse by the time Nicholson took over.

Owers certainly was taking on a - on paper - stronger squad than Nicholson and Cox had to deal with but is only 2pts better off than Nicholson the rookie was and worse off than Hargreaves the rookie was at a higher level.

Owers is not totally to blame but the impression is that he is being backed more than the previous manager - he certainly isn’t driving a minibus to away games - and so far he has disappointed.

Overall, it is such a let down. The scandalous 6 game period without a manager - why act early and then squander the opportunity of getting someone in quickly? - and the unambitious appointment hint at what Andy suggests and that is, what feels, the deliberate sabotage of the club by Clarke Osborne. And yet, that doesn’t make sense for had they wanted to run the club into the ground, then why not let Nicholson stay on and continue the disappointing job he was doing at the time, safe in the knowledge that his Facebook friends wouldn’t give you any grief about it?

Not sure what it was about Owers’ fairly unremarkable managerial record that attracted Harrop, (or was it Osborne? as rumours suggest Osborne blocked a more experienced candidate) but Owers remains unremarkable as a Torquay manager so far. Hopefully, there is a grand plan in there somewhere and just maybe Owers was appointed for his experience in the Conference South for when we end up there.

[arrywithanh]

I don't know about the rest of you but I am getting a bit brasses off with the quotes from "The Gaffer" as reported on the Club website.
The Gaffer, definition "a person in charge of others; a boss" seems to blame everyone but himself for the current position that we find ourselves in. His latest thinking is that "we" are too nice! Gaffer I have news for you; the buck stops with you!
You are probably getting desperate having failed to deliver because you have been given far more resources than your predecessors . In the week that you were able to loan out three players your predecessor exactly twelve months earlier had himself, Will Hancox and Charlie Duke on the bench. Not much chance of tactical substitutions there!
Gaffer the truth hurts but it is abundantly clear that you lack the interpersonal skills to motivate others and you are probably alienating the playing staff rather than getting them on board. In our working lives we have to get the best out of what we are given sometimes and you can't keep on ringing the changes in personnel. The Gaffer creates the working environment and develops the culture within the organisation. Get it sorted!

At least the previous regime was able to motivate individual players to raise their game. Tyrone Marsh, Iffy Allen and Jordan Lee readily spring to mind.
Solihull Moors appointed Mark Yates as their manager on Thursday, he signed a striker on loan from Coventry on Friday and yesterday that striker got the equaliser against Maidstone!
Hmm, time for a strong cup of coffee.

What would you prefer? Nicholson who only blamed himself? and that miffed many off because we got sick of hearing his whimper!

At the end of the day (I am NOT defending Owers) the players have to be held accountable at some point, the issue for Owers is that he is signing/loaning many new players and so can not blame the old regime for the crap he inherited.

Worrying months ahead!

[Jack]

We seem to have two extremes don't we? Nicholson who only blamed himself and Owers who blames everybody but himself.

[MellowYellow]

We seem to have two extremes don't we? Nicholson who only blamed himself and Owers who blames everybody but himself.

One has two 'great escapes' to his CV but was not given the opportunity to make it three in a row. The other is working at trying to muster one 'great escape' but will he succeed? Blaming the players in public does not help. A good manager take players to one side, bollocks them and then tells 'Joe Public' the players are a great bunch of lads and everything is his fault, re: Nicho. the "Godfather of Great Escapes"

[portugull]

I think that in Gary Owers and Martin Kuhl at our level we have two capable men.
The problem is the players who have on paper experience and ability but are so short on confidence after a horrendous run that they smell defeat before they set foot on the pitch.
Gary Owers knows that the only way to save us is to make changes to the current squad who know after yesterdays rollicking that the boss is losing patience with them.
Time is running out and we need to change this losing mentality quickly and Owers knows this better than anyone.

[budegull1954]

Good post - Owers and Kuhl are no fools, the players have lost confidence in their own abilty and being rock-bottom of the league is not helping them either. All very odd though when you consider the vast experience of the likes of Gowling and Davis, not forgetting that McGinty once played in the same youth team as Paul Pogba.

[merse btpir]

Gary Owers knows that the only way to save us is to make changes to the current squad who know after yesterdays rollicking that the boss is losing patience with them. Time is running out and we need to change this losing mentality quickly and Owers knows this better than anyone.

Any fool can see that except the fools who want to hang onto the #greatescape mentality and laud the previous incumbents for the 'achievement' of finishing 17th in this league.

Owers and Kuhl inherited this losing mentality; that's how they came to be here and that's why the previous management are not. Now it's time to root out the serial losers and ask serious questions of them as men, as players and as the failures that they undeniably are!

[Jack]

Sadly the majority of players in yesterdays squad were Hedges/Owers signings so if they have signed losers then that's their problem.
I don't think that the Owers/Kulh set up will succeed but I would like to be pleasantly surprised.

[Dazza]

It was Owers who seemed as culpable as anyone. Switching systems when underervedly 1-0 down at HT seems to have put the side in reverse.