TALKING POINTS

Matty Hayward

@MattyHayward96

Matty discusses the away loss

So this is Christmas, and what have you done? Well, John, I’ve spent almost a hundred pounds and upwards of eight hours on train travel to go and watch Torquay lose in an Essex athletics ground. You?

No shots on target, a comfortable defeat to a team that fought harder and defended better, a gutless, rudderless performance from an injury-stricken XI. There are, simultaneously, lots of talking points, and absolutely nothing new to say. We’re really not very good going forward, and we’re pretty hideous at the back. But if that’s news to you, you’ve not been paying attention, and the five-game winning streak has papered over some pretty cavernous cracks.

WELL, GAFFER

In truth, I only watched the first thirty seconds of Gaffer’s interview last night while I was, I’d guess, somewhere between Hungerford and Reading. His first comment was enough for me to slam my phone down and swear. When asked for his reflections on a blank-drawing loss to a football club whose main stand wouldn’t look out of place in the model village, Johnson decided to blame his mid-week candour about how good we are at defending corners. Apparently, it was those comments, and not the fact that we are – in fact – not good at defending corners, that meant Chelmsford’s big bastard defender had a free header from – you guessed it – a corner, a week after Hemel Hempstead notched from a corner at Plainmoor (as they also did in the return fixture in September, twice).

Of course, the statistics that he quoted in the – and I use this term extremely loosely – fans’ forum which was filmed before the Hemel win, imply that we’ve done alright from them this season. And so we should. Defending corners is not difficult at all. It takes no skill, or technique, or creativity – qualities that this team has a terrifying dearth of – rather it requires a small amount of organisation, some bravery, some time on the training ground, and some ‘following a man around a small area of grass’. There is no excuse for a professional club in a part-time league to not be absolutely brilliant at defending set pieces. But we aren’t, and it cost us three points yesterday.

THE WOTSIT RATTLE

In the second half, the orange-attired home goalkeeper, lying on his front and facing the Gulls fans, stuck his right index finger up and clenched his left hand in a fist to signify that the score was 1-0, while grinning profusely. I enjoyed it. If my team was winning our second biggest game of the season, and I had gone completely untroubled, and I hadn’t won a home game in ages, and I knew it would wind people up, I probably would’ve done the same. This riled some, of course, so he carried on with this sort of caper for the rest of the afternoon. A tongue out, a wink, the occasional ‘long way home!’ shout. Good on him: he’s got veg to sell in the morning.

This had exactly the intended effect: Rattle. The Yellows faithful, who had – let’s be fair – more than a few reasons to be frustrated, took it out on the goalie. And then on the stewards. It was quite “control your wife!” in its nature, except the directions appeared to be that the high-vised army kept their ‘keeper in check. Of course, the best way to stop a jumped-up gloveman taking the piss is to, perhaps, score some goals past him. Or at least force him to make some saves. Or, if all else fails, just revel in singing “two jobs, shit ‘tache” at him and try to have a good day in spite of what’s in front of you.

OSMAN FOYO

Osman Foyo’s name is ripe for Bants, if shit punning is your bar for bants. His surname looks and sounds/looks like “FOMO”, “Froyo” and “yo-yo”, but there wasn’t much up-and-down about his performance yesterday. He had nobody on strings. The whole afternoon was more “I scream” than “ice-cream,” and you were quite lucky if you missed out on it. And so on. His forename appears in the moniker of well-known television presenter and best-selling author, Richard, and his visit to Chelmsford was certainly Pointless. That’s all a bit harsh, but it filled some column inches which – due to his non-descript start in Yellow and Blue – would’ve otherwise been empty. He played most of the game on the right wing, and showed a glimpse or two of being non-abysmal, before being moved up front and being largely ineffectual. But we really can’t be judging signings based on a debut where their teammates are utterly appalling – I’m more than happy to give him a chance.

ONE CLUB, UNITED

At the forum, the assembled party were asked how they were going to turn the club’s fortunes around and get back into the Football League. George Edwards raised his hand and declared that he’d answer it. “It’s simple,” he said. Thank God! I thought. “One club, United” he continued. Ah. He’s wrong. Unity is great, obviously, and something for which we should be aiming. But it achieves nothing in itself, and whether I agree with Jim Proudfoot, and whether he agrees with Helen Chamberlain, and whether she agrees with Paul Bastard, isn’t going to win us games of football and drag us out of this pit. There are many other factors that will determine our prospects of success, and a depressingly vague three-word slogan is not a sufficient answer to that question.

Also, I reject the implication that the reason we’ve spent the last three years languishing in a state of abject, perpetual failure resulting in regional football mediocrity is that fans haven’t been ‘united’ behind an absent chairman, a waning manager, and an almost talentless squad. In fact, the singular good thing about this club in that time period has been the fans, and I think we deserve more respect than Edwards’ smug smirking in that video grants us.

WE’RE TORQUAY UNITED – WE’RE RUINING THE LEAGUE

Finally, a ‘shout-out’ (as Steve Wright in the afternoon would say, much to my indignation) to the home fan who informed my dad and I at half-time that Torquay United were “ruining this league.” His logic was that, with all our “spending power,” the league was becoming unfair for “the rest of us” – a suggestion almost too detached from reality to fairly engage with. You don’t go knocking on the door of Bedlam and start explaining the unlikely physics of a patient’s legs actually being on fire. Nonetheless, rather than rolling over and letting the giant, flushed, unstoppable Yellow force tickle their bellies, the poor, plucky Claret underdogs outfought, outplayed, and out-bantered. Hopefully we’ll only be ruining their precious league for this season, but yesterday’s showing would indicate that we might be fee-fi-fo-fumming our way around this regional wasteland for a while longer yet.

But sod it, it’s Christmas. We’re still third. None of it really matters. I don’t know when you’ll be reading this, but I hope you have/had a peaceful, restful, merry break with as little time spent thinking about Torquay United as possible. Let us know if you got any #UnofficialMerch. Glad tidings to you and your kin.

COYY – MATTY

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