TT BLOG
Clive Hayward
@Byehorse
TALKING GEORGE EDWARDS
My first boss was an odd sort. He had gone quite a long way in local government and he had lots of animal cunning. I was a bit scared of him, although he gave me a couple of second chances when others might not have done and he was brilliant when we had a family tragedy.
He once told me he was a fan of “mushroom management”. “You know what that is Clive, don’t you? Keep people in the dark and feed them on manure.”
George Edwards was appointed as a Director of Torquay United November 2018[1] along with Mel Hayman, who is a qualified accountant[2]. George was appointed by Clarke Osborne, the owner of the club, who recently announced his intention to put Torquay United into administration. That announcement was made on February 22nd 2024, the same day that the club’s travails and supporters’ concerns were given national coverage by Daniel Storey in his excellent article for iNews.co.uk[3].
George and Mel are still at the club. Many people wonder why this is the case. In this article I will give Mel the benefit of the doubt. Her Dad was also a director for many years ago and she clearly has a long history with the Gulls and some relevant expertise. Others aren’t so sure though.
But we definitely need to talk about George, because I don’t understand why he is still here.
- What is he doing?
- What does he want?
- Can we accept that he has the best interests of the club at heart?
He came to the club to work for Clarke Osborne. This is what Osborne said at the time:
“My trusted colleague George is already bringing his experience and ability to the club and is reorganising the way the club operates and functions across the entire spectrum of its activities.”
What is George’s position now?
Well, he is still a Director of Torquay United, and the Club has said he is doing this on voluntary basis. He has spent many years working closely with Osborne, who still owns the club and is, of course, a very important creditor. Just how closely the men have worked together can be seen from Companies House records. This is a list of companies of which they have both been officers[4]:
New Build Holdings Ltd
Pontins Bingo Ltd
Toklon Ltd
Gaming International Ltd
Swindon Motor Sports Ltd
Revix Ltd
Still awake? One more, the strangely appropriate B.S. Estates Ltd[5].
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/46400172
[2] https://torquayunited.com/torquay-united-afc-announces-board-appointments/
[3] https://inews.co.ukat sport/football/torquay-united-drifting-fans-enough-2918381
[5] B S ESTATES LIMITED people – Find and update company information – GOV.UK (company-information.service.gov.uk)
Osborne’s business interests remain extensive. Despite no longer wanting to be part of #OneClubUnited, he retains an interest in 24 companies. I expect he’ll be okay.
But what of Torquay United, and what of George?
Well, he was pictured last weekend with 2 MPs, Jim Parker, Mel Hayman and a scarf. There are now rumours that George may be keen on organising a buyout himself, and The Torbay Weekly reckons that he has: “demonstrated (his) commitment to the club in often unspectacular ways over recent years”.
George isn’t keen on giving interviews to the Press. He has also very seldom spoken to supporters, and this has led to considerable frustration.
His image, pure and simple, is that of a businessman and although you can never tell he doesn’t look as though he would bleed blue & yellow.
I have tried to find out a bit more about what George does behind the scenes, and it doesn’t seem to be a particularly pretty picture.
Here are some examples:
Torquay United Community Sports Trust
An old friend used to be involved with the Community Sports Trust. They have asked me not to give their name. I have never seen them lose their temper with anybody, but when I contacted them last week they told me this:
“I have seen GE at close hand and how he operates. He can give you the impression that he is working with you but all along he is working on his own agenda, which is power and control of everything and everyone that he comes into contact. He rules TUFC with a rod of iron.
He controls everything, and nothing happens in TUFC without his specific approval.
He treated the Community Trust appallingly, even excluding them from HIS Community Day! They weren’t even invited. He banned the Trust from speaking to the manager and players. For the kids, seeing and meeting the players was a great highlight. This is a measure of the man.
Until he goes, along with his co-director, Mel Hayman, the club will not move on. They did their level best to make life impossible for the Trust, even refusing to sign the Service level Agreement as is required by the National League. In addition there were other league requirements pertaining to their relationship with the trust which they did not fulfil.”
Torquay United Travel Club:
Torquay United Travel Club runs transport to every away game.
One of the organisers, Mark Shephard, says this:
“We had a few meetings with George after the club withdrew support of travel club. When we first started details of the coaches would be in the programme, announced before home games and at half time, but this stopped during Covid. We did have a meeting with George and his response was “what do you do for the club?” and “where do you see yourselves in 5 years”. That seemed like a strange reply and we explained about getting fans to games etc. For some reason he thought we had 1000 travel club members (this was around the time of Ashton Gate) but in fact we’d be lucky if we had 100. His face dropped. I think he wanted money from memberships and thought there was a lot of profit in travel club. Sadly they have never supported us since that.
We continue to run the travel for the fans without the club’s support or media coverage etc, but we do this for the FANS not the club!!”
I asked Mark if the club had ever offered to help financially- e.g. to subsidise any trips? Mark said:
“Ha ha ha, did they put money in? Funny!! They just stopped putting details in the programmes during lockdown and when we got to the play-off final we had to sit in car park taking bookings as no one from club offered any help. We did ask for a meeting but they didn’t respond, then after Ashton Gate we met again but they offered nothing apart from trying to tell us how to run travel club, which we were already doing. Since then they don’t advertise or give us anything!
Sadly I think the only reason George met us was to see if they could make money from it!!”
Fanzones and Match Ambassadors
A Torquay United supporting parent with a young son who also loves the Gulls wrote this on Sunday:
“I was at St James Park yesterday. The whole match experience is light years beyond what Torquay offer. The fanzone is so welcoming, players having photos and autographs with youngsters, table football, Playstations for youngsters to use, an indoor and outdoor bar and the lunchtime televised match shown on several screens. There were loads of volunteers making it happen. None of this would be difficult to do at Plainmoor but the powers that be don’t want to know. Boots and Laces by comparison is dark and unwelcoming for families. We just avoid it”.
Clearly The Grecians are getting it right.
I only have a vague memory of the fanzone at Plainmoor, so I asked some of the volunteers who set it up. This is a flavour of what they told me:
“We had games consoles and a load of indoor stuff as well as outdoor inflatables etc. I believe it was George Edwards who said he didn’t want kids in Boots and Laces so we were only able to do outdoor stuff after that. All the money for it came from the Premier League fans fund that TUST got sorted. The club signed up to it but then they made it difficult to carry on with any of it.”
“Yes, we started using Boots and Laces, with table football and we still have the consoles and colouring activities etc. This was a part of the outdoor Fans Zone, but George Edwards/Mel Hayman stopped it. Also, after the first two or three, players were not sent along anymore.”
“We based our Fan Zone project on what we had seen at Argyle and Exeter and it was building nicely with a mixture of indoor and out door activities for fans (especially young ones) to take part in. The club never really got behind it and in fact made it as difficult as they could for TUST to run it effectively.
More recently George Edwards has claimed the club “never signed up to it” despite the grant from the Premier League Fans Fund to the partnership (Club, Community Trust, Supporters Trust) being conditional on the club signing and agreeing to the terms and conditions, which they did.”
“We can only hope that we can do stuff like this regularly again if we get a new, friendly owner on board.”
What happened to the Ambassadors then?
“Well, that scheme was ended too. Mel Hayman and George Edwards suddenly stopped it without any discussion.
We started to do it before George Edwards arrived. Matchday Ambassadors welcomed people to Plainmoor inside the gates, wearing our yellow Ambassador tops and we were available to help them with any problems. Also, could feedback any supporter issues to the club.
At a pre-season friendly, George or Mel just sent a message down to the office as we arrived, without explanation or discussion. I remember it really well: the message was: ‘We are not having Matchday Ambassadors anymore!”
Conclusion:
We don’t really know what George is up to as the club finds itself in a battle to avoid relegation to the Southern League. At Tonbridge Angels on Saturday he again sat unhappily in the stand.
It may be that he has seen the light, and has decided to work every available hour to save our club. Maybe he has financial insights his boss didn’t.
Maybe he wants to mend fences and put smiles back on faces.
Maybe he has had second thoughts about:
- Engaging with the Community Sports Trust
- Co-operating with the Travel Club
- Fanzones
- Matchday Ambassadors.
But we don’t know, do we? Because he never speaks.
Maybe his actions speak louder than words. It’s very clear that many of the people who have had to deal with him feel bruised by that experience.
So, sadly, it looks like we will have to continue with Mushroom Management unless he leaves.
COYY – CLIVE
OTHER ARTICLES
TT GROUNDHOPPING – AFC TOTTON (A) by Clive Hayward
Clive discusses his trip to see the Gulls
Read More
TALKING POINTS REVIEW – AFC Totton (a) by Thomas Kelly
Talking Points from the game at Totton
Read More
TT PARTNERS
TWITTER – INSTAGRAM – ETSY – YOUTUBE – FACEBOOK
TORQUAYTALK 