TT BLOG

Thomas Kelly – @tommyktufc

Tom discusses the Gulls

One Year On

“What happens if there isn’t a new stadium. I don’t think I need to answer that because there will be one.”

“All of the enterprises that I’ve been with have been successful, I don’t think I’ve had a failure as such.”

“Do I have an exit strategy. No.” – Clarke Osborne during the Online Fans Forum (19th December 2023)

Thursday 22nd February 2024, 13:05.

Torquay United owner Clarke Osborne announced the following:

“It is with sincere regret that I advise that circumstances beyond my control during the last five weeks have bought me to the position that I am unable to continue financial support for the club and I have today filed on behalf of the Directors, an intention to appoint an administrator to the club and company.

You knew where you were on that day as a Torquay fan. For me, I was sat on my friend’s sofa preparing myself for the yellow card protest that had been arranged by many parties for the upcoming home game against Aveley, despondent after witnessing an uninspiring goalless draw to Farnborough just a few days before, where the distribution of these cards had begun to be distributed.

My stomach dropped as many struggled to open the webpages with news surfacing of the club’s perialish position.

All I could say after reading his statement was “It’s over…”.

Not in relation to Uncle Clarkes time at TUFC, but that our 124 year existence as a football club was at serious risk of coming to an end.

Our club was not in a good place. Relegation to regional football for just the 2nd time in our history, losing over a million pounds a year, the Gulls had endured a terrible run of results after Christmas, seeing the then pre-season favourites for the title, fall from 2nd position, outside of the playoff picture to 11th place.

Gary Johnson had completely fallen out with the supporters with his arrogant attitude of “I’m not going anywhere” and “We want the right type of fans supporting us”, rubbed salt into the wounds of the loyal Yellow Army fan base, who continued to spend their hard-earned money to be treated to some of the worst football seen from a Torquay United team.

The news came just a few hours after Chief Football Writer Daniel Storey of the I paper, published his story entitled “Torquay United are drifting aimlessly and the fans have had enough.” A brilliant piece of journalism, calling out the decline of our proud football club. It seemed that was the final straw that broke the camel’s back for Clarke Osborne as rumours began to speculate after the Gaffers weekly press conference that he had called a meeting of all staff at the club to attend. We would soon learn the reason why.

This a man who had put in millions of pounds into the football club, most of it, wasted on poor recruitment, virtually none going into ground repairs and most of the time, focusing on a new stadium for the club that had as much chance of happening as the club being “One Club United”.

Torquay United are drifting aimlessly and the fans have had enough

Ashton Gate seemed to have been the turning point after investing into bringing Gary Johnson into the club with the Gulls struggling to perform in our first ever foray into NLS football back in 2018, before appearing to go all out in the Gulls promotion push during the COVID season of 20/21.

All our best players left, those who replaced them were not up to the standard and the decline of Torquay United was well underway.

As the fans digested the news. we would learn a few hours later that Gary Johnson had agreed to leave his position as manager and that his assistant Aaron Downes would take charge until the end of the season.

“Torquay is as much my club as it is the fans.” once quoted Johnson. Good riddance to a manager well past his best before date. Whilst he brought us some good times in the first few years, his legacy in my eyes will always be tarnished. No-one should ever be bigger than the football club and its supporters. Johnson thought he was.

For the first time in a long time, we had hope. Osborne was gone. Johnson was gone and the fan base began to mobilise. The club admin had been set free. For the first time in a long time, we had fan engagement, ticket sales surged and donations began to flood into the club. It was clear that The Yellow Army were going to fight for their club. We weren’t going to die that easily. It took a while for Edwards to depart, but eventually he did.

We recorded an emergency episode of Gulls Eye View which quickly became our most watched video at that time, Swanny would soon find himself as our spokesperson going on local and national radio to promote our football club to the world. A football club by the sea, who could resist?!

There were already talks of interested parties for the club. People were talking about our club. Torquay United had gone national.

Fear quickly turned into cautious optimism. The crowd doubled from the Gulls last home game, going from 1800 to 3600 with many more purchasing tickets despite not being able to attend, giving the club much needed revenue.

Aaron Downes in his post-match interview, ensured the Yellow Army knew his stance on his position at the club with two words. “Our team”. He looked down the camera and thanked the Yellow Army for their support. Whatever your feelings of Aaron at the time, it was clear he had the passion for the challenge ahead and the Yellow Army got right behind him.

“The support shown to this football club in the last 48 hours is for me expected, but is nothing short of phenomenal.” – Aaron Downes post-match interview v Aveley (H).

It took a while for the administration process to be officially confirmed, the day after the Gulls horrific 0-3 home defeat to Taunton Town, a club the Gulls would eventually secure their safety against in our last away game of the season in front of a sellout away following, despite the club losing another point along the way thanks to an administrate error with Sam Swann’s favourite player Ross Marshall, playing in the 1-1 draw away to Weymouth when he was still suspended.

“It’s been a tough couple of months for everybody, but tonight everybody showed their worth and showed their true colours as a football club.” – Aaron Downes Post Match interview v Taunton (A)

It should never be understated how much we’ve all gone through the last 12 months and the part we all played in ensuring the survival and revival of our proud football club. We were lucky. Our name still had the respect of many in footballing circles.

In the words of our editor Dom Roman,

“We fought for our club and we won.”

We refused to accept their excuses. We refused to accept failure for our football club. We knew we could do better.

Our club is now in safe hands. The work that has gone on since the Bryn Consortium received the keys to the club has been nothing short of magnificent. Record season ticket sales, producing excellent merchandise in club shirts and bucket hats (we did it first!), the excellent volunteers who continue to spruce up Plainmoor, helped redesign the Cove, the push to update and re-invigorate Boots & Laces, the work outside the ground, implementing foundations for the future, superb player reveals and even producing a club documentary. I’m probably missing out so much more but it’s kudos to everyone involved that our club for putting in the hard work that had been desperately neglected for years.

We have fan representation on the board with the Torquay United Supporters Trust.

We have 519 investors through the TUST’s Yellow Army Community Share Issue, raising over £270,000 to be invested into the club. Fans views now represented on the board, forever.

We have an energetic and highly motivated manager in Paul Wotton, aided by the legend that is Neil Warnock!

There will be bumps in the road, but we will get through them together. Promotion to the National League remains to be our immediate ambition, with a return into the Football League our ultimate aim.

Whatever happens this season, we should be proud that we changed our club for the better and know that we are going to be in a much better place going forward. We will get there Yellow Army.

I end this article with Swanny’s words from our final episode of Season 3 of Gulls Eye View.

“Goodbye to all the people who made us feel so miserable and quite frankly failed us as supporters. Goodbye. We won!”