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Clive Hayward – @Byehorse

Clive discusses Torquay left backs

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Here at Torquay Talk, we are into our second season of sponsoring Jay Foulston. Keep an eye out over the next few days for a Gulls Eye View chat with our dependable young left back.

Jay’s position isn’t the most glamorous in football. Strikers, Number 10s and midfielders normally get more attention than full backs, and plenty of very average footballers have plied their trade in the number three shirt.

But some real greats have played there. I’ll give you Roberto Carlos, Paolo Maldini and Ashley Cole for starters, and Cole’s England predecessors include Derek Statham and the man himself, Stuart “Psycho” Pearce.

I hate to think how many left backs have played for Torquay since I started watching them in the 1970s. If we’re really honest, a lot of them have been quite forgettable. This is an optimistic time of year though, so I am not going to spend too much time on the dross.

It would be remiss not to mention a few, however, mainly because TT colleagues and others have thrown me a plethora of players that I have quickly managed to forget but who they can’t. Here, in no particular order, is our cavalcade of mediocrity:

Bailey Cargill,

Myles Anderson,

Mo Camara,

Levi Ives and

Ramarni Medford-Smith.

None of those lads rang real bells with me, I have to confess. I had literally never heard of Medford-Smith. Turns out he was a Gary Johnson loan signing in 2019, when “the Gaffer” still could do no wrong. He was brought in to try to cover for the excellent but injured Liam Davis. It never really happened for Ramarni at Plainmoor, and the Reading youngster’s career appears to have petered out at Marlow, Bracknell and Hungerford.

I suppose I should also mention Tom Cruise, Dan Martin and Ben Wyatt, who are footnotes in an underwhelming era.

Cruise arrived with a great pedigree. He had played in the Champions League for Arsenal (the team favoured by new Plainmoor supremo Mark Thomas, incidentally)! Granted it was a dead rubber against Olympiakos, but hopes were high for the youngster. Very sadly, he never managed to stay fit and was more “pop gun” than Top Gun in a Torquay shirt.

Dan Martin had decent pace, but he too struggled with injuries (and illness) and will, I fear, be forever one of those players who has never fulfilled his potential. His red card at Havant in an FA Cup Replay was a low point on a night to forget for everyone who travelled hundreds of miles there and back in torrential rain. If ever an away trip can be described as a long, dark night of the soul it was that one!

Finally, Ben Wyatt needs a mention. Just as Lirak Hasani has entered the pantheon because of how singable his name is, Ben Wyatt will be forever in our hearts because of the song he inspired. The Kaiser Chiefs’ classic was adapted to: “I predict Ben Wyatt, I predict Ben Wyatt,” notably at Scunthorpe on April Fools Day 2023, where a deserved win kept our survival hopes alive for a little longer and banished the Iron to the NLN.

Time to lift the mood. Here are my five favourite Torquay left backs.

Freddie Pethard

He was coming to the end of his career when he joined Torquay. He was with us from 1979 to 1982, and for much of that time I watched him at close quarters from the old Enclosure in front of the Grandstand. Fred was a lovely man, friends with the Faulkners who would often give me a lift from Paignton and he coached my mates’ Preston Wanderers team in the Torbay Pioneer League. He didn’t rip up any trees, but he had been good enough to be on Celtic’s books as a youngster and then played at Cardiff for a decade, often in the Second Division (now Championship).

Paul Holmes

Obviously, Paul was better known as a right-back, having a great career in the top divisions with Birmingham, Everton and West Brom after Cyril Knowles had spotted his talent and pointed him in the right direction. As an old full back himself, Cyril obviously knew a thing or two about them. But Paul wore number three for us on one of the most famous nights in our history, when we won our Wembley playoff final against Blackpool. The back four that night was Holmes, Wes Saunders, Matt Elliott and Chris Curran. Some unit, that. Both Cyril and Paul died well before their time, but neither will be easily forgotten at Plainmoor.

Paul Gibbs

Explosive! “Gibbo” was part of Kevin Hodges’ playoff team in 1997/98. He and Andy Gurney were a rampaging double act: they were wing backs with licence to cause havoc. With his bleached blond hair and celebrity girlfriend (sorry Helen!), this boy was Box Office.

We didn’t have him for long, because he followed Hodges and Steve McCall down the A38 when Dan McCauley poached them that summer, but I don’t hold it against him. It was a fantastic season, illuminated by Rodney Jack, McCall himself and a fantastic loan spell from Jason Roberts. But Gibbs was an integral part of a formation that worked wonders. We had finished bottom of the league in 1995/96 and struggled again in 1996/7, and the rapid change in our fortunes was electrifying.

Brian McGlinchey

A few years after Paul Gibbs went down the A38, this popular Ulsterman made the return journey. Quite how he was surplus to requirements at Aryle is a mystery but green loss was yellow gain. Brian was undemonstrative, the sort of player who just got on with his job. He rarely gave the ball away and had the knack of being in the right place at the right time. He was, of course, part of Leroy Rosenior’s entertaining promotion winning side of 2003/04. Dave Thomas has always been a great judge of a footballer, and when he named his Team of a Lifetime last December Brian was his choice at left back. That’s good enough for me.

Adam Smith

Perhaps a bit of a cheat, but Adam made a great impression when he joined us on loan from Spurs as an 18 year old in 2009 as Paul Buckle fought to stabilise us in our first season back in the Football League. Funnily enough, I remember his first touch really well, I was a Popsider in those days, and it came after a few seconds of his debut. He tried to control a ball which reached him on the volley- and it bounced right off him! But within minutes he was showing his class, and we played a small part in setting him on his way. Although he only ever made one first team appearance at Totttenham, he moved to Bournemouth in 2014 and was part of Eddie Howe’s Championship-winning team. Like so many full backs he is comfortable on either side. The vast majority of an illustrious career with the Cherries has been in the top flight, at a time when the influx of foreign talent has meant that English players need to perform at a high level to stay in the team. He has done that with aplomb, racking up well over 300 appearances and gaining the captaincy in 2024.

COYY – Clive

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