TT Blog

Matty Hayward – @MattyHayward96

Matty discusses the legacy of Paul Wotton

EASTBOURNE (A)

Well, that’s the end of that, then. For the second Sunday in a row, Torquay United made a club statement about coaches deemed inadequate.

Following five winless games and a couple of calamitous performances, the Bryn Consortium made their biggest decision since appointing Paul Wotton: sacking Paul Wotton.

Football’s a tough old game. Wotton’s side finished January top of the table, having surpassed former leaders Hornchurch with a huge victory over the Urchins. They finished February fourth, after getting whooped by Chelmsford, and start March with Neil Warnock in charge.

On a footballing level, this decision is right, and comes at the right time. Wotton deserved a chance to go one better than last season, but now – needing 32 points from 12 games to level that total – it’s pretty clear that he’s run out of road.

But it could’ve been so different. Last May, of course, a side sculpted from the ashes by Wotton himself came within a gnat’s knee of winning the league. This was, arguably, a massive overachievement. When you strip away the size of the club and its fanbase – which is significant in this conversation, but far from the only factor – for a manager to come in, have one (not very good and, it turns out, unavailable) player on the books, have a top-eight-but-not-top-one budget, and finish second is a good effort.

He was learning on the job then. He learned pretty quickly that some of his signings weren’t of the required level, that some of the contracts he’d extended weren’t right either, all while managing in front of 4,000 fans with high expectations to break free from the Conference South shackles. And he got bloody close – he certainly gave the shackles a good old rattle.

This season has been different. It’s had similar ups, downs, and cup failures, but Wotton has had less leeway. The budget has increased, and he’s used it to make some marquee signings: Louis Dennis, Matt Worthington, Sonny-Blu Lo-Everton and Munashe Sundire all looked like the sort of players we needed to pick the lock. Fundamentally, he’s got less from those players than he did from inferior players last season.

He’s been accused at times of playing an unexciting brand of football. Perhaps he did inherit a safety-first attitude from former managers Warnock and Pulis, or aimed to translate some of the tactics that made him a success in tougher conditions at Truro. But the accusations are somewhat unfair: he’s played all of this season with two dangerous, dribbling wingers, and an expressive creative in behind a target man striker. And, even if he wasn’t particularly adventurous, surely successful pragmatism trumps flashy, exciting failure? We appointed a manager who’d spent the previous season with his back firmly against the wall, after all.

There have been some soaring highs in his reign. Hemel Hempstead will always be one of the best away days of our lives. The win at Truro too. Jordan Dyer’s header at Dorking: oof. The many many many routine home wins that nobody will ever remember. With the very large caveat that he’s the only person ever to be permanently appointed Torquay manager in the sixth tier, he does leave with the second best ever win record (51%) of anyone to manage the club.

This year, back to back weekends in London (ish) winning at Enfield and Hornchurch felt good. Gave us hope. We’ll always have that. They can’t sack emotions.

It wouldn’t be a proper retrospective without the crushing lows. Bishop’s Cleave, obviously. In fact, Wotton was rotten in the cups in general. We made decent progress in the first season’s Trophy, but I’ll never really forgive or forget him not picking a striker in the gumping at Worthing. Then there’s the multiple missed opportunities in the league that year, which I’ll run through with just a noise to save the pain of recalling details: Chelmsford away, ah! Slough! Ugh! Getting done at Welling. Hmph. Keke Jeffers getting diddled on debut. Eek! Chesham at home. Boo! This season wasn’t without its shambleses. Hemel was bad, Dorking was awful, Eastbourne the worst of all – surely a weighty straw on the camel’s back.

But those are the fine margins upon which a football manager dances. Paul Wotton won a lot of games but didn’t win enough.

On a personal level, I’m gutted. No Torquay manager has ever known my name. That doesn’t mean he’s an excellent football manager, but it is a measure of the man. It’s also sad because Wotton came to represent an idea. A new broom. The front man of the new regime. When you commit yourself to an idea as a fan, you can fixate on it, believe in it. This can, at times, limit your peripheral vision, make it easier to gloss over stinking performances, ignore failed signings, defend rugged tactics.

He can’t take all the credit for this, but he came in at a time where the club culture was absolutely toxic. The previous manager and ownership were, at best, apathetic about us, though the word ‘hostile’ might be more apt. They didn’t want to know us, talk to us, and they certainly didn’t want to hear what we thought about the football. Wotton, and Bryn, have changed that. He would openly talk to fans before and after games; his contributions in press conferences were – while sometimes sour, sometimes bullish – always honest, well-meaning, and thoughtful, even if he insisted that every game was a “tough game”. It’s impossible to question his commitment to the club.

The players, in their responses to the news, clearly share this view. Sam Dreyer tweeted that Wotton has helped him mature “as a footballer [and] as a young man.” Callum Dolan, a chap who has needed an arm round the shoulder, described him as a “proper manager and an even better person.” James Hamon and Munashe Sundire have spoken recently on podcasts about his warm, at times fatherly, treatment of them. Again, this is a measure of the man.

I like the fact he shouted “get to the ball” all the time, and it very visibly paid off once, but probably paid off many other times that we didn’t notice. I like the fact, when he was nervous in a presser, he’d rub the skin on his hands until it was worn down to the bone and his knuckles were bursting out. I like the fact that he said part of the reason away games were difficult was “well, first you’ve got to get there!”

None of the above changes the fact that he hasn’t achieved what we wanted him to, that football is far more about results than how personable you are, but he leaves with more credit in the bank as a human being than many of his predecessors.

What’s next? Well, it’s crucial the next appointment is the right person. Not just for trying to escape the league this year, but more importantly because we simply cannot afford to get lost in a cycle of hiring, firing, perspiring, and going nowhere in the next couple. It’s another massive decision for the board to make, and I’m once again glad I don’t have to make it.

One thing’s for sure, Paul Wotton leaves Torquay United in a better place than how he found it. That we’re in the same league and are odds against to get out of it is the reason for his departure, but he’s had a net positive effect on our club.

So thanks, Paul. All the best. Get to the ball.

Up the Gulls.