TT BLOG

Matty Hayward – @MattyHayward96

Matty blogs about Jimmy Ball

After eighteen days, four matches, and three press conferences where Neil Warnock said a new manager would be announced soon, Torquay United have announced the name of their new manager: Jimmy Ball.

Ball joins from Totton, after four successful years in Hampshire. In 2023, his Stags side won the Southern League Division One South; in 2024 they finished second in the league above and lost in the playoff final on penalties. They finished second again in 2025, but this time they defeated Gloucester in the playoff final to get promoted to the NLS – the highest level in their history. Two promotions sandwiching a separate playoff defeat is, objectively, an outstanding record.

Totton’s first season in the sixth tier has been another success. They sit 13th, spiritually if not yet mathematically safe from relegation with eight games to play, and boast a handful of impressive scalps. Perhaps most notably, Ball’s Boys won 2-0 at Dagenham the same day we lost 5-0 to Chelmsford, and have won two of their three matches against Torquay this season.

That’s the extent of Ball’s experience as a manager, though he did hold coaching roles in the academies of Blackburn and Stoke, then a senior coaching job at Stevenage before he took interim charge of Forest Green in 2021. All this followed a modest playing career. The only senior club that Wikipedia can offer us is Totton & Eling FC – seemingly the second biggest club in a town with a population of 28,000.

What does this all mean for Torquay United?

Well, who knows? His limited playing career is probably an irrelevance – Jose Mourinho was a better translator than a midfielder. In terms of managerial expertise, having experience of non-league promotions is a big tick in the box, though, without pretending we’re Barcelona, there will be question marks about whether Ball can make the significant step up in club size.

Comparisons to Wotton can and will be drawn. In fact, the statement from the club seemed to encourage them. He, like Ball, had success with a team from a league below, and stabilised them with a small budget in difficult circumstances. History will tell that Wotton’s downfall at Plainmoor was caused by mismanaging a bigger budget, and failing to cultivate a cohesive dressing room. Both of these things will be challenges for Ball, and both are unsubtly alluded to in the press release.

Co-chair Bowes-Cavanagh commented on Ball’s impressive interview, where he displayed an ability to “create the right culture” and an understanding that a Torquay manager must “balance… ambition on the pitch and the need to operate with a sustainable structure off it.” This may not be an explicit dig at Wotton, but it’s certainly evidence of a renewed focus.

Perhaps this appointment is also a reflection of where we are as a club: a Conference South side can’t attract a League One manager, no matter how many links that manager has to the area. In our context, perhaps it makes sense to plump for a hungry manager on his way up, than a bald dandy on the way down.

In terms of style of play, Ball-Ball at Totton was characterised by direct football. He’d start with two, or sometimes three, physical centre forwards and in their meetings with The Gulls this season they never shyed away from a robust contest. It remains to be seen whether those tactics were a necessity of being a small fish in the NLS pond, or a tightly-held principle of our new gaffer.

Predicting these things is a fool’s errand: who knows how a new manager is going to perform, especially in circumstances that are so different to anything he’s done before? It’s pointless writing him off; it’s pointless getting too excited. Instead, let’s give him a chance, and conclude this introduction with a quick vibe assessment. Three more ticks. Three more question marks.

✅ His dad won the World Cup. Objectively Good Vibe.

✅ He’s got a great record in cup competitions, as we know all too well. That can only be a good thing.

✅ He has experience of working with and improving young players, something which is invaluable at our level.

❓ Never managed (or played!) in front of a big home crowd. Is this a problem?

❓ He’s objectively not a big name. He’s not going to get fans’ blood pumping. He’s never managed permanently (or played) at a higher level than the NLS. Fans will understandably have reservations, especially if we have visions of returning to the Football League, about whether he has the minerals for the job.

❓ In his initial photos, he’s wearing those white-soled, black-topped trainers that all Match Of The Day pundits wear. Immediate bad vibes, I’m afraid.

The rest, as they say, is the future. In eight weeks, or maybe a year and eight weeks, we’ll either be On The Ball, or screaming for the board to get the Ball rolling.

We travel to Dagenham in hope. Up the Gulls.