FL2: York City v Torquay 24 November 12

There's a difference between "not being able to drop everyone" and "dropping 2 players, 1 of which due to a return from injury", though

That's the reality of the situation - we lost 4-1, were utterly appalling generally, and he's effectively dropped 1 player. Not to mention the fact that this 1 player has been one of our best players this season

This is why I can't take Ling seriously any more - he criticises the players no end if they lose but never drops them. That's not "honesty". That's anything but - it's spinelessness. I can't support such decision-making, as a matter of principle. So I'm not going to post on football matters

Fine, then please f**k OFF and don't post on here ever again.

Oh, and well done to the lads for getting the three points today and a clean sheet!

Classic. After a big display of spinelessness from you last week after admittedly a dismal performance when we get beaten, you demonstrate even more nonsense after we actually manage to win!! I believe that in internet parlance, this is known as a 'flounce'.

With respect JamesB, you demonstrate absolutely no understanding of the restrictions and complex external forces that this club operates within. You post critisism of Martin Ling and the way he runs the football side of the club in a way so naively and simplistically that almost defies belief. I don't think anyone would feel that they are 'being treated like s**t' because Martin Ling doesn't dance to your tune and come-out hand-wringing and shoe-gazing after a match in the same way that you have - and that is for two matches that you admit not even attending.

Just trying to set the tone as mod.

Thanks for the pics Barts. Great Hill by the way.

Any thoughts on how the new formation worked by the way?

Rjd, new formation worked pretty well. Sticky patch before half-time when we were being over-run in midfield. But, ultimately, it was relatively comfortable even if York had the possession. Pleasing too to see Bodin have such a good game and for Stevens to turn in a decent performance on his return. All said and done, I don't think we should underestimate Danny's contribution over these last five and a bit seasons.

That's two wins, four draws and two defeats in the eight away games I've seen so far. I can't complain too much over that.

Great Hill, then? These new cameras are marvellous, aren't they?

James, James James, I took the decision not to reply to your posts last night; I felt it might be best to wait until this morning, to see if I felt any different. I have woken up and what I am going to say is much the same as I would have posted last night.

You really are such a brainy young man who probably has more brains in your little finger than I have got in my whole body. You have good knowledge on a whole range of subjects and unlike me where writing is a major challenge, its comes easy to you and I have always enjoyed reading your posts on the TFF. I was so pleased when you finally joined the TFF as it was made for those who can write good intelligent posts and can debate them correctly.

I stayed out of the debate you recently were involved in with jmgull, while I felt you made a number of valid points, they were your own opinions and jmgull had a right to challenge anything he did not agree with. Probably a bit frustrated because jmgull felt you were not taking on board any of the good points he was making, he posted a few things that did upset your dad. Such things happen on any forum form time to time and in this case everything was talked through, everyone ended up shaking hands and as you said yourself, no one deleted their account on here and everyone got back to posting.

Our matchday thread for the Southend game had a good number of reports posted on it from fans that were at the game, you wrote a good report and jmgull also wrote one that I thought was a good honest report that told much the same story of that match as all the other reports posted up. Such reactions are always to be expected after the team gets beat in the manner it did last weekend, its nothing new and something that will happen again and again on any forum.

But as in most other things in life, we move on and in the case of football, look forward to the next match and hope things will change enough so the next match will have a different outcome. After all it is all about the results and trying to win as many games as possible to firstly avoid the drop and secondly try to win promotion.

I was so surprised at the first post you made yesterday when the match itself was still so young, you were clearly unhappy that Martin Ling had picked players you thought should have been dropped. Please do not take this the wrong way James, but I thought you acted rather childish and knowing you, I think that surprised me even more as that is not something I thought I would have seen from you.

We can all watch games and then come home and say if I was the manager I would not have played that player, or he won’t be in my team next week for sure, but we are not the ones who get paid to do the job and it won’t be us out of a job if we got it wrong. We won’t know how fit anyone player is, we won’t know the state of his mind, or how he has responded to anything the manager needed to say to him after such a poor display.

Martin Ling does know all of that and is in the best position to then pick the team he feels has the very best chance of winning the next match, lets be honest here, his hands are very tied due to the fact the board have told him there is no money to bring in any new players. There are games James when old heads are needed, games where you need the experience older players can bring and games where you need the players who have done it all before and know what is expected of them. Young players are not always the answer and I have always felt you need the right mixture of young and old in most good sides.

Your reactions yesterday made me feel you half wanted the team to lose, then you would have been proven right as far as you were concerned over Martin Ling’s team selection. Some of the reactions you got were also to be expected simply because we did win and most will feel Martin Ling did get it right, or the players responded to last weeks thumping in the way everyone would have wanted them too.

As a forum owner I know the forum would have got far more posts last night, if we had ended up getting well beaten again, but as a fan of Torquay United, the team winning is the most important thing and that will always be more important to me, than posts being made on the TFF.

There is no cover up James, no wool being pulled over anyone’s eyes, the team for a number of reasons appears to be being run on a shoe string and Martin Ling can do very little about that. All he can do is keep trying to get the best out of the players he does have and pick those he feels can do the job for him. If he gets it right we move up the table and fans sing his praise, if he gets it wrong we end up at the wrong end of the table and fans start getting on his back. Once again that is nothing new and one only needs to think back to Leroy who was a fans hero one season and public enemy the next one.

As fans we only want to see the club do well, we want to be up near the top of the table and trying to build on any past success. We want the best players and as much money spent on the team as possible, but we also want a club to be proud of and not one that ends up down the pan because it got so deeply into debt. No one is stupid James as they all know due to the size of the support our club does have, we are never going to be in the same position so many other clubs are. We will never be able to compete on a level playing field and therefore have to try and make some allowances for the club.

Since we got back into the football league, we have enjoyed some very good seasons, ones where we came so close to winning promotion and if we are honest, we did that by beating all the odds that told us we maybe should not have even been that high up in the table. Yes in a perfect world that is how every season should be, up there at the top fighting for promotion, rather than just being a mid table team, or one that was constantly fighting relegation.

We have been there James, times when we were lucky so many times not to end up out of the football league, times when Bateson only threw money at the team when it looked certain to go down and many times he got away with it by the skin of his teeth. When there was a real need to spend money on the team to get the club back into the football league, it was spent and thankfully we ended up back where I have always said we belonged, in the football league where we had been for over eighty years until Roberts ended that for us.

We badly needed a new grandstand and how fitting it should be named after a great man who loved the club and played such a big part in helping the club get back into the football league. The club are investing in the future by building a new training headquarters, forward thinking that will one day be a huge benefit to our future players.

I myself have asked the question if the training ground really was in the best location, I like so many others have asked if the club has taken on to much other spending at the cost of the first team. But I do not run the club and have to give my trust to those who do, to do all the right things that will ensure we will always have a club to support and that it will reach as high as it possible can.

Our club does make mistakes, but on the whole it is run very well and we can’t have many complaints can we? We are not seeing mass deterioration, seeing our ground fall into disrepair, seeing the sort of cutbacks we did when Mike Bateson owned the club.

As fans we do need to look at the whole picture, there is only so much money coming into the club and sometimes something’s might end up suffering because of that. If it is the case that this season due to all the other expensive the club has had, that the first team wages need to be kept in check, then maybe that is the price that has to be paid for all the other improvements.

We can’t have it both ways, if we want to see the improvements that are necessary, then we have to accept that maybe for this season at least, we have to operate with a smaller squad and be content if we end up in the mid table at the end of the season.

Our board is made up of real Torquay United fans, we are not owned by anyone who only wants to line their own pockets and use the club for their own ends, we are very lucky to have them all. Yes I do feel at times they need to commutate with the fans much more than they do, but everything they do, they do with the clubs best interest first and foremost.

I’m sure they all hope the fans understand the real problems trying to run a club in a football hellhole, a seaside town where football is not seen as anything to get too excited about by most of the people who live in the Bay. A football hellhole due to its location that has and always will make it much harder to find players willing to come down here and play for our club.

The only problem I see is that there has to be the right balance between trying to improve the club and providing good entertaining football. I have talked before about what fans really are paying for and for many it will be the product served up on the pitch. Even the most loyal and long serving fans, might get to the point where they end up asking the question, am I really enjoying my Saturday afternoons any more? That’s the reason why the club must not take its eyes off the first team and never be afraid to make compromises elsewhere, if they see the first team starting to suffer. They need to fully back the manager and try to give him the very best chance of bringing success to the club out on the pitch.

Its hard sitting here not being able to afford to go to games right now, all I can do is read reports etc and try and get a sense of just how things are and how good a team we do have. I have felt for the home fans recently who have witnessed some poor displays, but then I also envied them as they were there for such comebacks like the Aldershot, game, or the game where we beat the league leaders.

I listened to yesterday’s game on the radio and took on board all Dave Thomas had to say. The team did what I hoped it would do and bounce back after such a crushing defeat the week before, I could have asked no more of them and as far as I’m concerned they delivered when it mattered.

Martin Ling picked the team he thought could win, sent them out much more attack minded and it worked yesterday, on another day that might not have been the case. But this is how football works, the best team does not always win and we will lose game we really should have won. The club, the manager, the players and the fans, all want the same thing, but it does not always happen and if we are true and real fans, we have to stick by our team when things do go wrong, so we can enjoy those odd maybe, but special moments when we do end up riding on the crest of a wave.

So James take some time to try and look at the whole picture, I hope you will remain a TFF member and you will always share your views with us. Not everyone will ever agree with you, but I have always firmly believed that each and everyone of us is entitled to hold our own opinions, even it they may be wrong. But we can all learn by listening to what others have to say and I know first hand myself, when I have done that, I so often have seen things in a different light.

Given the constraints that the manager is working under, our league position is a credit to him. And yesterday's result was superb given our recent results and performances.

Whilst Martin Ling goes about his task of creating a competitive League 2 outfit on meagre resources, the club sets us up for the future by developing the ground, the youth setup and our training facilities.

Clearly what's needed after yesterday's result are half a dozen loan signings and for the club to call a press conference and admit that there is no way on earth we can reach the playoffs