Conference South 2018/19

I'd expect us to remain full time should the unfortunate event of relegation occur. As it's just for the one Season would it really be worth the hassle of switching the set up to Part Time, only to have to reconstitute a full time set-up the following Summer ?

Having been starved of winning football for so long, seeing us dishing out thrashings to tin-pot clubs in the region would be vastly enjoyed by our fans. A good number of shorter away trips to new, if basic, grounds, and Gulls fans will look back o the 2018-19 season with the happiest of memories.

Of course you don't want to tell any players that if they get relegated there's still  full time employment available here. You want them to think that battling to stay up is the best way of ensuring that. Also you want to announce it as part of the good news you put out to boost Season Ticket sales and demonstrate your commitment to an immediate return to the  National League. Therefore I struggle to see why TUST were calling for the announcement to be made now, part way through this season, if they are motivated by anything other that mischief making. 

While NLS would be a total walk in the park for us, as we lord it over the little clubs, I'd still rather be celebrating a narrow escape at the end of this season preserving National League status, even though the weekly winning goalfests provided by a one season holiday in NLS would be jolly good fun.

He’s apeing Osborne’s ‘it would only be for a season’ soundbite wedged into some Stadium 2020 guff the other week. I’m not sure if it was clarified whether that would be after a further relegation or promotion.

I did read that Hereford may end up in Conference North, though, Pete.

I've only just read about Hereford possibly ending up in NLN.
Had assumed because they were in the southern league they would end up in NLS.

Unfortunately we are now punching well below our weight as the club is and has been poorly run with a lot of uncertainty about our future direction which massively reduces our attractiveness to getting in new players. Gone are the days when Buckle could met with the likes of Billy Kee and persuade him to sign not just on the financial package but on the merits of a well run club that was achieving success. With CO at the helm, an owner that does not even bother to watch his club, with no experience of or interest in football and some dubious appointments, we are anything but sustainable and are likely to continue on a downward spiral until we are once again united.

Floridagull 

You're exactly right, Florida.  I well remember one highly respected poster with closer connections to the Plainmoor hierarchy than most of us, giving the opinion that challenging near the top of the National League rather than our then current position of heading towards relegation from League 2, might be no bad thing. And I think that was probably resonant of the thinking at the top of the club at the time. And we know what the reality was: Thea turning the money tap off at the end of that following National League season, and a small group of loyal fans scraping enough cash together to keep the club in business.

And for all our carefully laid 5 year plans, an obstructive Council could probably spark another, possibly worse, financial crisis on us, if they wished to act in a sufficiently short sighted way and do so. And then we'd be happily taking NLS survival. But for the moment I'm proceeding on the assumption that common sense will prevail, the plans for our long term future will not be allowed to fall under Militant pressure, and risking pushing us towards another financial crisis to satisfy bloody minded ideological reasons will, eventually, be something that even the TUST militants won't want on their consciences.


Floridagull

Is that the only way, or is it still the old preferred way ? An outdated way from another era ?  So many smaller clubs have realised that the local benefactor willing to kiss goodbye to his/her own money to prop up the home town football club, just don't exist any more. Leaving aside the arguments of how wisely the money was used, we were probably lucky that Paul & Thea Bristow had such a benevolent attitude towards the club. The absence of such benefactors have encouraged clubs, many of which are in our current division, that they instead need to have the facilities, and offer what's necessary to bring in income to survive and to make themselves sustainable.

Of course Torquay United might be denied that opportunity; find that it's attempts to break out and create that sustainable future will be blocked by local officialdom. Combine that with the non existent benefactor, and low and behold we've deliberately created the conditions where...surprise, surprise.....we've done everything we can to help TUST to power. 


   

I think during the 2007 to 2012 period, good decisions were being made, helped by the Bristow backing which led to success on the pitch with higher attendances and cup runs which all generated the cash to keep the club sustainable and led to more success. I think the clubs losses were minimal during this period and seem to recall a loss was made in 2007 to 2008 of about 6k - probably equivalent to our weekly shortfall presently! Once this success dried up, with some poor decisions at the top compounding this, then of course things became more difficult and by 2015 we were out of the football league and financially were starting to look like a basket case that no one wanted.

Personally, I don't think CO is the right person to undertake redevelopment of behalf of TUFC as I am not convinced he will be able to leave TUFC in a better place than where we are now based on the various similar projects he has been involved with during his career and don't know why you think it will be any different at Torquay?!

rjdgull 

Don't worry yourself about not being convinced. If he can't deliver on the better place then we remain in the existing place (Plainmoor). As enshrined in the Masters Agreement (stop laughing at the back  ) and further guaranteed by the vast tomes of legalities and conditions that the Council, Riviera Macron, and every other Authority that will be poking it's nose in will insist on.

I'm not sure how many past projects could be classified as similar to this one. A modern Events Facility should be welcomed by most. Comfortable up to date amenities for the football fans and an array of attractions for the community as a whole. Widespread support I should imagine, but for a tiny minority motivated by the fact that their own organisation needs to keep the club at Plainmoor in order to ever achieve their own particular ownership dreams.

It's a vast contrast to, for instance, Swindon where you're trying to build something for outdated sports such as speedway or dogs or whatever. It's the opposite situation there, whereby a few followers of those last century sports are in favour, but the rest of Swindon either doesn't care or are grabbing at any straw to get it stopped. I think some house owners are even now, at this late stage, doing all they can to prevent the dogs or the bikes from getting their newly built facility in Swindon.   

Once the majority of our town get the chance to express that they're also supporting those important groups already fully aligned in their wish to see this exciting forward thinking project get underway, the Militant minority and their Red Star Gulls pipe dream will be swept aside for good.