Reasons We Need To Go Up This Season

BudleighGull I'm really looking forward to the rest of this season and have enjoyed much of the season so far, while we will not know just what the future may hold, we should consider what could happen by not going up, it will not be fun, if we lose out at the end again as we did last season.

Fans like me will stick with the club, other fans really can't handle being a non -league club, I have said it before and it is true, than once fans break the habit and find other things to do with their leisure time, its very hard to win them back again.

Last season we were the big fish in the small pond, this season bigger clubs have come down and more will next season, we are in danger of ending up a very small fish in this pond, if we don't find a way out and the smaller fish we become the harder getting out will be.

There’s been some debate recently about whether this season represents a make or break for the club. I don’t subscribe to this but do worry about attendances (it was ever thus) and a general tail off in interest. I can't make up my mind whether more of the disappeared would resume their interest if we returned to the League immediately or if this happens after a longer period of time. After the Weymouth game I wondered if the joy of being back in the league next season would soon be dampened by being at Plainmoor on the same Tuesday evening in 2010 watching a League Two game against Morecambe in front of another 1,700 crowd? I hope we get promotion but, call me a pessimist, I believe that's the reality and we can't kid ourselves that too many Football League games will be played before a decent crowd unless we're doing exceptionally well. However, for now, I am somewhat concerned that my old theory - which argued we'd get bigger crowds when 5th in the BSP than when 15th in Lge 2 - seems to be in tatters.

On a take-it or leave-it basis the Football League is the thing. But it's not the only thing and on a personal level, like Merse and Budleigh, I’m seeing (and experiencing) plenty to enjoy at the moment. This, I admit, is based on a continued enthusiasm for away trips, a curious mind and how I regard football as a hobby and something to enjoy more than to be suffered. I’m pleased to say Torquay United is a lifelong interest of mine – and long may it continue – but I’m not professing to bleed gold-and-blue or to swell with pride over the whole idea of being a Torquay supporter (although it’s an important part of my identity and there are occasions when things get pretty raw and intense). It’s not an affront to my dignity to support a non-league team and I see it as just another chapter in an ongoing saga. Each to their own and I aim to make the most of it whilst it’s happening and hope to see the day we’re back in the League. This may come when we’re best equipped to take that opportunity. It could come when we’re least expecting it (such as getting 5th place on goal difference on the last day of the season with a mediocre team and winning the whole play-off shebang on penalties). Or – get this – it may never happen. If it’s too painful to take Exeter as an example, take a look at Hereford’s time in the Conference as an object lesson in history.

It’s easy to take the view that a third year in the BSP would be fatal for the club and, walking away from games such as Eastbourne (away) and Weymouth (home), I found my mind wandering in a similar direction. Yet surely it would have to be a pretty sick patient for this to be true? I don’t see TUFC as being in such a poorly condition. We’d love to see the current expertise – and finance – used to make rapid progress but we might need to accept it will have to be utilised to hold the whole thing together until the magic moment comes. This, I contend, is perfectly normal for ex-Football League clubs in the BSP. They’re not bouncing straight back, are they?

After the Altrincham game somebody asked me about the secret of winning this league. I couldn’t think of anything more original than obtaining more points than the other twenty-three clubs. Look at the recent winners of this league and they weren’t the obvious pre-season favourites. Nor have they been recent ex-league clubs (Accrington and Aldershot must be counted as recent creations which have worked their way up from very modest levels). Furthermore, the margins by which the league has been won have been surprisingly large with Burton looking to be another case in point.

Why should this be? I’m not sure. As for the special ingredient, I take the view that the most we can reasonably expect is for our club to be amongst the five or six strongest clubs – and teams – in this league at the start of each season. If this is the case, there’s always the chance of promotion. I’m confident Torquay United is currently at this level (but crowds going down to, say, 1000-1200 could undermine it) and I believe this level of expectation is par for the course for clubs such as York, Cambridge, Wrexham, Mansfield and ourselves. It would take a much bigger club dropping to this level for expectations to be seriously based on an immediate return (more an Argyle than even a Luton I’d suggest - although a re-financed Luton with crowds of 7-8,000 could be a serious proposition. But how much would Merse place on them pre-season?).

An interesting side-question is how long a manager can survive – at a club like ours - without winning promotion. Last year we finished 3rd and I felt some fans thought this was a failure on Paul Buckle’s behalf and wanted him to go. Let’s say the proportion was 10% calling for his dismissal; 20% being indifferent to his fate; 70% championing his retention. Now, let’s assume the same happens this year – as it might – and we lose in the play-offs. Those figures may change to a 20:30:50 split. A third season and it goes to 30:40:30; after four years it’s 40:50:10.

Playing with figures, but in which group would you be at the end of each successive season? The raw figures would point to one of the best playing records in the country – and it’s even possible the manager would be head-hunted in such circumstances. I think there’s a strong argument in persisting with him – because he’s still affording you a chance of promotion – but I can’t predict my response at the end of season 4, for instance, compared with season 3. There’s a precedent in Graham Turner remaining at Hereford throughout their time in the Conference but – of course – he was in the boardroom most of that time!

More broadly, I also sense a rewriting of history is starting to take place. A revisionist version appears to be emerging which places us as a larger, more successful league club than we were in reality. I suppose it’s inevitable this happens after we’ve played Lewes and see things happening – such as at Weymouth – which were off our radar as a Football League club. And, yes, it’s also down to old gits like me harking back to the glory days of the 1960s and 9,000 crowds.

Two things on this. Firstly, ignore all the stuff about the high point of our league existence. That’s commonplace even for that small number of long-stay football league clubs which never managed to reach the second tier (Rochdale, Chester, Hartlepool, Exeter, Torquay, etc), several of which – surprisingly so when I did the research – managed an achievement comparable to us finishing runners-up in the old Division 3 (South). Now look at the number of current BSP clubs which have appeared at the first or second tier of English football – yes even Mansfield and Wrexham (and Shrewsbury and Hereford before them).

Secondly, we were consistently one of the small fry in the Football League. The Chris Roberts debacle may have ultimately decided our immediate destiny but we all know there had been several previous brushes with a fate, which to some of us, always seemed rather inevitable. To see ourselves, as others see us, would most likely reveal a club which wouldn’t be viewed as out of its place in either the BSP or League 2. I sense we’re not a big deal in this league (although our perceived financial clout makes us an object of attention and speculation) and I guess we’re at a point where opposition fans aren’t flocking to see us although they like to beat us.

I’m sure the recession will see the arguments trotted out that there are far too many professional clubs in this country. Once there were 92 of these. Now, with the BSP’s 24 clubs, there’s potential for 116 professional clubs. I think we’re agreeing that’s too many and – because of the likes of us – 92 is too few. Let’s settle on 100 and split the five leagues – Conference to Premier League – into divisions of twenty. I’m not suggesting this will happen but, if it did, it occurs to me that our natural place would be in the fifth of these tiers amongst the group of clubs ranked 81-100. I contend that puts our current position into some sort of context.

Jon arguing attendance size measures the value of a club is a lazy one. It's the same old tosh trotted out by the likes of Leeds et al when they balls it up. Rubbish!

Why not do it by the size of a club's bank account? Equally lazy. There's only one comparison that counts and that is the league table. We are in this shit league because our club was f****d over. Nothing to do with attendances.

I was watching the Hull Spurs game on tv today when the commo gave an interesting point out to the millions watching, this weekend five years ago Hull were being beaten at home by Torquay United.
Maybe we started their rise to to the top that day, fortunes of both sure changed in five short years.

Historically we are not a big club by any stretch of the imagination... I would even suggest that in our days as a league club there were a number of non-league sides who would've argued they had more right to be in the league in our place taking into account location, level of support, ambition, potential, finances and basic structure.
Indeed if we were to go back to the 30th of May 1927, the day we were elected into the league, it was only on a second ballot that we overcame Aberdare with whom we had tied on 21 points (Watford taking the first available spot on 44 points). Also in the running that day were, coincidentally, Kettering and Yeovil & Petters both of whom only received a single vote each. Both the latter may argue that had they gone up into the league at this juncture they would've put up a far better showing over the years taking into consideration all the points stated above.
It is a known fact that we were not necesarily the best footballing side in the mix but we lobbied our way into the league on the back of a very shrewd Chairman in Charles Hore using not only his influence with the then league clubs but also in asking the clubs bankers, the Midland, to phone all their branches and put forward the Torquay United cause. (Further information is available in Leigh Edwards excellent 'Centenary History'). If we as a club had failed in our application at this time there is every chance we would've stayed as a non-league club for many years without becoming one of the non-league 'big boys' as many of the Northern clubs (Bishop Auckland etc) did as well as the London clubs (Dulwich Hamlet, Leytonstone etc) as we didn't have the location or the resources afforded to a club in a more populous area. Indeed, after that first league season we finished bottom and had to be re-elected, this time as a league club against a weakened list of competitors for the available places.
Although I don't believe it to be true myself there must be an argument to say that after all these years we've actually found our natural place in the football scheme of things and that to achieve promotion would in fact be a cause for great celebration rather than a given right...