Relegation and THAT game how did you feel?

It was a spy of sorts who had been looking into the activities of Mr Roberts from a very early stage.

More in due course about my memories of that season. Haven't posted before because I was at the Herald Cup semi at Coach Road last night - Upton Athletic 2 Kingskerswell & Chelston 1 (very entertaining, rugged, cracking goals, decent crowd) - and I won't be back at the keyboard until late Friday evening.

Golly, reading these posts and thinking back to that season is frustrating.

Like many others, I had already resigned myself to relegation way, way before the peterborough game. I think right from when we had a terrible Christmas losing at home to MK Dons and Macclesfield I feared the worst..............and finally accepted our fate after the last minute defeat at Accy in the "free game". I'd probably prefer it that way as opposed to going out to a last minute "twist in the knife" moment such as our relegation from League 1. Going out with such a whimper does tend to tarnish the memories of our previous escapes like Crewe in 87, the goal off Duane Darby's belly or lower region at Carlisle ( in 92?) and Barnet. Even the the great escape under Atkins the previous year - that really was a magnificent last six games and our away win at Carlisle on the second to last Saturday is up there with the best away games I have been to. I know many fans could n't stand the football under Atkins (to me it is the same as we play now), but that post match interview was as honest and as heartfelt as they come.

It was clear at the time that many, including Dave Thomas at the HE had grave concerns. Like many fans, I arranged a meeting with Roberts to outline my thoughts. He struck me as a chancer straight away - maybe my mind was made up before I met him. I also met other directors att this time (before the three came out public) and was shocked at their impotence about the whole situation.

Jon - from your generally rational view, if so many fans saw through Roberts, why don't you think Mike Bateson saw through it? Had he just had a gutful by then, did greed get the better of him? For all his faults Mike Bateson was a pretty shrewd businessman and despite the lingering vitriol I'd still like to think he had the best interests of TUFC at heart. Also, could he have stepped in sooner than he did or was he waiting for the first default payment?

Some very random thoughts about 2006/2007.

Firstly, it was a strange time for me as I was in the process of making a major life decision which – like United’s relegation – had a certain inevitability about it. The two events almost ran in tandem and both reached their nadir in April. Oddly this helped to put both in context and lessen the trauma on all fronts (although the days between the Swindon and Peterborough games had something of an Otherworld experience about them).

Secondly, once Roberts arrived at the club I was determined to find out as much as I could about him. If he’d been the usual type of purchaser I might not have been so concerned but it was the way he played up his football background that made the quest so compelling. I spent hours on the web searching for him and found bugger all. Then it was Companies House and the discovery of a string of businesses and addresses around the Edinburgh area. Nothing added up in a way that suggested something was very wrong. In a way it was more sad than bad and the story about the footballing career ended by injury – Karel Poborsky nicking his place in the team and Bari opting for David Platt instead - was plain bonkers.

Thirdly, it's been great to read the recent postings about the Barnet game in 2001. But how do we now feel about the Atkins Escape and that fantastic run of games leading up to the win at Carlisle? At the time I thought those few weeks were some of my best ever as a Torquay supporter but now, sadly, it all seems something of a sick joke. That's a shame because it was bloody fantastic.

Fourthly, the what if scenarios. What if Mike Bateson and Ian Atkins had worked together longer? What if the current owners of the club had purchased in 2006 rather than 2007? Impossible to say - isn’t it? - but I’ll hazard a guess and say we might have had a solid, if unspectacular season that would have left us in the Football League in 2007/08. Beyond that who can say?

Lastly, the relegation day itself. As Jon has suggested it was something akin to the death of an elderly relative. He’s also right in saying the survival of the club was very much the main issue. I was in the North East over Easter and remember watching a gripping FA Vase semi-final at Billingham Synthonia and being distracted by texts from Plainmoor which made me feel I was in entirely the wrong place during our hour of need. And, in my book, we were relegated at Swindon as I was suffering a desperately dull goalless draw between Newcastle and Arsenal. Life then took a strange turn and I found myself staying in a cracking B&B on Avenue Road over the weekend of the generally subdued occasion of the Peterborough game. I took the day in my stride only to suffer the post-relegation aftershock of the utter numbness of going through the motions the following week at Wrexham.

Then, of course, we had Leroy and Benney Week – observed with crazed horror from the wilds of West Cornwall – followed by that amazing Sunday when City lost to Morecambe and the consortium took over at Plainmoor.....

In a nutshell Bartie, they don't exist.................when I got married in 1974, we lived in a garden flat in the deprived 'hood of Decoy and it was where I went to Primary School too.

I think the furthest I ever sunk into delinquency was cutting across the railway lines as a short cut home to Milber from school and surreptitiosly preparing the nicking of the ladder to the over head gantry holding the train signals by patiently undoing all the holding bolts over a period of a week or more in a vain attempt to use it as a means of access to our dreamed of tree house in the cedar trees by the Torquay Road.

I know, I know; good kids like Little Dave would have been horrified and pointed out the possibilities of some poor legitimate user of the ladder taking a great fall in the interim "preparation" time , but to be honest we would have found that fecking hilarious being the little scrotes that we were!

I think that somewhat lawless upbringing manifested itself when, as an adult; I used to rattle my house keys along the chain link fence of the adjoining poultry compound so that the owner thought that the fox was setting amongst his stock, such was the cacaphoney of sound at some unearthly hour as I walked home from the pub!

The East End "Jago", The Bronx, Decoy.................it's a tough old upbringing you know. No wonder we're spawning a generation of singers of "The Referee's a Knut". What's going down on the mean streets of Budleigh Salterton these days Bud?

Today in Budleigh Salterton....
I walked down the road to buy the paper where I heard two of our older generation chatting outside the Co-op and worrying that our local tea rooms 'Time for Tea' may be closing. Then another of our more senior members has just taken at least seven minutes to drive her Morris Minor the length of the High street and has astonished onlookers by only taking thirty-seven manouvers to park with all watching thanking a higher entity that there were no other cars around. The baker had a moan because someone had left their bike lent against his backwall all night having obviously forgotten about it after leaving the pub (Vic, John and Bob went a bit OTT last night apparently and had two pints each after the landlord had bought in a guest ale which was much to their liking. It is believed the bike belonged to John who I imagine felt he could leave it against the baker's wall as the baker is his brother-in-law). There's a bit of a problem in Meadow Road because the postman is 17 minutes later than normal, in fact Elsie, next door, has popped her head out of her kitchen window twice in the last eight minutes muttering and blaspheming about the 'bloody state of the service these days, it's enough to make Jesus cross'. I did hear a story in the newsagent that Fred, who lives further up the hill, is considering a complaint to the council because some youngsters walked past his window singing last night and that's now twice in the last fortnight, it has since transpired that the youngsters were the bridge club on their way back from another famous victory in the over 50's league. Bert went for his usual early morning swim but on getting dressed forgot to put his sandals back on so having worried himself sick in the aforementioned newsagents a group went down to the shoreline to retrieve them for him where upon they were last seen floating away to France. He is now giving his story to our local reporter from the Budleigh Times where it may well hit the front page next tuesday.
Oh, and some prat came screaming up to me on his bike in the street last night shouting 'city, city, city' in my ear, so I knocked him flying..... That cost me a pint when we got to the pub!

Could have been entertaining if the forgetful old bugger had forgotten to put his trunks on!

Meanwhile in cosmopolitan N7 I'm listening to potty mouthed Lily Allen's latest album "It's Not Me, It's You" with such charmingly named tracks as "f**k You" to enlighten the neighbours as I sit at the keyboard with the windows wide open to let in the balmy warmth of an early Spring day - sun in the clear blue sky and the spire of Highgate Village Church in all it's magnificence up on the Heath's edge on the horizon. Earlier I popped down the Seven Sisters for a haircut Algerian style complete with Rangers v Celtic on the wide screen courtesy (couldn't tell you which Old Firm game it was mind you as the commo was in Arabic ) and the obligatory North African coffee that will render me hyperactive for the afternoon such is the caffein content! ;D

How ironic after a week of enduring freeze yer boo locks off and biblical rain lashings on the training grounds of Nawf Londahnn and Grotty Grays in pursuance of my son and my heroes, today sees him playing indoors in a tournament at one o'clock, rather than out in the fresh air

No doubt when we return, the game v R&D will be underway.....................here' hoping those BBC Devon commentators get to mention the score periodically for latecomers ~ somehow I doubt they will though!