Secondly, a question. At which point did Mike Bateson cease to become a "good thing" for Torquay United? Or, put it another way, when would it have been best for him to have gone? This question, of course, makes a few assumptions but I'd argue that the Mike Bateson of 1990 was a very good thing indeed for the club. I was still in the "pro" lobby by 1995 but I can't recall being so positive about the man by 2000. How would history recall the various stages of his reign? That is a very good question Barton, but I have a hundred unanswered questions in my head about the time Bateson owned the club, but fear they will never be answered, unless uncle Mike writes a book.
I do not think there was one single fan who did not believe that Bateson saved the club by buying it when he did, I know those were always the first words on my lips when ever I talked about the club and Bateson in his early years as the new owner.
I did write a few letters in the papers during the his first two years at the helm, I remember well the points I put across and one was that Bateson was like a person who had bought a brand new complicated toy, but had not bothered to sit down and read the instructions before he played with it.
I always felt that he never understood football fans and so often used the mentality that had made Mod Dec the successful company it was. Only running a football club is a completely different ball game and while if you make the best windows at a price people can afford, you will be onto a winner and have plenty of customers, the customers of football clubs really are a different breed.
I'm sure you history boys can put up information that might show how and when things started to deteriorate under Bateson, one thing I have always wondered is why he took over the club in the first place.
At that time he had done much for other local sport and his company were putting money into local sport, but did he step in just to save the club? or was being the owner of a football club something he wanted to be. if only for the ego trip.
I do believe whatever his reasons once he took over he wanted to take the club forward, but so often make poor decisions based only on finance and not ones that considered the customers of the club. Giving a way the popside not once but twice was one such mistake and his constant slagging off of the fans in the press were never going to win over fans I'm afraid.
He stepped down when he did the first time because he felt he was getting far more abuse than he felt he deserved, but we were not doing well on the pitch and all fans could see was more and more cost cutting going on.
I think when he stepped down he had already reached the point when he had decided he was not prepared to put any more of his own money into the club, maybe that was the time he should have gone.
He was saying then that the club was for sale, but only to someone he believed would be good for the club, if that was true then maybe he really did care far more about TUFC than we might think he did.
One thing for sure he would have wanted to get most of his money back and he sure achieved that in the end, £100.000 of his loan paid back in his last season as owner, the last £300.000 paid back the day Roberts took over, the £300.000+ he got from Roberts and the near £200.000 from the consortium, sure topped up his bank account nicely.
No matter what people views about him employing his family as he did, to be fair it made sense to have family doing the job on probably less money and ones that would put in more time then they ever got paid for.
The abuse directed at his family must have hard to take and I would not be surprised if he still had a very dim view of TUFC fans, after all he will think that without him in the first place the club might have just been history.
I would expect he is happy he no longer has anything to do with the club now, but I would love to know his views and what he really thinks when looking back. It may not be with much fondness thats for sure, but I hope he does not harbour any bitterness, because at the end of the day Bateson did play a big part in ensuring TUFC remained as a football club, even if he did make the biggest mistake of his life, selling it to Roberts.
