The Serious Torquay Thread

[tagz]

That's the way I see it as well. If the trio on gardening leave all have contracts up at the end of the month, then fair enough. Otherwise, it seems like a very strange move for a cash strapped club to pay people to do nothing.

Report from Torquay Herald, 9th January 2014

In contrast to his predecessors Martin Ling and Alan Knill, who worked on one-year rolling contracts, Hargreaves has been tempted away from Championship club AFC Bournemouth on a two-year deal.

 

[GrecianInPerth]

The latest news seems to suggest that not only are they changing the management team, but they're also preparing to severely limit finance for the youth scheme. In my view though this may be expedient in the short term, it threatens to stem the flow of local talent that might be available in the future to the populate the team on the pitch. Could also be the harbinger of a change of status from full to part time?

From the info I've got from the Gulls forum and a few other sources it seems they're plan is to effectively drop a category by only having 16-18 in a kinda finishing off Academy. Doing away with the years 8 to 15 teams and relying more on the local teams to provide the input into those youth sides. Which in light of the half million a year losses and the fact that they don't get any youth funding of the football league after this year seems sensible. The youth funding is something like 120k i believe and the club has to either match it or spend more depending on your category. My understanding was that Torquay were spending 240k plus the football league spending so you can see why thats an easy saving right away.

 

[jmgull]

From the info I've got from the Gulls forum and a few other sources it seems they're plan is to effectively drop a category by only having 16-18 in a kinda finishing off Academy. Doing away with the years 8 to 15 teams and relying more on the local teams to provide the input into those youth sides. Which in light of the half million a year losses and the fact that they don't get any youth funding of the football league after this year seems sensible. The youth funding is something like 120k i believe and the club has to either match it or spend more depending on your category. My understanding was that Torquay were spending 240k plus the football league spending so you can see why thats an easy saving right away.

Is the right answer.

Nobody wants to see the academy go....but in 7 years we've barely produced a 1st team player from it, youngsters that have broken through have tended to be lads picked up from other academies at 16/17. Yes that may well be short sighted but in reality we were always playing catch up against the likes of you and to a lesser extent PAFC.

It's just a simple fact that without League funding, we can't afford it - If the worst was to happen to you guys, you might have to face the same dilemma one day.

The problem is that TUFC under Thea has been run abysmally - she gambled on Hargreaves and gave him a 2.5 yr contract at 102k p.a (reputed) not bad for an untried rookie that undermined the previous manager from the spotlight sofa and all he produced himself was relegation, followed by our worst season in history and endless excuses - great player, terrible manager. He alone, is the reason that only 50 odd season tickets had been sold, you can see why he had to go - everybody was waiting to see what happened before renewing, nobody could stand to see the disorganised, soft teams he produced - gates have been falling rapidly.

He, Hodges and Veysey are now on gardening leave - I'd be surprised if they wanted to sit at home for a year and we had to pay them full salaries - in football you are soon forgotten, so they may yet do a deal or get a job elsewhere.
The club has lost half a million a season under Thea, she has covered those losses but has now jumped ship (although she's now life president or something daft - ffs!) and still owns a small percentage of shares - but someone has to come in and make drastic cuts to put the business back in health - and this is what the consortium are now having to do.
They're all genuine fans, mostly working people but are not super wealthy - good on them for jumping in, the club was very close to folding this summer.

The 1st team has to be the priority for the foreseeable future now, if we're ever going to get back up - Paul Cox, 3 promotions at non league level is the new manager so I've been told, a good choice...a hard person that will get the team fit and goes for the physical, simplistic approach.

Hopefully we can get back to better times, a top half finish should be the height of expectation for next season though.

 

[GrecianInPerth]

this is quite interesting from a general point of view https://www.goalreports.com/EPLPlan.pdf

There's a massive funding jump between cat 2 and 3 which is what people were wondering whether City could up theirs to. It goes from like 400k per year to almost a million for cat 2 although number of coached hours for the youth players also doubles. Whereas Cat 4 which is what Torquay would be dropping too, the hours for 17-19 years old is pretty much the same as what City give. It quite interesting report actually.

 

[tavyred]

Heard this morning from a Gull at work that Seal Hayne (training ground?) is no longer affordable, so TUFC are trying to negotiate with the local authority for somewhere else to train.
Grim times!

 

[Jason H]

The 1st team has to be the priority for the foreseeable future now, if we're ever going to get back up - Paul Cox, 3 promotions at non league level is the new manager so I've been told, a good choice...a hard person that will get the team fit and goes for the physical, simplistic approach.

Going by what has been said in despatches, Mansfield pretty much got promoted despite Cox not because of him - the budget he had to work with was eye-watering, and in their first season back in the FL their rally to an 11th place finish was achieved allegedly (well, according to their chairman!) with a top 3 budget.

It will be interesting to see how he gets on working on a shoestring.

 

[LOG]

Confirmed that their academy is closing - http://www.torquayunited.com/news/article/the-youth-department-2494841.aspx

 

[DB9]

Losing their academy is IMHO very short sighted and i think will come back to bite them. Clubs at our and lower level need their Youth set ups an i realise the new people in charge have to cut their cloth accordantly but this might be very bad for them in the future

 

[denzil]

Confirmed that their academy is closing - http://www.torquayunited.com/news/article/the-youth-department-2494841.aspx

Their loss could be our gain - any reasonable quality down there that would come to us ? Feel sorry too for the Academy Coaches - a good lot.

 

[jmgull]

Losing their academy is IMHO very short sighted and i think will come back to bite them. Clubs at our and lower level need their Youth set ups an i realise the new people in charge have to cut their cloth accordantly but this might be very bad for them in the future

It's just a result of the way in which the club has been run, it's not the fault of the new consortium....I'm sure they feel gutted to have been forced to pull the plug.

When you get relegated and don't bounce straight back up, the funding loss is crippling.

I'm just pleased to still have a club to support....and the only aim that they have is to get us back into the league.