FL2: Exeter City vs Torquay United - 21st April 2014

Great win and well done to all who went and to the club. Too little too late, but at least it wipes the smile of Exeter and potentially drags them down with us.

Goodness knows how many games this season the serial no-hopers of Bodin, Benyon and Hawley have played, (it must be over a hundred games between them) and how many goals have they scored between them...seven? Yeoman has played a handful of substitute appearances and has scored two-both of them game winning goals. Who of the no-hopers would have been able to get to that ball yesterday (Bodin's mascara would have run into his eyes, Benyon would have fallen over and Hawley...well...he would have been facing in the wrong direction so wouldn't have seen it) let alone score that goal! If only Yeoman had been given a chance earlier in the season. Bodin&Benyon to start on Saturday of course!

I guess it was something of a surreal day. And how about winning at both Bristol Rovers and Exeter City within the space of nine days? Isn't that normally the stuff of dreams which culminate in promotion or a run to the latter stages of the FA Cup?

There was also a certain oddness about having a bite to eat with my Grecian friends from Seaton; the younger of whom is a rather dark pessimist when it comes to his team. I don't think he put a foot wrong all hour in maintaining his line that Exeter were heading for relegation. Every word, tense, meaning, assumption, fear pointed to that outcome. He's another of those professional numbers men; a rather cautious one I would imagine.

As for his fellow Grecians, they seemed gracious, fair-minded and friendly as we made our way to George's Meeting House after the game (mine was a modest bangers and mash incidentally). In the main Exeter's supporters (and ours too) are pretty hopeless when it comes to acting the part of nasty, snarling gobshite local rivals. A fine city to visit as well but what can you make of Sidwell Street gaining a John Lewis yet losing an Ivor Dewdney? Outrageous. I'll take Plymouth's side for once; such negligence wouldn't be allowed down there.

It was good to meet up with Chelston and Jon - and all sorts of other decent people - over the last three games. I now feel rather more re-connected with things Plainmoor and it's starting to take on an extra dimension again after being absent for a couple of seasons. I'm not necessarily any more optimistic than I was ten days ago; nor am I any more pessimistic. But neither does it quite feel like the end of the world. Or have my senses and emotions been deadened by watching simply too much football elsewhere over the years?

I've got no idea what next season will bring. I fear we're now so tuned into the world of football finance - with its' winding-up orders, administrations, CVAs, points deductions, transfer embargoes and the rest - that somebody only has to lose a fiver down a drain and we go into a blind panic. We're more aware of the perils but I'm not convinced we're any more expert about the processes.

It's clear there are insufficient funds at Plainmoor to run the club in the way that everybody would wish. But, and I hope I'm right, that does not necessarily point to imminent, catastrophic financial meltdown. One ray of hope (if it could be called that) is the absence - in this season of speculation - of any significant story relating to unpaid bills and jumpy creditors. The taxman, hopefully, has no plans to come knocking along Warbro' Road.

You'd like to think that next season, come what may, will represent something of a fresh start. But that's probably being rather naive and idealistic. More a case of another sheet of paper perhaps; something written on it already and quite possibly a rather smaller sheet than before (but not yet, we sincerely hope, something tatty ripped from a bargain jotter pad). The view ahead is indistinct not unlike that from where I've been staying these past few days. When it's clear there's a small view across the bay to Broadsands. This morning it's been clear one minute; totally obscured by mist the next. At the moment I can just see across. The sea is a muted blue; the fields near Churston Common a washed-out green. A metaphor for Torquay United perhaps?