What happens next?

Well - no doubt we can all weigh up your interpretation of the situation and balance that against a company and associates that over a number of years has never delivered a viable project?

Clarke Osborne has provided "planned completion dates should things go well" for all of his many promised stadium developments. He has then gone on to promise revised planned completion dates when things have inevitably not gone well.

Unfortunately, his record in over 30 years of promises is a 0.00% success rate.

Some might say he must be incredibly unlucky to have been hit by things not going well on 100% of projects.

However, he has had a happy knack of turning a large profit on things "not going well", so it's an ill wind......

I await the naming of the "local directors" with great interest.

It would be great to see a few names of people that would fight tooth and nail to protect the best interests of Torquay United. Let's hope we don't get palmed off with people who just fancy a nice blazer and some "corporate hospitality".

Well there we have it. A statement saying a stadium built in less than 3 years. This is indeed an important comment. You are all right to be sceptical. What with the new drainage/flood regulations that came out in April (the percolation tests alone would take over 12 months) building on made up ground, building on contaminated ground etc, you are closer to a decade before any new ground manifests itself. This is a huge mistake by the new owners. I would say it is IMPOSSIBLE for a new ground to be built in three years. It is either a downright lie and they are trying to have people over or they are so out of touch with planning as to be unbelievably incompetent.

I am not sniping jj. I welcome investment into Torquay United. Couldn't be happier. However, it is simply not possible to get planning granted let alone a stadium built in that timeline. I would like to be proved wrong. We will see. I would like Mr. Osbourne to say where he is in the planning process. It would be wonderful to have serious investment in the club but it does not help the credibility of the investors when they make such claims.

I don't think it hurts at all to have an actual date set out. Just think back over the last six months or so and consider the frustrations, holdups, rescheduling, cancelling, and general blocking that we've witnessed from bureaucrats, local politicians, then national politicians trying to get in on the act, not to mention a Fans Group with their own agenda of getting their hands on the club, keenly aware that frustrating the new stadium plans might help their own ambitions.

With no set date, you know various council departments will prevaricate for ever more. I don't doubt that the date will be missed, but as there is a date people will be more inclined to ask WHY it was missed, and it will be because of a thousand and one busy body groups coming up with delaying tactic after delaying tactic. If Clarke Osborne estimates the time it would take if they were just allowed to get on and build it.....then it will throw the spotlight onto those who are causing the delays. Had he not done this then we would more readily accept the interminable holdups as 'just part of the process'


The other thing that's made me shake my head in disbelief is the MSM. No not the Mainstream Media in this case, but the Militant Spin Machine, which has the nerve to take a very very old fact, and attempt to dress it up as a completely new revelation just out of the box. Clarke Osborne's words yesterday.


'I reiterate the point we have always made: nothing will happen to Plainmoor until a new stadium has been built and is ready for use by the football club'.


This is the very point that has always been made. It's never been deviated from. It's been consistently restated throughout the last year. The old board explained it would happen. Pete Masters confirmed it when commenting at the end of the negotiations that gave G.I ownership. It's always been the case and remains the case. And what has Clarke Osborne got to lose from re-emphasising the truth. That's the agreement, he has no option other to abide by it, and he's quite open in admitting to that fact. The old board, with the help of Pete Masters got things drawn up properly, just as they assured everyone they would. This wasn't some sort of TUST style slap-happy arrangement, whereby you find you're protecting a swimming pool when all along you thought you were protecting a football ground.

Yet, astoundingly, it is TUST members who are acting as though....'Ooooh, that's the first we've heard of this'

No TUST members, you were probably the FIRST to know about it, even before the rest of us. Here's a post I made on another Forum late last year.






The position regarding a new ground has been set in stone. It's been made clear by the old Board. It's been made clear by Pete Masters. It's been made clear by the present owners. And if the Council sold the Plainmoor freehold they could even add some further clauses on as well if they wanted. I'm perfectly fine with the militants saying 'We refuse to believe', but they're very well aware that precisely nothing has changed since at least August 2016 when they were told what ANY deal would contain.


Continue to take the words churned out by the Militant Spin Machine with a pinch of salt. In a few months we will hopefully have a more trustworthy source, the local Board, to provide us with credible information. But until then the same advice applies...be very wary of the MSM.

Sadly he won't, Jerry, and it's impossible not to notice poor old GI Joe routinely opts not to address their 100% non-building record from over 30 years of promising new stadia.