Reserves in Peninsula League?

Peninsula League AGM tonight confirmed that Torquay United are NOT in the league next season.

What a pig's ear the club has made of the entire process.

We announced back in December that we would be in The Eastern section. Both the club and the compliant local press ran with the story that this was a fait accompli, although it was always the case that we would only get in if there was a vacancy.

Dave Thomas and his alter ego Tom Charles refused to acknowledge that there was any doubt over the issue - blindly toeing the club line and refusing to publish the truth just as he does over the other big announcement that we will be playing in a new stadium in 2020.

While both the club and the local press were either blissfully unaware of the rules or willfully misrepresenting the facts, it looked highly unlikely that there would be a vacancy.

Then three things happened within a week or so to turn the situation on its head. Illogan announced that they were withdrawing from the league, the FA gave the league a special dispensation to run with 20 teams in the East (not the 18 maximum previously allowed) and then Braunton blew up on the run in failing to clinch a promotion place from the North Devon League.

Remarkably, the club had got away with it. They were in after all. But then they turned the place that they had said that they wanted.

This happened on May 25, but there was no mention of this on the club website. No mention in the Herald. Then the Indy ran a story saying that the issue was still up in the air.

The league confirmed that the club had changed its mind again and asked for time to reconsider. They were given until tonight's AGM and finally confirmed that they did not want the place a few hours before the AGM.

Now I never really understood how we were going to raise a team to play in the SWPL. We struggle to get together enough players to fill a bench for the first team. Nobody who knows anything at all about the game would imagine that a team of 16 year olds could survive in a league of that standard - they would be massacred. Pay a team of SWPL standard players? If money were no object, yes - but at the expense of the first team wage budget? Surely not.

But it was the club saying that we could and would field a team at that level, NOT the fans. It was one of the good news stories they love to trumpet.

“This is going to be a long-term venture, and an important aspect of it is to fast-track the best boys from Under-17 football to playing against men. We do have to be careful to safeguard their health and their future careers, but it’s been proven at other clubs that it does fast-track the kids. We envisage our reserve team including some senior pros, the best Academy lads but also talented local players between 18-25. The broader aim is to develop a pathway from the Academy towards the first team, and to narrow the gap between the two. It’s not just at Under-16 level, we have some cracking players in the younger age-groups."

Wonderful stuff for Dave Thomas and Alpine Joe to start some flag waving.

But, just like the new stadium, the local board and the five year plan, a load of bollocks.

Did the club ever think it would happen? Was it all lies? Was it a blurted out wish that just had not been thought through properly?

I don't know, but it is a symptom of a recurring sickness. We just do not know what we are doing. Or if we do, there is a huge gulf between what we are doing and what we say we are doing.

Still, as long as Gary Owers builds a promotion winning squad ....

Herald Express back page headline:

"Gulls make U-turn and withdraw Peninsula League application"