What a tangled Webb!

Yes, that stood out to me when I re-read the article yesterday for the first time in years. I think I was quickly trying to "headline" all the things that happened and clumsily gave the impression the evening kick-offs were changed as a result of a Webb policy decision.

I explain the story behind it - the Wolves match - later on. Although the main culprits, of course, were the Wolves supporters my argument was that Plainmoor's decline, thanks partly to Dave Webb, didn't help when it came to negotiating future arrangements with the police.

I'd be interested to learn of people's thoughts about the police's approach to policing Torquay matches in those days. From a distance it seemed the local police took an extremely hard-line attitude. Obviously this would have related to what was happening nationally. There had been 15/20 years of hooliganism, it was only a year after Heysel, and from personal experience it seemed that - at many grounds - the police assumed you were a hooligan and asked questions later. But did the local police take an unusually hardline approach? What were relationships like between club and police? Did the police see Torquay United as a capably-run organisation or not?

I'd also be interested to know exactly how long the membership card scheme continued. My memory was it went on for some time, when it appeared unnecessary, and that the club (under Lew Pope) played along in a meek manner.

On the train back from a game recently I was talking to somebody who has done a fair amount of scouting for various clubs over the years. He was telling me how he offered his services to Webby when he was at Plainmoor. During their conversation DW opened his desk drawer and showed my friend large wodges of cash suggesting that "cash in hand" was to be his method of operation. Nothing came of the arrangement.

Good God I had forgoten how bad it was.
The club must have lost so much support and goodwill over those three seasons.

The time that Tony Boyce had decided that he could no longer persuade local businessmen to support him adequately in his underwriting of the maintenance of professional football in the town was also the time that I decided to terminate my own employment at the club.

Thus, you had not only a commercial sector who showed little or no interest in playing a role in the maintenance of full time professional football at Plainmoor, but you also had a deliberately obstructive local authority and a caucus of local councillors driven by self interest and bigotry who were hell bent on destroying it. A council (ironically) handsomely supported by the local populace.

David Webb and his partners were London and Bournemouth based who had tried previously and unsuccessfully to take control of AFC Bournemouth and when they did so at Plainmoor, the source of the "money" was surprising (I STILL don't feel at liberty to reveal it's source) but not unlike the "Roberts Scenario"

I think the pertinent lesson to learn from all this is that if a community cannot/will not put it's money where it's mouth is, that community cannot then cry crocodile tears of remorse when it finds itself ripped off.

We now have a numerically strong group of local businessmen - all fans of the club, and a healthy and burgeoning Trust in situ now........................perhaps with all that has gone on lessons have slowly been learned but it's taken nigh on three decades for the message to get home!

What a load of bollocks you come out with merse, just so you can slag off local Torbay people. Tell me why any company or businessman in Torbay should want to support the football team,? the club is important to its fans but not everyone likes football and will care what happens to the towns local team.

Please tell me how things have changed now? are local company's queuing up at the door to sponsor the club? NO nothing has changed and the only people to cry tears would have been the fans who lost their club, the same fans who are still paying their money each home game to continue their support of the club.

You say

perhaps with all that has gone on lessons have slowly been learned but it's taken nigh on three decades for the message to get home!

Well it seems you did not learn anything at all, because you went and backed Roberts while the locals fought the real battle here on the ground.

It’s interesting how history tends to repeat itself and there are obvious parallels between the Boyce/Webb situation and the Bateson/Roberts one. But you could hardly get four more different characters if you tried!

Boyce and Bateson were both on the Board of Directors at TUFC before taking over as Chairman. Both had great success early on – achieving promotion in their first (Bateson) or second (Boyce) season at the helm. Both were in it for the long term. Both handed over to people that we all wish they hadn’t handed over to.

Webb and Roberts were both men with radical plans. Neither had any connection to TUFC and raised finance from sources with no connection to TUFC.

Boyce was a class act - a real people person, charming and cajoling people into helping the club. He was liked and respected by everyone who had dealings with him. He ran the club in a democratic and co-operative spirit. When the money ran out, he developed a method of surviving which got tougher and tougher to keep going. As a real TUFC fan, I expect he hated having to cut back on essentials – sacking Don Mills must have hurt - but he had to. By the end, he was desperate to get out because the sums just did not add up.

Bateson was the bluff hard-faced self-made millionaire who had the knack of getting people’s backs up and irritating and alienating them. He ran the club in an autocratic and dictatorial manner. But, like Boyce, he developed a method of surviving. It was probably a bit easier for him, because he cared less about tradition and community. He didn’t seem to mind making cuts to survive, but the abuse he suffered as he struggled to keep things going hurt him more than he liked to admit. By the end, he was desperate to get out.

Webb was from the tough school of life in the East End. He was a canny self-taught businessman. He knew exactly what he was doing.

Roberts was from a weird mixed-up middle-class intellectual background. He had read a book on business. He didn’t have a clue what he was doing.

Webb stayed around for two and a half years. Roberts was chased off much quicker. Why?

Firstly, Roberts’ plan was not sustainable. If he hadn’t been chased out when he was, the whole thing would have collapsed around his ears. Webb was canny enough to keep things ticking over.

Secondly, the computer age made it easy for people to dig and delve into Roberts and his backers, and made it easy for people to organise themselves and bring pressure to bear. This may have happened in the Webb period – I wasn’t around so I don’t know. If it did, it would have been far more difficult to do.

Thirdly, Roberts was not really a tough opponent. His backers were professional people with reputations to protect who were easy to scare away. Roberts was a nice enough, if mentally unstable, person. You could get “in his face” without fearing the consequences. I probably wouldn’t have dared to get “in Webb’s face” and I think I would have been far more scared of his backers than they would have been of me!