What Does It Really Mean To You

With respect Dave, I don't think you were able to get to many away games and in my opinion the only true way to gauge the worth of a league and it's actual ambience is to visit the clubs on their own grounds. Would I be amis in suggesting that to the "home only" fan the BSP has offered little better than endless occasions of clubs coming to Plainmoor and trying to stifle the game.................not all of them of course; but more often than not?

It is on the road that we have seen the best of the Gulls for two complete seasons. Our away records have been nothing short of fantastic and if only more clubs had come to Plainmoor with the same attitude as Paul Buckle has instilled into OUR team then your entertainment would have been so much higher quality.

We have been popular and highly respected visitors throughout the BSP and "they" will miss us far more than we will miss "them". However, I have really enjoyed going to places like Kettering, FGR, Grays, Stevenage, R&D, and Wimbledon but even more those two very special little grounds at Eastbourne and Lewes ~ great little clubs struggling manfully to get up there with the "Big Boys", good luck to them all in the future and may those arseholes at clubs like Oxford and Wrexham who behave like absolute bores with their "We're The Biggest" crap continue to be embarrassed and humiliated by the smaller fry with the better attitude, greater humility and superior sportsmanship that we have been privileged to experienced these past two seasons.

Let's not forget that we have been far from even one of the biggest half dozen clubs in the BSP (and neither have Burton or Aldershot for that matter) but we have prevailed because we have had a manager and directorate who have striven endlessly and heroically for perfection..................and now we can ALL enjoy the fruits of their labours.

It's imperitive that the progress continues next season and let's see if we can avoid being "Giant Killed" in the FA Cup by some "BSP Minnow" like Luton Town eh?

I`m sure like others I wholey concur witney!

I to have hated every minute of our two years of exile. However when it was evedent we were heading down a good friend at Shrewsbury told me to enjoy it. Strange thing to say really but the absolute right attitude.
The one thing you CAN NOT do is wallow in self pity (Oxford ?) We have seen the best & worst of the BSP at Plainmoor teams coming for a draw as early as the 2nd minute and in the rare instance a brave side like Forest Green coming for a win (that 3-3 is one of the best footballing games I saw in THAT division) Merse is spot on when he says it is away from home we have excelled as a club. As always in the true Torquay spirit we have tried to do things the right way and make as many friends as we could along the way. The only instance where I can think I really hated a team in that league was this season at Alty What a bunch of tits they are and the feeling that the world owes them a favour really pi**ed me off, however the goods guys won in the end (Yes we pratice that all week !!)
Two great years that have seen the club totaly rebuilt & a winning mentality installed.
We will go back to the league a stronger club with great memories but hopefully never to return !!
stew

I do agree there has been some good games over the last two seasons and I have had many enjoyable days at plainmoor. One reason for that is all the great friends I now talk to at games, friendships that were made due to this forum.

I also fully agree that its been good to see how the club has been fully rebuilt and has risen from the ashes after what Roberts did to the club.

For me it was more to do with the feeling that was lost when we went down to what is best known as the non league, it was the real feeling that we did not belong in the BSP.

I know we have no right to be in any league and you have to earn your right to play in what ever league you are in, I just never was able to really come to terms that we were no longer a league team.

On a different note this forum since the day it was set up was really a non league forum, I'm so pleased as it gets near to its first birthday that I can now call the forum a league forum.

its a bloody joke if he is.

Whilst not denying the wreckage that Roberts left, the club was on a slow and inexorable slide well before then. There were people who recognised this and were doing their utmost to take the club under their control but were being obstructed and denied by the incumbent of the time. Those people also recognised that it would probably take dropping out of the Football League to finally bring about some lateral thinking and common sense from those incumbents who would then (and of course did) step aside and at least allow a body of people with the realisation and ambition to re-establish OUR club to the very minimum standards of infrastructure and standing in the football world and local community commensurate with being a "Football League Club"
There was and is no "rightful place" in the Football League.....................it was damned hard to achieve it in 1927 and it has been equally hard and difficult to re-attain in 2009.

There was (nor is) any stigma to being "non league" either....................to suggest that, in my opinion; is to dis-respect the majority of football played and supported in this country. Played in the main and supported in it's entirety with enthusiasm and dedication uppermost over any countenance of "elitism".

For the most part in the lives of all of us, we have only really tagged along in the lowest reaches of the Football League with the occasional sojourn one level higher so that for us the experience of even getting within sight of the very pinnacle of the National Game was an unknown factor. As a "non league" club we HAVE experienced what it is like to be at the very top of the Premiership of a National level and it felt very nice. It felt pretty good travelling the country as one of a club regarded as one of the big boys, a club that the hosts would give an arm and a leg to bring down and humble on their big day on their own patch.

When it DID happen (and it wasn't THAT often to be fair) we learned the valuable trait of humility and dignity in defeat. We didn't go around rubbishing our hosts, causing public disorder or spreading fear amongst local communities as too many of those who purported to support sides like Lincoln City and Donny Rovers had done on occasions in the past. We didn't go onto "non league" forums insulting fellow members with throw away insults like "pub league" or boasting how "too big" we were for the BSP or how being "non league" was a stigma. We held our hands up, asked for acceptance; and stated our aim to return to the Football League with all speed so that any decent and fair minded supporter of any other club would understand and resonate with those feelings.

When we emerged victors (and to fair too, there were many occasions!) we celebrated with as much joy as if we had just beaten a mighty giant but departed with good grace and due respect for our hosts...............of that I'm sure everyone would agree; and I am so proud that OUR wonderful traveling army have largely kept to those parameters and left a lasting impression that will only go to serve OUR club in good stead in the future.

Of course we have our share of silly little Chavs who have yet to learn the etiquette and minimum standards of behaviour and sporting good grace................we always have and we always will ~ all clubs have them. But gradually and inevitably they absorb the great importance and necessity of representing OUR (and their) club in a good and proper way and slowly but surely embrace the accepted standards of being a Torquay United supporter.

On the whole I would say that we have returned to the Football League a much better and fitter club to take our place than we left it and in return we leave the BSP a better league for enjoying OUR membership and THAT is honourable is it not?

Picking up on what Merse said about humility, I was listening to the local Oxford radio station on Saturday lunchtime. They had an interview with Hargreaves followed by a football phone in, and pretty well all the callers reckoned that promotion for Oxford was a done deal already, and the only challenge they had was from Luton! Remember them saying something similar last season!