Former managers: Kevin Hodges

Sorry merse I must have missed the bit where you specified that your listing of ‘special players’ was limited to strikers only.

My definition includes those players that belonged to the club and who were worth the price of admission on their own. That is why Aggy gets my vote. He could play a searching pass that made a bad team performance more bearable. He made a trip to Rochdale in 2002/03 worthwhile for this correspondent despite the defeat.

Incidentally to count Jason Roberts as TUFC player that we lost is stretching it a bit. Can you really lose what you never had?

By that definition we have also lost Dean Sturridge and Steve Bould.

And then do we count Tony Currie and Chris Waddle as TUFC players too?

Well I DID list an exclusively "striker only" contingent in high lightiong those who had set Plainmoor alight..........................surely, as a Gulls fan you would have realised that!

Obviously?

I don't think that is a logical interpretation at all - one from the heart rather than from the head.

This thing about paying interest to MB is something that irrationally winds fans up. I would have thought the departing directors would understand that the club was up to its neck in debt and that it costs money to service debt.

At 30 June 1997, the bank overdraft was £462k - at a higher rate of interest than the MB loan. We could not borrow the other £441k needed to keep afloat anywhere else. Even if we could it would have cost much more. By the way, that overdraft was only possible because it was secured by personal monies deposited by the Batesons.

Of course, MB was not seeing a penny interest or dividend on the £381k tied up in share capital - and nor would he expect to. The loan account was only supposed to be a temporary top up - and had been interest free for seven years. MB reached the point where enough was enough.

TUFC's Balance Sheet was technically bankrupt - the auditors had to note that "the company is reliant upon the continued support of m Bateson and Mrs S Bateson with regard to the personal security of the bank overdaft and also the Director loan in the sum of £440,980". Without that continued massive financial support, the club was not a going concern. I know that is not untypical of lower league clubs, but there is no way the other directors could cover such huge sums.

I think there was much relief from the remaining directors that MB agreed to leave his loan in, or else they would have been mortgaging their houses - and the club paying out far more in interest. Or, more likely, they would have all packed up and got out.

I don't think for one minute that messrs Beer, Lilley and Rogers swallowed this internet forum rant nonsense about "merely servicing Mike Bateson's loan to the club". They would be more financially aware than that. I think what probably concerned them more was whether they could reverse the cash outflow so as not to need to put more money in themselves as MB had had enough of putting his own cash in.

By the way, I remember the other forum full of rants about how disgusting it was that MB had loaned money to the club and that the loan should be repaid. It was then disgusting that the loan had been repaid - showing that you just can't win.

I've not claimed the departing directors were unaware of the situation Jon, I've passed the opinion that they would rather have been investing their limited funds into underwriting the football operation, than servicing the "owner's" loans.

A policy decision had previously been taken by the powers that be, to run the club by such injections of capital rather than re-establish the commercial income streams that had been so relevant in previous years. Income streams that had been allowed to whither and almost die through apathy, failure to invest in and employ staff who would continue those streams and invest in maintining and even expanding those streams in the future.

The club had become a skeleton of it's former self, admittedly it had previously been dependent on the generosity and good will of the directorate of the time, but not in the dangerously sole way it was now running at.

Let's get this straight, what Mike Bateson did was vital in maintaining and then running what we had then......................there WAS no alternative because of the parlous state the club had been allowed to fall into before he took control. But the policy of scaling down the operation to beyond the bare bones of a professional football club and depending wholly on director's (the Bateson's) good will and financial underwriting was myopic and doomed to end in tears.

Far better, in my opinion; to share the load amongst directors as we had in the past and do now than hock the present and future of the club to one man or his family who can pull the rug from under the feet at any time they deem appropriate or decide that "enough is enough" when the balance of the interests of the club come down less favourably than those of the interests of the family.

I'm not denigrating what the Batesons did, I just prefer the policy of a board of directors who are multi numbered rather than single/family ownership.

I was reading Left Foot in the Grave again over the weekend and came across the story of how hodges, nelson and mcall used to have to tie portable goals to the minibus before training.

This was due to the fact that they did not know which area of parkland that the council would let them use that day. Shows how bad things had really became in a professional football club. As merse points out hodges mccall and nelson had next to no money to work with.

I know that some players past and present have moaned about the current facilities but at least they are damn sight better than not knowing where you were going to play.

I know people have mentioned the goalmouth scramble at leyton orient. Things that I can remember of that day are ;

1) Hundreds of gulls fans in Brisbane Road as the team bus arrived to huge acclaim.

2) Barry Hearn telling us that he wanted us to go up rather than Colchester and how much he hated them.

3) Jason Roberts nearly running my mate over in Brisbane Road. ( Even though he had gone back to his parent club he came and watched us that day )

4) Gittins shocking mistake for the first goal.

5) Andy Gurney making a blinding save from a free kick which was given after Kenny Veysey had been sent off for a professional foul.

6) The linesman showing 6 minutes of adding time using one of the numbers used for showing which player was about to be subbed. ( Before the new electric boards came into use). Also remember the huge roar from gulls fans at the sight of 6 minutes being shown

So you know what I believe eh? Creepy huh? Maybe you would be better served phrasing it that "you think you know what I believe"