Post by Dave on Nov 6, 2009 19:49:52 GMT
Last week I started off by saying we could not really moan on the forum, as our players were giving everything they had, but we could not post those really happy posts that only happen when the team wins.
Well it did and the forum had a great weekend and had on Monday one of its best days in its short history. I thank all our daytime posters who made some good posts during the week; strangely the forum was quite during the day on Thursday and Friday.
Well this week’s winner has broken the record for the most votes received in a week, it was held by me for a post I did about dealing and coping with cancer. I had scored 16 votes and that has now been over taken by a wonderful score of 18 votes.
Mind you after reading a post he made a few weeks ago, I thought he might not be treating us so much to the wonderful posts he makes and therefore I had to take some action and the carvery was to prove to be the perfect opportunity.
What happened was….. Some time ago I can across a man who knew the witch doctor of the Bakongo tribe and he told me the witch doctor could make many different potions and if I told him the problem I was looking to solve, a suitable potion could be made and 100% success was guaranteed.
Having a few problems with one poster on the forum, I thought it would be worth a try, the poster was a man so full of great knowledge, only he had a sting in his tail at times. I was told I would need to send an email to the one person who was from another tribe nearby, who had a computer, then my request would be sent by jungle drums to the witch doctor of the Bakongo tribe.
In my email I asked for a potion that would make the poster stick only to posting his great knowledge and stop him from making attacks in his post, especially about people from Devon.
Three weeks later and the postman was at my door asking me to sign for a small package, I opened it and inside was a bag with a brown powder in it. I made my plan how I was going to get this potion into the member, but I needed a bit of help.
The first game of the season was here and after the game I was able to go and sit in the now empty stand with him for a chat. Some bloke called Andy was able to put the powder in the posters drink while he was talking to me.
I could not believe just how well the potion worked and I was soon sending another email, this one I now think I’m starting to regret. “ Can I have a potion that will turn a born again virgin into a nymphomaniac”
Three weeks later the postman was at the door again, this time the bag contained a pink powder, it did work, but looking at the bags under my eyes this morning, I really might need to email again and see if there is a potion to reverse her back into a born again virgin.
Fearing a TFF main and very important poster, might not be posting so much, I just had to send my third email and yes you guessed three weeks later the postman was at my door. The powder this time was a creamy white colour and how perfect I thought as it would be nicely hidden in the cauliflower cheese at the carvery.
It worked yet again and the poster went into overdrive and produced some of his best posts, one was so good and had so much work put into it, I stood in admiration for this clever and brainy man .
I have sent an email thanking the witch doctor and I would love you all to see a picture of him, we all owe him a big thank you for making the potion that gave us this week’s winner, the one and only Barton Downs
I would like to thank Timbo who came second, for all the work he has put into the forum this week, well done Tim and many thanks.
I will just post the link to the post that got most of the votes and put up another one you can read.
The top post can be found here
torquayfansforum.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tufchistory&action=display&thread=3175
Post two
I say that only as its hard to understand why the club mostly seemed to struggle financially and if the club had gates the same size as it once did, it would be over the moon with the money coming in.
If you look at that 1946-60 period you start to believe Torquay United’s problem wasn’t so much abject poverty, more a relative lack of wealth. We were doing okay but others were doing better.
As Dave says, football would have been pretty cheap to watch during the 1940s and 1950s. But that probably wasn’t the main reason people initially flocked to matches in such numbers. For, as has been mentioned in other postings, the immediate post-war years in Britain were pretty grotty and full of shortages, social dislocation, bomb sites and all manner of crises. Against such a drab, austere backcloth – and general pall of gloom – football shone out as an attractive proposition. No wonder attendances – just like cinema figures – shot up. This meant football’s post-war recovery preceded that of the wider economy by a good few years so that - to coin the phase of slightly later – the game had “never had it so good”. But did it appreciate the fact?
Although those late 1950s crowd figures still appear pretty impressive by our standards, they actually indicate a decline compared to those of a decade earlier. This, to a large extent, was due to greater prosperity as people found they had more things upon which to spend their money. Football suffered as a consequence.
Overall, I guess football finances then would have been different to all we’ve experienced since, say, 1970. Admission might have been cheap but – with average crowds of at least 6,000 at Plainmoor in every season (bar one) between 1946 and 1960 – revenue must have been healthy. Throw in the fact that player’s wages were tightly controlled – and also consider the money raised by the supporters club (and the voluntary labour it provided) – and you’ve probably got relative stability. This suggests many clubs were less-reliant on directors than they were to be in the future.
But, at Torquay United – in spite of average attendances going as high as 8,770 in 1949/50 – the truth was that just about everyone else in our division was getting better crowds. Generally speaking, from 1946 to 1956, only Aldershot were more poorly-supported than ourselves in Division Three (South). Locally, you can see this by the way that in 1949/50, for example, Exeter’s average gate was 10,117 and how it didn’t slip below 8,000 during the first ten post-war seasons.
So maybe that’s why Timbo’s programmes feature complaints about “small” crowds – ones we can hardly dream of nowadays, of course – and a general lack of community interest. It might not have been a case of the wolf being at the door but that every other team in the league – bar the Shots – was bringing in more money. Indeed, because we were by no means the weakest team on the field, we were probably consistently punching above our weight thanks to sound management and benevolent directors.
Post three
Read the Traveller's notes closely and you'll see that Cambridge United have only recently stepped up to the Eastern Counties League in which they finished 4th in that 1954/55 season. And, given what we've recently been saying about the supporters' clubs of those days, there's a few paragraphs about the role played by fans in building up Cambridge United from virtually nothing.
Just as Oxford United were still known as Headington United (away to Norwich that day), Cambridge United had once been called Abbey United. The club was to progress to the Southern League by 1958 where it remained for twelve seasons before being elected to the Football League in 1970.
Indeed, it's one of the game's curiosities as to how the football histories of Cambridge and Oxford mirror each other so closely: two ambitious non-league clubs who are elected to the Football League where - for most of the time - they punch above their weights before slipping down to the Conference almost at the same time.
Each city also has a second club called "City"; witness Oxford City's visit to Burton Albion in the FA Cup next Sunday. Cambridge's other club - then in the process of dropping the title of Cambridge Town following the granting of city status in the early 1950s - was arguably the bigger at that time and played in the Athenian League. This, in theory anyway, made United semi-professional and City amateur.
Cambridge City - struggling these days and now overshadowed by Histon - eventually turned professional themselves and met up with Cambridge United in the Southern League. Here's the final table from 1962/63 when 11,500 saw the game between the two clubs at Cambridge City's ground:
Timbo asks how the other non-league clubs did that day. Frome - in a tie that is probably the biggest FA Cup match to be played in that neck of the woods (until Paulton meet Norwich next week!) - lost 3-0 to the Orient. Barnstaple (who'd beaten Yeovil in the previous round) were beaten 4-1 by Bournemouth just as, four years later, they lost to Exeter City in the first round.
The shock - from those ties listed on the half-time scoreboard - was Walthamstow Avenue's 4-0 win over QPR in a second replay at Highbury.
Also note the presence of Nuneaton Borough who we beat in the first round in 1971/72 when their supporters appeared to make up half of the 5,800 crowd. The Borough went bust a year or two back but the town's new club - Nuneaton Town (which everyone still calls "the Borough") - have their own big day on Saturday when they play Exeter City.
That'll be some occasion and there was even a Borough-supporting train manager on my Cross Country service the other day seeking out Exeter City supporters for a spot of "banter". I duly pointed him in the direction of one of duty station managers at Plymouth and wished him all the best. With luck there will be a successor to the incessant Nuneaton bell-ringer of 1971 making sure the locals get into our friends' faces....
Well it did and the forum had a great weekend and had on Monday one of its best days in its short history. I thank all our daytime posters who made some good posts during the week; strangely the forum was quite during the day on Thursday and Friday.
Well this week’s winner has broken the record for the most votes received in a week, it was held by me for a post I did about dealing and coping with cancer. I had scored 16 votes and that has now been over taken by a wonderful score of 18 votes.
Mind you after reading a post he made a few weeks ago, I thought he might not be treating us so much to the wonderful posts he makes and therefore I had to take some action and the carvery was to prove to be the perfect opportunity.
What happened was….. Some time ago I can across a man who knew the witch doctor of the Bakongo tribe and he told me the witch doctor could make many different potions and if I told him the problem I was looking to solve, a suitable potion could be made and 100% success was guaranteed.
Having a few problems with one poster on the forum, I thought it would be worth a try, the poster was a man so full of great knowledge, only he had a sting in his tail at times. I was told I would need to send an email to the one person who was from another tribe nearby, who had a computer, then my request would be sent by jungle drums to the witch doctor of the Bakongo tribe.
In my email I asked for a potion that would make the poster stick only to posting his great knowledge and stop him from making attacks in his post, especially about people from Devon.
Three weeks later and the postman was at my door asking me to sign for a small package, I opened it and inside was a bag with a brown powder in it. I made my plan how I was going to get this potion into the member, but I needed a bit of help.
The first game of the season was here and after the game I was able to go and sit in the now empty stand with him for a chat. Some bloke called Andy was able to put the powder in the posters drink while he was talking to me.
I could not believe just how well the potion worked and I was soon sending another email, this one I now think I’m starting to regret. “ Can I have a potion that will turn a born again virgin into a nymphomaniac”
Three weeks later the postman was at the door again, this time the bag contained a pink powder, it did work, but looking at the bags under my eyes this morning, I really might need to email again and see if there is a potion to reverse her back into a born again virgin.
Fearing a TFF main and very important poster, might not be posting so much, I just had to send my third email and yes you guessed three weeks later the postman was at my door. The powder this time was a creamy white colour and how perfect I thought as it would be nicely hidden in the cauliflower cheese at the carvery.
It worked yet again and the poster went into overdrive and produced some of his best posts, one was so good and had so much work put into it, I stood in admiration for this clever and brainy man .
I have sent an email thanking the witch doctor and I would love you all to see a picture of him, we all owe him a big thank you for making the potion that gave us this week’s winner, the one and only Barton Downs
I would like to thank Timbo who came second, for all the work he has put into the forum this week, well done Tim and many thanks.
I will just post the link to the post that got most of the votes and put up another one you can read.
The top post can be found here
torquayfansforum.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tufchistory&action=display&thread=3175
Post two
Nov 1, 2009 22:57:02 GMT Dave said:
I can only imagine that the cost of football was so much less than it is today in relation to what a working man earned. I say that only as its hard to understand why the club mostly seemed to struggle financially and if the club had gates the same size as it once did, it would be over the moon with the money coming in.
If you look at that 1946-60 period you start to believe Torquay United’s problem wasn’t so much abject poverty, more a relative lack of wealth. We were doing okay but others were doing better.
As Dave says, football would have been pretty cheap to watch during the 1940s and 1950s. But that probably wasn’t the main reason people initially flocked to matches in such numbers. For, as has been mentioned in other postings, the immediate post-war years in Britain were pretty grotty and full of shortages, social dislocation, bomb sites and all manner of crises. Against such a drab, austere backcloth – and general pall of gloom – football shone out as an attractive proposition. No wonder attendances – just like cinema figures – shot up. This meant football’s post-war recovery preceded that of the wider economy by a good few years so that - to coin the phase of slightly later – the game had “never had it so good”. But did it appreciate the fact?
Although those late 1950s crowd figures still appear pretty impressive by our standards, they actually indicate a decline compared to those of a decade earlier. This, to a large extent, was due to greater prosperity as people found they had more things upon which to spend their money. Football suffered as a consequence.
Overall, I guess football finances then would have been different to all we’ve experienced since, say, 1970. Admission might have been cheap but – with average crowds of at least 6,000 at Plainmoor in every season (bar one) between 1946 and 1960 – revenue must have been healthy. Throw in the fact that player’s wages were tightly controlled – and also consider the money raised by the supporters club (and the voluntary labour it provided) – and you’ve probably got relative stability. This suggests many clubs were less-reliant on directors than they were to be in the future.
But, at Torquay United – in spite of average attendances going as high as 8,770 in 1949/50 – the truth was that just about everyone else in our division was getting better crowds. Generally speaking, from 1946 to 1956, only Aldershot were more poorly-supported than ourselves in Division Three (South). Locally, you can see this by the way that in 1949/50, for example, Exeter’s average gate was 10,117 and how it didn’t slip below 8,000 during the first ten post-war seasons.
So maybe that’s why Timbo’s programmes feature complaints about “small” crowds – ones we can hardly dream of nowadays, of course – and a general lack of community interest. It might not have been a case of the wolf being at the door but that every other team in the league – bar the Shots – was bringing in more money. Indeed, because we were by no means the weakest team on the field, we were probably consistently punching above our weight thanks to sound management and benevolent directors.
Post three
Read the Traveller's notes closely and you'll see that Cambridge United have only recently stepped up to the Eastern Counties League in which they finished 4th in that 1954/55 season. And, given what we've recently been saying about the supporters' clubs of those days, there's a few paragraphs about the role played by fans in building up Cambridge United from virtually nothing.
Just as Oxford United were still known as Headington United (away to Norwich that day), Cambridge United had once been called Abbey United. The club was to progress to the Southern League by 1958 where it remained for twelve seasons before being elected to the Football League in 1970.
Indeed, it's one of the game's curiosities as to how the football histories of Cambridge and Oxford mirror each other so closely: two ambitious non-league clubs who are elected to the Football League where - for most of the time - they punch above their weights before slipping down to the Conference almost at the same time.
Each city also has a second club called "City"; witness Oxford City's visit to Burton Albion in the FA Cup next Sunday. Cambridge's other club - then in the process of dropping the title of Cambridge Town following the granting of city status in the early 1950s - was arguably the bigger at that time and played in the Athenian League. This, in theory anyway, made United semi-professional and City amateur.
Cambridge City - struggling these days and now overshadowed by Histon - eventually turned professional themselves and met up with Cambridge United in the Southern League. Here's the final table from 1962/63 when 11,500 saw the game between the two clubs at Cambridge City's ground:
Timbo asks how the other non-league clubs did that day. Frome - in a tie that is probably the biggest FA Cup match to be played in that neck of the woods (until Paulton meet Norwich next week!) - lost 3-0 to the Orient. Barnstaple (who'd beaten Yeovil in the previous round) were beaten 4-1 by Bournemouth just as, four years later, they lost to Exeter City in the first round.
The shock - from those ties listed on the half-time scoreboard - was Walthamstow Avenue's 4-0 win over QPR in a second replay at Highbury.
Also note the presence of Nuneaton Borough who we beat in the first round in 1971/72 when their supporters appeared to make up half of the 5,800 crowd. The Borough went bust a year or two back but the town's new club - Nuneaton Town (which everyone still calls "the Borough") - have their own big day on Saturday when they play Exeter City.
That'll be some occasion and there was even a Borough-supporting train manager on my Cross Country service the other day seeking out Exeter City supporters for a spot of "banter". I duly pointed him in the direction of one of duty station managers at Plymouth and wished him all the best. With luck there will be a successor to the incessant Nuneaton bell-ringer of 1971 making sure the locals get into our friends' faces....
