15/04/60: Totnes v 'A' 1960. Herald Cup Final

That's interesting.

Would you believe me if I told you I just happened to have to hand the Torquay United line-up from the very first time "we" ever played Teign Village on 18 October 1913?



In fact, I have just e-mailed it to "our" inside left's grandson.

I put inverted commas on the "we" and "our" because most of "us" Torquay boys had jumped on the glory tram to Plainmoor to follow Torquay Town. Babbacombe boys, as always, made their own arrangements.

I wonder if there was a miserable old git or two who trekked all the way up to Daddyhole Plain to follow United and to moan about those bleddy glory-seeking splitters.

Funnily enough, whilst soccer and rugby league have always been the "working class" sports in most places and rugby union a game for the toffs, Devon used to be in a little bubble of its own where RU was the working man's game.

Torquay Athletic RUFC played at working-class Plainmoor from 1881-1887 and from 1892-1904, flirting with posher places like Shiphay (1887-88), the Recreation Ground (1888-1890 and 1891-92) and Paignton (1890-91) in between. Torquay United played at the very posh Recreation Ground (next the the Grand Hotel and the Train Station) from 1900-1904.

I often wonder whether if Tics had stayed put in 1904 (they were kicked off so that houses could be built on the pitch, but they never were) rather than moving back to the Rec, they would have managed to hang on to the working-class support which soon took to soccer in numbers - especially after Torquay Town upped the standard in 1910.

You never know, do you?

I always think of the case of Gloucester where rugby union can be described as the "people's game".

In fact, I'm pretty certain Lee Mansell is a fan.

Who can be certain that we wouldn't have followed a similar sporting path had Torquay been an out-and-out rugby town?

Mind you, we might have won the Heineken Cup by now.....

Unless, of course as per an earlier thread, we'd gone down the road of rugby league.

I can see it now: St Marychurch Trinity, six time winners of the Challenge Trophy.......

The Rugby League thread:

torquayfansforum.com/index.cgi?board=otherfootball&action=display&thread=2306

Sadly, your link isn't working on my laptop, Nick, but I am pleased that there's a connection between the United chairman and organic food in Totnes. That's makes him a more popular Gulls boss than Mike Bateson, who is an unpopular man around these parts. Read on....

In 2000/1 Chesterfield FC splashed the cash and stormed to the top of what I still think of as Division 4, under the chairmanship of a young Yorkshire entrepreneur named Darren Brown and managership of Nicky Law. The fans were delighted and Brown lapped up the admiration. He claimed he was trying to buy the old greyhound stadium at Wheeldon Mill for a new home ground, only to be outbid by a couple of local businessmen who he accused of snatching it from him in order to turn a profit by selling it on. Meanwhile Chester were asking questions about why we had not paid the transfer fee for Luke Beckett and many people were wondering why official attendance figures seemed so low considering that the ground was largely full every week.

Of course, Brown was really a crook who actually had no money at all, had stolen Beckett from Chester and was defrauding the Inland Revenue by paying players off-sheet and manipulating the club's accounts. He had appointed directors who were his henchmen in crime and had lied to the licencing authorities by pretending that ground improvements were going to be carried out at Saltergate, which was not true. After Christmas one side of the ground was shut down and the taxman came to repossess the oak table from the boardroom, but couldn't get it through the door. As Brown came to be seen, belatedly, as the shyster he was he started hiring thugs to intimidate his critics while not paying the players their wages, leading to Beckett and Mike Pollitt announcing that they were going to enforce their right to treat their contracts as broken, and leave the club.

By March the season was falling apart, the Kop End was empty and Brown on his way out, but the side was still in the top three. However, it seemed certain that there would be a huge points deduction which would prevent the club from being promoted.

At the bottom of the table, meanwhile, Leyton Orient and Torquay United were among the strugglers. Barry Hearn and Mike Bateson, each fearful of their club finishing last and being relegated out of the League, argued that Chesterfield ought to be chucked out instead. Who could blame them? Well, Chesterfield fans could, and did!

In the end both the Gulls and the O's survived, the Spireites were deducted a very generous 9 points and still finished third behind Brighton and Cardiff, and Brown got 4 years in prison for theft. Nicky Law, given a big extended contract by Brown the day before he resigned, scarpered to Bradford City as quickly as he could do so and left Chesterfield with no momey remaining from either the run to the 1997 FA Cup semi-final or the sale of Kevin Davies. The club went into administration and lost all the goodwill created by the gallant Cup run, as opposing fans waved brown envelopes at us and called us "Cheaterfield" whenever we played an away match.

I think CFC's reputation has been restored now but some people have long memories and bear grudges, so Mike Bateson and Barry Hearn are still unloved by some fans. But had the boot been on the other foot, of course, Town fans would have expected their own board to have done exactly what Bateson did and to fight his own club's corner.

The man who sold CFC to Brown was Norton Lea, a grumpy businessman who had attracted a lot of criticism among the fans for sitting on the Cup/Davies money and overseeing the sale of the backbone of that fine 1997 side. He did buy David Reeves and Jason Lee, for an astounding £250,000 each, but took on the latter apparently without consulting manager John Duncan, who, it seemed, would rather die than give Lee a run in the team. Meanwhile Billy Mercer, Sean Dyche and Paul Holland were all sold to Bristol City, Tom Curtis went to Portsmouth and Mark Williams left on a Bosman. The team floundered and miserable relegation, in bottom position and in front of measly-sized attendances, came along in 2000.

So, the sale to Brown was universally welcomed. But why sell to him? Norton Lea had turned down previous bids for his club from reputable prospective purchasers, and yet he flogged the whole kaboosh to a fly by night character just out of short trousers?

When the shit hit the fan and the taxman literally chased Chesterfield FC's treasurer down the street, up popped Norton Lea again offering to buy back the club. The old fellow, previously highly unpopular, was now seen by some fans as an angel returning to the rescue. In the event, however, he failed to get the support he needed (and obviously expected) and a fans' buyout snatched the prize away.

So, did Lea sell to Brown deliberately, knowing that Brown was a wide boy whose regime was doomed to disaster, in order to come riding back on his charger to clean up the mess, become a hero and probably make a nice profit into the bargain?

And if this is why Norton Lea sold up to Darren Brown, might there have been a parallel, of sorts, in the Bateson/Roberts deal?

For those interested in TQ9 there’s a fascinating storm brewing at the moment over the re-introduction of school uniform at the secondary school in Totnes. Radio Devon is gleefully fanning the flames and is picking up on the “clash of cultures” between the reactionary and the progressive. There’s something wonderfully Totnesian about the whole thing…..

I'm something of a progressive over this one. But I wonder if many an old "prog rocker" favours school uniforms?