The Ultimate Torquay United team: Centre-backs

I made the mistake of venturing into the dressing rooms at Plainmoor one Monday in January 1988, knocking first of course, and wishing John Impey ‘Good Morning’.

“What’s good about it?” growled Impey.

Even though we got on well then and are still friends now, I should have known better.

Torquay United had played well but lost an FA Cup 3rd Round tie 2-0 at Coventry City two days earlier, Impey’s over-eager tackle conceding the penalty which broke the deadlock.

It would be several more days before John would get over his mistake, and I remember thinking that he’d be worth avoiding in training that week.

The following Saturday, Impey was outstanding as Cyril Knowles’ Gulls went to Burnden Park and beat promotion rivals Bolton Wanderers 2-1.

That, of course, is what you want from a captain and a centre-half.

They’re a different breed back there, and they need to be.

They spend every hour at work making other people’s lives a misery – at least they should do – seldom grabbing headlines, but taking their own special pleasure in seeing a ‘0’ against the opposition’s name.

The ones who can also play a bit are rare indeed, especially in lower division football. Yet the Gulls have been blessed with a fair few of those down the years.

In any All-Time XI, we need a right and left centre-back to keep things balanced.

Let’s cover the right side first. We’ll move on to the left next week.

John Benson, Alan Smith, Ken Brown and Jimmy Dunne, from Frank O’Farrell’s formidable sides in the late 1960s, would all more than hold their own in any era.

In the two years before he joined United in 1967, Brown had celebrated FA Cup and European Cup-Winners medals with West Ham, and he brought all that pedigree to Plainmoor.

Long-serving Smith, who seemed almost too ‘nice’ off the pitch to be a tough defender on it in those days, was one of the few players who survived the succession of Eric Webber to Frank O’Farrell.

Birkenhead-born Smith was made of the ‘right stuff’ alright, as more than 300 appearances in eleven momentous years (1957-68) proved.

Long-serving duo Benson and Eire international Dunne could be equally effective as midfielders.

Mancunian Benson played 265 games (1964-70) under Webber, O’Farrell and Allan Brown, and it’s a tribute to him that three men whose priorities were so different all picked him so readily.

Many of those games were alongside Eire international Dunne, whose 12 years and 274 games (1967-69) were split by a £30,000 move to Fulham.

But few centre-halves of that era ticked more boxes than Dick Edwards, whose only misfortune was to play in three relatively ‘doldrum’ years for the club.

An ex-miner in the Nottinghamshire coalfield, Edwards had played for Notts County, Mansfield Town and 80 games for Aston Villa before joining United in 1970.

He had everything you needed in a centre-half, with charisma as an added bonus, and he played so well for Torquay that he was invited for a trial at Manchester United in 1972.

He also endeared himself to Gulls fans by forming a Country & Western duo with teammate Bruce Stuckey, and they were seldom short of summer work in Torbay’s pubs and clubs.

Edwards’ on-pitch partners included former Leicester City youngster Derek Harrison, a classy defender who was cruelly hampered by ankle injuries, and Clint Boulton.

The extraordinarily versatile Boulton, who’d captained Port Vale at 18 before moving to Plainmoor, could, and did, play almost anywhere during seven years (1972-79) and 286 games.

He relished each new job he was given, especially being pushed up front.

Clint was a manager’s dream – unchanging in his attitude and professionalism, the sort you could turn to in good times and bad.

Pat Kruse conceded an own goal after only six seconds (the quickest OG in FL history at the time) against Cambridge United (2-2) in January 1977, but he hardly missed a match in two impressive years before enjoying even more success with Brentford.

Coventry loanee Jim Hagan briefly turned a frustratingly inconsistent backline – it included gutsy Ulsterman Albert Larmour and ex-Bath City player Richard Bourne - into one to match the promotion-winning quality of the attack under Mike Green in the late 1970s.

The Gulls would surely have gone up if they’d managed to hold on to the pacy and polished Hagan, but he’d done so well here that Coventry recalled him.

Former Cardiff City starlet Impey, whose two spells spanned 1983-88, played more than 150 relentlessly no-nonsense games during some of the club’s most demanding years.

He’d grown up in a hard school at Ninian Park, he was brave, committed and a captain to his bootlaces.

As much as anyone he encapsulated the never-say-die spirit of the teams which Stuart Morgan and Cyril Knowles sent out in the late 1980s.

Among Impey’s more effective partners were Paul Compton (137 games in two spells), David Carr and David Cole, before manager Cyril Knowles plucked Matt Elliott away from Charlton Athletic for £10,000 in 1988.

Elliott was like Edwards nearly 20 years before, with all the same attributes but without quite the same attitude, at least at first.

Matt, as cool on the ball as he was powerful in the air, clearly had the potential to play much higher, and when he was good here, he was very good indeed.

But it was only after he moved on to Scunthorpe for £60,000 and then Oxford United that he realised his full potential and eventually became ‘The Beast’ at Leicester City and won 18 caps for Scotland.

Elliott will always be remembered for the partnership with his close friend Wes Saunders which played a huge role in winning promotion in 1991.

Darren Moore went on a similar journey, without the international honours, after beginning his career at Plainmoor.

Never was success more richly deserved, for he had to work hard for everything and many judges didn’t rate Moore, now manager of League Two leaders Port Vale, in his early days at Plainmoor.

He proved them all wrong with Bradford City, Portsmouth, West Bromwich Albion, Derby County and Barnsley, eventually piling up 668 career appearances, 80 of them in the Premier League.

His controversial sending-off in the first half of the 1994 Play-Off Semi-Final at Preston – the incident with North End’s Paul Raynor still rankles with Gulls fans to this day – changed the course of that match, and the whole tie.

Another product of United’s extraordinarily successful Youth Scheme at that time was Gloucester-born Wayne Thomas.

He always looked destined for better things and, after 142 appearances, eventually cost Stoke City £250,000 in 2000, on his way to Burnley and Southampton among others.

Few forwards got the better of Jon Gittens and Alex Watson in the late 1990s.

Ex-Middlesbrough and Southampton favourite Gittens could suddenly throw in the odd, costly mistake, all the more remarkable because the rest of his game seemed so reliable.

There were times when Gittens, who sadly passed away at only 55 in 2019, wasn’t the easiest man to manage.

Kevin Hodges knew it when he set up his signing from Portsmouth in 1996, thinking that his experience and physicality would be perfect to bolster United’s defence - for a season.

Chairman Mike Bateson took over the negotiations and then rang Hodges to say gleefully: “Even better, Kevin – I’ve got him on a two-year contract.”

Hodges took a deep breath at the news. But as things turned out, Gittens did everything that was asked of him, and more.

Watson (1995-2000), brother of Everton’s Dave, was equally as brave as Impey, never better than under the heaviest of pressure away from home and a great pro to boot.

He cost £30,000 from Bournemouth during the near-disastrous 1995-96 season, when United finished bottom under Eddie May but were saved from relegation after a High Court battle with Conference champions Stevenage.

But that fee seemed paltry as Watson, who skippered the 1998 Play-Off Final side, was the cornerstone of United’s defence for four years.

Was there ever a better free transfer at Plainmoor than Stoke-born Steve Woods, ‘stolen’ from Chesterfield by Roy McFarland in 2001?

Woods, a footballing centre-back, was a key member of Leroy Rosenior’s 2004 promotion side and was still around when United regained their Football League status five years later.

His eight memorable years included 276 stylish performances, eleven goals and he could bring the ball out of defence with aplomb.

Towards the end of his time here Woods played alongside the gutsy, always-steady Welshman Chris Todd, whose refusal to be pushed off track by a bout of leukaemia earned him widespread admiration.

And they were succeeded by, among others, the unmistakable Guy Branston, Chris Robertson, Mark Ellis and Brian Saah before United fell back out of the EFL in 2014.

Branston was a huge character, who rolled back the years of an eventful career in the side that reached the League Two Play-Off Final in 2011.

Robertson, who partnered Todd in the 2009 Conference Play-Off Final victory over Cambridge, and Ellis both learned their trades well here before making the club good money.

Robertson was sold to Preston for £60,000 in January 2012 and Ellis to Crewe for £75,000 the following summer.

Kingsbridge-born Ellis has since returned for a couple of valuable loan spells and, at 35, is still doing a good job for Chorley in the National League North.

In recent years Angus MacDonald (Barnsley, Hull, Rotherham, Aberdeen), Sean McGinty (Partick, Morton, Ayr) and Joe Lewis (Stockport, AFC Wimbledon) stood out as centre-backs with the ability and determination to play higher than non-League, and they’ve proved it.

So, a shortlist of four from that formidable lot – deep breath time.

To leave out men as good as Benson, Brown, Dunne, who played many of his best United games in midfield, Boulton, Impey, Moore and Gittens pains me, and many fans will shake their heads that I’ve done it.

But I’m going to narrow it down to: DICK EDWARDS, MATT ELLIOTT, ALEX WATSON and STEVE WOODS.

Plainmoor’s chief reporter for over 50 years, Dave Thomas, continues his countdown to the ultimate Torquay United team:

Centre-Back Shorts

Straight-talking ex-Manchester City man John Benson (1964-70) was always destined for management after his career as a defender was over.

Two of his favourite sayings were: ‘Never knock the opposition if you’ve just lost to them’ and ‘The world is full of Monday morning players’. How true, on both counts.

No more versatile player ever pulled on a Torquay shirt than the late Clint Boulton.

Asked to play at centre-forward at Doncaster Rovers in August 1976, defender Clint took serious ribbing from teammates for announcing that he was going to score a hat-trick. Result – Rovers 0 United 4 (Boulton 3, Mike Hickman).

Paul Compton gave his all in 137 mid-80s games, and you could argue that he was one of the most ‘valuable’ signings United ever made.

He went on to become manager, assistant manager and head of the club’s Youth Training Scheme, and his signings and proteges earned United well over £1 million in transfer fees.

United manager Ivan Golac tried to make a point to centre-half Matt Elliott by substituting him in a 2-1 League One defeat at Bournemouth in March 1992.

Golac still wasn’t happy with him at Leyton Orient (0-2) in the next match, but Matt had the last laugh – he promptly left for Scunthorpe in a heady career that later took him to Oxford Utd, Leicester City and Scotland.

Tickets for the Dave Thomas Team of a Lifetime event at Plainmoor on Friday, December 13 are available to purchase from https://www.tickettailor.com/events/clearskypublishing/1440324