Winning is all that counts for Torquay United

Is it really five years since Torquay United last kicked off in the National League South?
It felt like - no, it was - the lowest ebb in the club's history, yet there were still 2,151 fans at Plainmoor to see Liam Davis score an 80th minute winner in the first home game against Bath City in August 2018.
Gulls’ owner Clarke Osborne had stuck with his relegated manager, Gary Owers, just as he has done now with Gary Johnson.
Seven games and three home defeats later, Owers was gone, and in strode Johnson to spark a breathless, entertaining and eventful revival, which took United to within a penalty of the Football League only three years later.
Johnson took the Gulls from 14th in the NLS to the first championship in their history - they won 27 of 42 games, breaking points (88) and goals (94) records and winning the title by ten points from Woking.
So, can we expect more of the same this time?
Well, obviously we hope so. But don't expect this Torquay side to go about it in the same way that the 2018-2019 team did.
That first squad was a very different animal to this one.
Over the course of that first Johnson season United were simply too quick, too sharp and too fit for the competition.
Consider the attacking roster. Jamie Reid and Bristol City loanee Saikou Janneh, who scored 50 goals between them, Connor Lemonheigh-Evans, Kalvin Kalala, Jake Andrews, Ruairi Keating - all well as being too good for NL South defences, they simply ran them off their feet, especially in the last 20 minutes of matches.
And we haven't even talked about Asa Hall and attacking full-backs Ben Wynter, Davis and Ryan Dickson.
Now look at the 2023 squad. Hall is still there, at 36 now, but around him are Kevin Dawson, Tom Lapslie, Aaron Jarvis, Brett McGavin, Shaun Donnellan, Ryan Hanson - bigger, stronger, in most cases more experienced than the 2019 team.
That bunch won't be pushed around, especially with the ageless Dean Moxey lending support and know-how from the back.
The big question is whether Johnson's 'new' signings - Bradley Ash, Jack Stobbs and Lewis Collins, plus at least one more planned addition - can supply a bit of that 2019 pace and flair.
Wingers Stobbs and Collins showed near the end of last season, when they were on loan, that they can be match-winners. And Ash's 24 goals for a struggling Weymouth side were a pretty good hint that he can enjoy himself again in this division.
Can Jarvis, Ash, Stobbs, Collins & Co deliver like Reid, Janneh, Keating and Kalala did five years ago? That's the key to it.
It won't be quite the same style, but don't worry about that. There never has been a 'right' or 'wrong' way to play football, or only one way. But it always has been winning that counts…