Torquay United latest: Fans will be the saviours

It’s just over seven years since Clarke Osborne took over Torquay United from a supporter-led board which had reported that the club was ten days away from going into administration.

From December 2016 to February 2024 the roller-coaster that’s nearly always been the story of life at Plainmoor has careered on.

The first ‘championship’ in the club’s history, a penalty kick away from a second promotion to the ‘promised land’ of the Football League, then relegation back to the National League South and now another poor season in the sixth tier of English football.

But the news that the Gulls have now been placed into administration by Osborne, only weeks after he pointedly restated his backing for the club during an online fans’ forum, is shattering news.

A ‘bombshell’ by any standards.

Many long-standing supporters had held on to the fact that United, unlike their Devon neighbours Plymouth Argyle and Exeter City, had never slipped into administration as a matter of some pride.

Even that’s now gone.

Quite what may have changed for Osborne over the last few weeks is anyone’s guess. It could be financial, personal or the stick that he, his CEO George Edwards and manager Gary Johnson have been getting during a wretched run of form and performances.

Johnson, who left the club later in the day, certainly gave no hint at his weekly press conference on Thursday that he knew what coming a couple of hours later.

The air at Plainmoor on Saturday, when United are due to meet Essex part-timers Aveley, will be full of dismay, worry and even fear for the future.

There will be talk of points-deductions, part-time football, even going out of business.

Yet you can be pretty sure that, even at this desperate moment, there will be around 2,000 ever- committed fans there, in a ground that would comfortably grace the EFL.

Is that a ‘basket case’ club? Surely not!