The Torquay United rumour mill fed by the lack of information

Angry, dumbfounded, desperate, numb – you could apply all those words, and many more, to the faces of nearly 800 Torquay United supporters as they dragged themselves home from the club’s punchless 1-0 defeat at Bath City on Saturday.

‘What the hell’s happening to us?’, ‘Where are we going?’ and ‘What have we done to deserve this?’ were just a few of the pained but obvious questions which your correspondent could not answer on Bath Spa and Bristol Temple Meads stations.

We should know a bit more in the wake of last night’s relegation six-pointer at Taunton Town – even the very ring of that phrase sends a shudder down the spine – but the feeling of helplessness among Gulls fans doesn’t just cover events on the pitch, it’s also about what’s going on off it.

The administrators currently in charge of the club effectively said last week that they have a better bid to be United’s next owners than the one put forward by the group led by local businessman Mike Westcott and the Torquay United Supporters Trust (TUST).

But they insisted that their ‘preferred’ bidder remain confidential for – well, whenever...

Was it because they weren’t completely ready to show their hand yet? Hopefully not.

Were they still working their way through the paperwork and admin? Possibly.

Or were they waiting until they know whether United will be a National League South or a Southern League club next season? Surely not, or Westcott & TUST should have had it.

The rumour-mill has duly spun at an increasing rate, including names like Brewdog boss James Watt and former international hotelier and long-standing Gulls fan John Jarvis.

Never say never in football, but neither Watt nor Jarvis has given any real hint that they are the ‘one’, even though Jarvis has always been ready to lend a hand and is United’s unofficial Away Travel sponsor.

More likely is a relatively new group of investors, who have done pretty well to keep their identities under wraps so far.

But that ‘so far’ can last only so long, and Saturday’s final, and possibly decisive, game of the season at home to Havant & Waterlooville surely looks like a watershed moment.

Any new regime must, especially after all the pain the fans have been put through, find a way to ‘sell’ themselves and their future plans to the Plainmoor crowd.

Will they really let Saturday’s match come and go without launching that major charm offensive?

There is so much to be done to galvanise and point the club in a new direction, on and off the pitch.

And those so-important summer season-ticket sales will hang on how the ‘faithful’ have been won over...