Regime change is nothing new for Torquay United

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, along comes something that you know is a bit different. Torquay United have been owned and run by some weird and wonderful people in their 125 years, but its long, eventful and compelling history is about to take an entirely new direction.

Your Correspondent has seen ten regimes (and a lot more managers!) over the last 50-plus years.

If you want the list, here goes – Tony Boyce, Dave Webb, Lew Pope, Mike Bateson, Chris Roberts, Bateson again briefly, Lottery winner Paul Bristow’s local board, Bristow’s widow Thea, another supporters’ group led by Dave Phillips and Clarke Osborne.

You can cheer, applaud, boo or hiss, as you see fit.

There’s been good, bad, not very good looking, one kind lady and, of course, the most recent chairman who somehow convinced himself that it was OK not to turn up at all, while urging everyone else that it was their duty to do so every week.

There’s been dictators, committee men, some who seized power, others who had it thrust upon them and, in Roberts’ case, at least one who seemed like an accident waiting to happen on an almost weekly basis.

But the Gulls are about to head off on an entirely fresh and intriguing journey.

Yes, there have been boards of local supporters before, under Bristow, with Alex Rowe and then Simon Baker as chairmen, and Phillips.

The first Bristow regime had the good sense to employ a football man in Colin Lee as their No. 1.

Result? Four successful years. with Lee’s protege Paul Buckle as manager, which took the club from the old Conference to within touching distance of League One.

But, after the roller-coaster Osborne years, there has now emerged a very different kind of local board.

Mike Westcott’s Bryn Consortium does include a handful of committed supporters.

But although they have more financial clout than the Phillips regime, they have no signatures to match Bristow’s at the bottom of their cheques.

Crucially, instead of Lee, the Bryn men do have the considerable figure of Neil Warnock to help ambitious new manager Paul Wotton.

Westcott & Co are also determined to break with the past and run United in a more open-handed way.

They don’t claim to have any magic wands, and they are well aware of the pitfalls that lie ahead.

Gulls fans rightly expect their team to be at least at the top of the National League South, probably at the top of the National League, where former manager Gary Johnson took them before it all went wrong, and hopefully back in the Football League.

Wotton is not dissimilar to Buckle in the way he goes about things. No pussyfooting around. Substance first, style second. Up and at ‘em.

But at Tuesday’s upbeat press conference, Warnock also stressed: “We want that Pop Side, and everyone at Plainmoor, to have a bit of fun.”

No manager in the history of the game has known how to do that better than Warnock.

So strap yourselves in, Gulls fans. Get set for another riveting ride. After all, we never do boring, do we..?