Wotton can learn lessons from Frank

There never was, nor has there been, a more driven, demanding or meticulous manager of Torquay United than Frank O’Farrell.

His achievements in the 1960s are an indelible part of Plainmoor folklore – promotion at the first attempt, 7th and 4th in the old Third Division (League One) and gates almost doubled to 10,000 before he headed off to Leicester City, Manchester United etc.

His dedication to the business of winning could be almost scary at times, and there were no stones he wasn’t prepared to turn to that cause.

As a wing-half with Preston North End, West Ham United and Eire, he was a professional to his bootlaces, and he took those values into coaching and management.

And yet, at a time when he expected his players to be committed as never before, O’Farrell effectively allowed at least three of them to be ‘part-time’.

Midway through his first season (1965-66) O’Farrell went back to West Ham to sign charismatic right-back John Bond, and over the next 18 months he also persuaded left-back Bill Kitchener and then centre-half Ken Brown to move from Upton Park to Plainmoor.

Both Bond and Brown had played in West Ham’s FA Cup winning team in 1964, and Brown was in the side that won the European Cup Winners Cup the following season, only two years before he signed for Torquay.

It’s impossible to imagine such transfers now.

For the whole of their time here, Bond and Brown lived and trained for half the week in London, and the younger Kitchener did the same during an extended first-season loan before he made the move permanent.

Yes, they were different times, when clubs were more amenable to allowing other players to use their training facilities.

But O’Farrell knew the extra quality he was adding to his team, and he trusted the trio to make it work.

Bond, Brown and Kitchener went on to play more than 370 games for Torquay between them.

Nearly 60 years later, new United manager Paul Wotton is about to put together a squad that will include several ‘part-time’ players in an effort to win promotion from a division three levels lower than the one that United went so close to getting out of under O’Farrell.

The biggest point Wotton makes in favour of the ‘hybrid’ ploy is that to ignore quality players whom United could not afford to pay full-time is a football equivalent of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The players in question are likely to be experienced men whose commitment he trusts.

The whole squad, including the bulk of full-timers who will train under Wotton and his new assistant Mike Edwards almost every day, can expect regular evening sessions to accommodate the part-time lads.

The National League South is, after all, made up of mostly part-time clubs and, especially around the Home Counties, they are littered with ex-EFL or NL players who keep playing, and winning, while earning more from their day jobs than they do from football.

The NL Premier is another matter and, if United get back there next season, they’ll review the situation again.

Back in the Swinging Sixties, O’Farrell made it work. But even then, he never allowed standards to drop.

Before a vital (L1) home game against Colchester United in March 1968, he gave Bond an extra day away one week, to fulfil a perfectly innocent commitment in London, but insisted that he was back in Torquay on the Friday night.

At the last minute, Bond decided to drive down to South Devon first thing on the Saturday morning and meet the team for their usual pre-match meal at a Babbacombe hotel, which he did.

But O’Farrell found out that Bond wasn’t where and when he was supposed to be.

When he read out the XI, he deliberately named Bond at No.11, instead of in the No.2 shirt that he had made his own and treasured. He refused even to discuss it before kick-off.

In front of 10,014 fans at Plainmoor, many of them chortling loudly at the sight of Bond in a ‘left-winger’ shirt, United won 3-0.

Bond scored the third goal.

He immediately headed towards the dugout to make his point to O’Farrell. But even Bond suddenly realised it was a step too far. He turned, wheeled away and celebrated with the fans who loved him anyway.

You didn’t take FO’F on like that. Not in those days. Not if you wanted to stay in the side. And it didn’t matter who you were!