The inspirational impact of Torquay legend Sean Haslegrave

We all hope that Torquay United are about to mount another of their great revivals under new manager Paul Wotton next season.

But to make that happen, you need an inspirational player or two.

From the depths of relegation to the Football Conference in 2007, Paul Buckle found one in Chris Hargreaves.

Buckle’s team went to war over the next couple of seasons, with Hargreaves the captain and standard bearer, capped by his opening goal in the Play Off Final against Cambridge United (2-0) at Wembley.

But not even Hargreaves exercised a greater influence than an oft-forgotten midfield hero did over another transformation 20 years before.

Only 98 days separated the miraculous escape from relegation against Crewe Alexandra (Jim McNichol, Bryn the police dog, Paul Dobson etc) on May 9, 1987, from the first match of the following season against Wrexham (August 15).

Yes, United had brought in a new manager in Cyril Knowles, of Spurs and England fame, and there was some fresh hope in the air.

But there were still only 2,114 at Plainmoor for that opening game, and you can imagine the mood when Wrexham took an early lead.

But Knowles had made at least two inspired signings that summer.

One was central defender Phil Lloyd, who went on to play 216 games over the next four years. The other was a onetime apprentice welder and player-coach who seemed to many Gulls fans as if he might be past it.

Sean Haslegrave was already 36 years old.

He’d played more than 550 times for his hometown Stoke City in the old First Division, Nottingham Forest under Brian Clough, Preston North End, Crewe and York City.

Haslegrave had won three promotions and, at York, helped to knock Arsenal out of the FA Cup.

But by that stage of his career, surely his best years were behind him and he was about to move gracefully into coaching?

Within an hour or so of that Wrexham goal, anyone who’d doubted him, or Knowles’ judgment, knew a whole lot better.

Beavering up and down the right of midfield, Haslegrave sparked what turned into a 6-1 rout and a ‘new’ Torquay were on their way.

Within six weeks they’d beaten Spurs (1-0) at Plainmoor in the League Cup, Wolves (2-1) at Molineux in the league and had launched a promotion bid that would end only in an agonising 5-4 aggregate defeat to Swansea City in the Play Off Final, their 62nd match of that season.

Haslegrave was extraordinary.

For month after month, he combined indefatigable displays on the pitch with his other duties as Knowles’ No. 2 and also coached a band of trainees, who included future Manchester United, Leeds United and England winger Lee Sharpe.

Knowles didn’t ‘rest’ Haslegrave in the league until February, when Torquay completed the ‘double’ over Wrexham (3-2) at the Racecourse Ground.

When he moved to the English Riviera, Haslegrave had left his family behind in Stoke, where his wife had a good job of her own, and moved into digs in Warbro Road, only a goalkick from Plainmoor.

It meant that he was often first in and last out.

Although he and Knowles, who lived in Paignton, were as close as you’d expect them to be, they were never nightly dinner companions.

They were both strong-willed, and when Knowles left Haslegrave out of the Play Off Final Second Leg against Swansea, fearing that his legs couldn’t handle a slog through a Plainmoor mud bath, Haslegrave let him know that he disagreed.

For the rest of his life, Sean never wavered in his belief that he could have helped to beat Swansea if Knowles had let him.

He played only a couple of games the following season before retiring as a player, taking his career tally past the 600-mark.

But his value to United was far from over.

He threw himself into coaching, helping to mastermind the run to the 1989 Sherpa Van Trophy Final at Wembley, none more so than the 2-0 Semi-Final away win over Wolves.

Faced with the prolific strike partnership of Steve Bull and Andy Mutch, especially after Bull had scored twice in a first-leg 2-1 win at Plainmoor, Haslegrave helped to drill United’s defence in the tactical trap – they kept dropping so deep that the Wolves strikers had no space to make their favourite runs – which kept them out at Molineux.

When Knowles left suddenly the following October, Haslegrave departed too, returning to Preston where he became Youth Team coach and then head of North End’s Centre of Excellence.

He later headed the football department of Preston’s 3,000-student Cardinal Newman College and coached the England Colleges side, reviving the careers of many young players who had been rejected by League clubs.

Haslegrave had struck up an enduring friendship with his landlords in Torquay, and he made regular trips back to see them.

Whenever Torquay played at York, he would call your correspondent to arrange a reunion and drive over the Pennines to see his two old clubs play each other at Bootham Crescent.

They were meetings full of laughter and insights, not to be missed.

In 2012, Haslegrave walked 1,500 miles, on his own, from Preston to the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, raising £15,000 to help disabled children make pilgrimages of their own to the shrine at Lourdes in France.

In 2016, he also walked the El Camino trail across northern Spain to the same destination.

Haslegrave died just over three years later, after the sturdiest of battles against cancer. It was 18 years after Knowles had also passed away, struck down by a brain tumour.

Cyril was only 47, Sean 68.

The former’s place in Torquay United’s history has always been assured. But the latter’s contribution should never be forgotten.