Winning promotion is not a waiting game

Everyone who has watched the Bryn Consortium haul Torquay United out of administration, galvanise the club and put a smile back on the faces of Gulls fans everywhere, can only stand and applaud.

Great job. And long may it continue (writes Dave Thomas).

But the brutal fact is that no one around the rest of the National League South, and certainly not beyond, gives a tinker’s cuss about how well United’s new owners have done over the last eight months.

In fact, all of them would love Torquay to fall flat on their face between now and the end of April, if only so that their gate receipts will be swelled by the Gulls’ travelling support for another year.

It’s also true that United’s current player budget is below what several of their promotion rivals enjoy.

When you think of the mess that the Gulls were in last Spring, that’s hardly surprising.

Which makes the way that manager Paul Wotton has built a squad every other NLS boss respects so commendable.

Even more so when you throw in the time-honoured factors like Torquay’s geographical position, and the business of trying to persuade the wives and partners of experienced players to uproot their families and move down here to play in the sixth tier of English football.

Cue a warm welcome back to South Devon to United’s latest signing Matt Jay, who happened to be born in Torquay, educated at Ashburton’s South Dartmoor College along with a certain Ollie Watkins and Jamie Reid and, like them, developed at Exeter City rather than Plainmoor.

Since the start of the season Wotton has, first, turned a hastily assembled group of players, including several part-times, into a squad competitive enough to top the NLS table.

Second, United have gradually strengthened that roster with better quality players, especially in attack.

But now comes the really hard bit.

Over the last few weeks and months, I’ve heard several people, all with the best interests of United at heart, say that it might not be a disaster if the club doesn’t go up this season.

Well, of course it wouldn’t be a disaster. That’s far too big and overused word. But it is wrong to adopt that mindset.

The chance to win promotion, or even a championship, comes to clubs like Torquay United rarely enough.

They’ve gone up only six times in more than a hundred years, for goodness’ sake.

With their miserable two-up rules, NL South and the NL Premier are currently hard enough to get out of as it is.

Each year the dynamics change, with different clubs attracting fresh funding and renewed ambition.

For this year’s Boreham Wood, Maidstone United, Dorking Wanderers and Eastbourne Borough, there’ll be someone else with a few bob coming up from the Isthmian or Southern League next season, or a relegated NL Premier outfit determined to turn things around.

And no one will wait conveniently for United to tick all their own internal boxes and have a bigger go in 2025-2026.

There is a buzz about Plainmoor at the moment, as United’s 3,500 average gates confirm.

But it is precious.

In the New Year of 2009 United’s Paul Bristow-backed board gave chief executive Colin Lee and manager Paul Buckle some extra money to strengthen their squad for the closing stages of that season’s promotion push.

They went out and signed well-travelled striker Iyseden Christie for wages that put him near the top of a budget that was already among the biggest in the ‘Conference’.

Christie made only two starts, five substitute appearances and scored one goal.

He didn’t even make the subs’ bench for the 2-0 Play-Off Final victory over Cambridge United at Wembley.

But his new team-mates won eleven and lost only three of their last 21 games with him around that season.

Who knows how much Christie, in training and in matches, had on United’s return to the Football League in 2009?

But did anyone regret his signing as they danced around Wembley that afternoon in May?

United don’t have anyone like Bristow these days, and that’s OK. They’re right to be rebuilding the club as ‘sustainably’ as possible, and the recent signings of Jay and young Derby County loanee Manny Ilesanmi had been helped by players going the other way.

But all United’s dreams ultimately hang on what happens out on the pitch, and the all-important business of winning promotion will be no easier in 12 months’ time than it is now.