Apprentice meets sorcerer in a long-standing Torquay United friendship

They started out as manager and apprentice, and that relationship grew into a friendship that’s lasted more than 40 years.

Local boy Gary Wright was a 16-year-old trainee under Torquay United boss Bruce Rioch, before playing for the Gulls with Dave Webb (1984) and the late Cyril Knowles (1987).

When injury brought an early end to his career in the mid-1990s, Wright took up coaching, first in Sweden and then, for the last 27 years in the USA, where he runs Savannah United youth soccer club, responsible for thousands of Georgia’s aspiring players.

Rioch, the 78-year-old former Luton Town, Aston Villa, Derby County, Everton and Scotland star, has lived in retirement for many years near Falmouth.

So on his latest trip home to South Devon, Wright took the opportunity to travel to Cornwall and reunite with the man who helped to launch his own career in the game.

“When you remember what a great player Bruce was,” said Gary, “it felt like the apprentice meeting the sorcerer again!

“It was wonderful to spend a day with him, and share so many memories of ‘good old days’.”