Back with a bang

The future is bright, the future is the Football League!

Problems off the pitch, relegation to the Blue Square Premier, things could not have been worse for Torquay. But doom and gloom is a thing of the past, says FanZone correspondent Shane Bailey…

Life as a supporter of Torquay United is rarely dull. And this season, our first back in the Football League, looks unlikely to be so.

Two years ago, we were at rock bottom. We were consigned to non-league football after 80 years in the professional ranks.

After countless heroic fights for survival, allied to the odd desperate re-election, the battle was lost and we were finally relegated. And ironically, it wasn’t on the field that the club had failed. It had been destroyed in 12 short months, through mismanagement and cost-cutting exercises. The future was bleak indeed.

But then things changed. A consortium of local business-men/supporters arrived and demonstrated exactly what sound business nous and good intentions can achieve.

They’ve completely altered our fortunes and expectations, undoing all the harm done by their predecessor and provided us with a team, and club we can once again be proud of.

Mundane

They recruited a novice manager (but one with decent knowledge of the level we found ourselves), and provided him with the finances to build a squad capable of promotion. As a result, our stay in the BSP was shorter than any of us dared imagine, and just two years later we’re back.

Now our thoughts can turn to another season in League Two. And something which not so long ago would have been considered a pretty mundane task has become something to be cherished and anticipated. We’ve been given a second chance, and nobody at the club wants to let this one slip.

It’s difficult to gauge our realistic ambitions over the coming months. Our first objective has to be to stay up and establish ourselves as a League club once again. When that has been successfully achieved, we can look to build on the foundations currently being laid.

This summer has been a relatively quiet one at Plainmoor, with no major re-structuring of the playing staff. The people in charge of our club care about its well-being, so will not spend money when it’s unnecessary to do so.

Paul Buckle is very keen to give the majority of those players that achieved promotion the chance to prove their worth in the division above. And we’re quietly confident they will repay the faith shown in them

Quality

The squad is small, but whilst lacking in league experience, contains sufficient quality to succeed. We don’t have the strength in depth of some of the more established clubs in the division, but I believe the quality in our first 11 will prove a match for most.

In Nicky Wroe we have a midfielder that will receive admiring glances from opposition managers and fans alike. He has a range of passing and an eye for goal not common in the lower leagues.

And in Elliot Benyon we have a striker with the unerring quality of finding space and time in the penalty box. He’ll finish a high percentage of the chances he’s presented with too.

The future is now much brighter. And it starts here…

Will it be back to back promotions for the Gulls? Will Benyon get the goals required? Join in the FanZone debate by filling in the feedback form below…

The views expressed are not necessarily those of Sky Sports