Torquay United: A different perspective on Players and their wages

[Logicalman]

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/35145282

Not all pro footballers are the same.

Torquay United players earn less than minimum wage - Nicholson

Torquay United manager Kevin Nicholson claims former boss Paul Cox signed players to contracts worth less than the minimum wage.
Cox resigned from the financially troubled club in September.
Nicholson said: "He sold the dream of being a footballer to a group of young lads and then gave out contracts that they cannot survive on - many on way less than minimum wage."

Cox replied: "I brought players in on wages that the budget allowed."

Torquay faced huge cost reductions in the summer after millionaire owner Thea Bristow sold the club to a consortium of local businesspeople.


Torquay boss Kevin Nicholson made the claims about his team's wages on Facebook

The Gulls closed their youth academy and began sharing their training ground with Plymouth Argyle's youth team.
However, the club have remained fully professional.

Since Nicholson took over, they have won only one league game and are second from bottom of the National League, a predicament he partly blames on Cox, who is now in charge at Barrow.
"The club has a lot of problems due to a very experienced manager blowing his entire budget in one hit, holding back nothing in case of emergency," Nicholson wrote on Facebook. A lot of them can't afford to put petrol in their cars or pay their rent, never mind live like athletes, and so I've spent way too much time behind the scenes trying to help them out so they can concentrate on football. That has taken valuable time away from the training pitches which benefits no one."

Cox said he had little choice but to spend what was left of Torquay's reduced playing budget.

"There was over a third of the budget already accounted for when I came," Cox, who was paid only expenses during he tenure at Plainmoor, told BBC Sport.
"There was nothing I could do about that. However, I managed to put together a decent squad which I feel is capable of a mid-table finish. I sincerely hope that Torquay avoid relegation this season as it is a great football club with an incredible set of fans and I wish them good luck in the future."

Earlier this year, Cox's predecessor, Chris Hargreaves, claimed his team earned an average of £375 a week, while the club's former reserve goalkeeper Jordan Seabright left Torquay to become a car salesman in March.

[Neil D]

I used to support Torquay as a youth in the early 1960s but it was a long way from Battersea (still is, I suppose) so I transferred my allegiance to a more local team.  I still keep an eye out for their results - they have never been at such a low ebb as now.  The 3-3 draw with Tottenham in the 3rd round of the cup in 1965 remains my highlight.

[f321ffc]

My local team very sad what`s happened to them, they were always a very well run club even on gates of 2 to 3 thousand i have seen them play at Wembley twice which is once more than i have seen Fulham at the home of English football.
The way things are going i can see them folding at the end of the season, as the saying goes  "there`s always someone worse off than you".
                                                                      :merry christmas:

[MikeW]

If I remember Robbie 'the gun runner' Herrera was on their coaching staff until recently.  No disrespect Robbie, it was your swarthy good looks that gave you away!

[HV71]

I loved it when Mike Bateman (?) was their chairman . He used to conduct interviews via his ventriloquists dummy ! Bizarre but very funny.....

[HV71]

Any relation Nick ?

[gang]

Sad Position for them. Wasn't it against Torquay that we had to win to stay in the League before Jimmy Hill took over at Fulham?

[Burt]

Sad Position for them. Wasn't it against Torquay that we had to win to stay in the League before Jimmy Hill took over at Fulham?

Our 2-1 loss to them in February 1996 meant we hit second from bottom...

23rd Fulham 26 5 11 10 31 38 -7 26
24th  Torquay United 26 4 8 14 24 48 -24 20

[VicHalomsLovechild]

Any relation Nick ?

? The Chairman or the dummy!

[MJG]

Sad Position for them. Wasn't it against Torquay that we had to win to stay in the League before Jimmy Hill took over at Fulham?

Our 2-1 loss to them in February 1996 meant we hit second from bottom...

23rd Fulham 26 5 11 10 31 38 -7 26
24th  Torquay United 26 4 8 14 24 48 -24 20

And apparently we are living through the worst time in Fulham's history now if you believed some fans

[HV71]

Any relation Nick ?

? The Chairman or the dummy!

That really is the question

[Burt]

Sad Position for them. Wasn't it against Torquay that we had to win to stay in the League before Jimmy Hill took over at Fulham?

Our 2-1 loss to them in February 1996 meant we hit second from bottom...

23rd Fulham 26 5 11 10 31 38 -7 26
24th  Torquay United 26 4 8 14 24 48 -24 20

And apparently we are living through the worst time in Fulham's history now if you believed some fans

I often imagine what our dark days would have been like had social media existed... Can you imagine what it would have been like on here??

Context is everything. We have spent more years in this division than any other division. And we have been in far worse situations... Not to make excuses for what is going on at the moment, because we do live in uncertain times, but things have been far worse...

[Logicalman]

Sad Position for them. Wasn't it against Torquay that we had to win to stay in the League before Jimmy Hill took over at Fulham?

Our 2-1 loss to them in February 1996 meant we hit second from bottom...

23rd Fulham 26 5 11 10 31 38 -7 26
24th  Torquay United 26 4 8 14 24 48 -24 20

And apparently we are living through the worst time in Fulham's history now if you believed some fans

I often imagine what our dark days would have been like had social media existed... Can you imagine what it would have been like on here??

Context is everything. We have spent more years in this division than any other division. And we have been in far worse situations... Not to make excuses for what is going on at the moment, because we do live in uncertain times, but things have been far worse...

I believe it has so much to do with expectations and there's nothing wrong that we all have different ones.

Since our rise into the upper echelons we have been spoilt. I honestly believe that for most of our time up there we were punching above our weight, and that makes our various successes over those years all that more special, not that we didn't deserve them either, we did.

If this is to be another 30 years in the wilderness again (which I very much doubt as the face and mechanism of the game has changed too much in the wake of the money-men) then some of us won't be here to witness the next rise, but it won't affect any of our love for the club in any way, the emotion that is evident on the board, both good and bad, proves that.

There's no plastic here, just flesh and bone that bleeds black and white.

[Burt]

Well said... 082.gif