And that will add another layer of excitement before the hugely-anticipated first pre-season friendly against Buckland on Friday night.
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All of a sudden, it seems real! Michael Westcott, a co-chairman of Torquay United, said as he observed manager Paul Wotton putting the players through their paces on the 3G field at the team’s South Devon College training site on Friday.
This season, Torquay will train at both the college’s top-notch training facility and Buckland Athletic’s Homers Heath on Thursday nights. With a new manager in charge, 16 players committed, and numerous new business agreements being made, there will be an additional forward when the National League South schedule is announced today.
On Saturday, August 10, the club will find out who they will play against. They will also find out the remainder of the schedule at 1pm on the following day. And that will raise the stakes even higher before Friday night’s much awaited first preseason friendly versus Buckland.
After steering the Bryn Consortium through the difficulties of the takeover, Westcott acknowledged that it had taken a lot of work to get here, but that now he was able to witness the results of his labors virtually every day.
Now that we have players and a training facility, everything feels more real. It’s great to see Paul working so closely with the players; the entire backroom crew is present, as is the training equipment. It’s as though we’ve established a football team.
It has required a lot of labor. After hearing that we were in a strong position, we had to complete all the necessary due diligence. The next four weeks were quite hectic as we tried to place everyone in their proper roles and set up support systems for Paul and Neil so they could concentrate fully on recruiting. In the background, we were also looking at how we could reorganize to start learning about the football industry and improve our ability to interact with supporters and commercial sponsors.
While there has been some relationship repair to be done, Westcott says he would rather focus on the future than the mistakes made by previous owner Clarke Osborne.
Given that the club had previously placed a different emphasis on certain matters, some members may have felt somewhat alienated. And we made an effort to solve it, and if any bridges need repair, we worked extremely hard to have those fixed.
One excellent illustration of that is the fact that we are seated in one of the best sports facilities in South Devon, if not the best in the world, and that we are here because we have re-engaged and re-evaluated our relationship with South Devon College in order to give Paul and Neil and their team access to the best facilities available locally. The Bryn Consortium is extremely passionate about creating a road map and a solid pathway for our youth development at the same time.
The game’s tickets are selling quickly, so supporters hoping to see the new Torquay United are encouraged to purchase them online through the links on Torquay’s website or at the Buckland Athletic website.
Westcott is eager. As practice on the field came to a conclusion and the players were granted a weekend off, he remarked, “We are gagging for football now.”
We’ve been discussing football and embracing the team, but we can’t wait for Buckland to go. I’m eager to watch the players and the formation in which Paul has them practicing.
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