TORQUAY AT HOME

What concerns me is they're away to Chippenham in the penultimate weekend of the season, three months today, which could be a huge match. At a ground about a third of the size of ours that could be complete chaos. I say 'what concerns me', I shan't be there, but a lot of people could be in for a tricky afternoon.

I'm not being critical, but did our club discuss the game with Weston-super-Mare, as it appears there was the same trouble at their place three months back? Whether Weston would have had any info to hand or been helpful is another question, but it's obvious these are planned trips to cause trouble. The morons involved don't care who else it effects. Hopefully there is plenty of photographic/video evidence to hunt these people down and hand out severe punishments, otherwise it'll happen again. It isn't fair to tarnish a club's name and, as I said before, big credit to Torquay for completely distancing themselves from the trouble. I haven't seen one supportive voice of it. Not that they deserve one, obviously, but usually someone would stick up for them in these situations.

To also echo sentiments above, a couple of my mates didn't make their way in until about 2.45 and said it was fine, so the turnstile operators, volunteers, did a fantastic job as I can't imagine 100% of those coming in would have been jovial.

This is a Vlog created by a rational and good-natured Torquay fan yesterday :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU727sEUZLw

The penalty miss is even more hilarious as viewed from their end than it was from ours!

Agree with everything that has been said before. Has to be a special mention for Strakes - he took the penalty like it was just another game and must have been the calmest person in the ground!

The referee was by far the best we have had this season, not a particularly high bar I know! My only criticism would be the booking of Hinds for not being 10 yards away from the free kick. I thought the Torquay player kicked the ball at him as he was running away.

Overall a great day, and is up there with some of the best I have experienced over the last 50 or so years.

Re Steve Bradley's post, this posted on (page 18) of the TUFC forum thread  -

"I just got on the train at Keynsham and some proper rough local thugs just got on going to the game. Anybody thinking of causing any trouble may not have things all their own way"

Of course these are the sort of problems that will come as the club (hopefully) becomes more high profile/successful and attracts bigger crowds.

A thank you to everyone for heeding the clubs advice to turn up early. No queues at 2.50pm not many latecomers meant that most of us got to see a large chunk of the game although missed the first goal. Great to see Twerton rocking.

A thank you to everyone for heeding the clubs advice to turn up early. No queues at 2.50pm not many latecomers meant that most of us got to see a large chunk of the game although missed the first goal. Great to see Twerton rocking.

It was brilliantly organised and executed. Well done to Carole and the team. I know a massive amount of work went in.

Shame about post match drinks but bath's pubs benefitted! especially the Royal Oak

Special thanks to Paul Williams for all that he does for the club. In addition to all the additional work he was putting in for the Torquay game and organising the EGM he was pulled away all day Thursday to attend a league meeting in the midlands, no wonder he looked tired on Saturday evening. Thanks Paul.

Sounds like an eventful day from start to finish! Hats off to all involved.

To address stillmanjunior's point about the Chippenham v Torquay game : it's been brought forward a day to Good Friday and has the potential to be the biggest league game ever to be staged at Hardenhuish Park, certainly in my lifetime. I know that the club are already planning for this, and I'm sure all concerned have been keeping a close eye on how your arrangements panned out. There's no doubt in my mind that the game will have to be 'all-ticket' for both home and away fans and, given the 'compact' nature of our bar/clubhouse, some sort of ticket arrangement will be needed for this also. Looking forward to it!

Bluebird wrote:To address stillmanjunior's point about the Chippenham v Torquay game :  it's been brought forward a day to Good Friday and has the potential to be the biggest league game ever to be staged at Hardenhuish Park, certainly in my lifetime.

That's a relief, means it clashes with our trip to Hungerford. If there was still something to play for (I'm getting well ahead of myself) we could have had a few interesting characters turning up in West Berkshire...

Good luck with it.

Having watched the excellent highlights of the match I wonder if it would be possible to show them on screen (on a loop) in the bar before the next home game. More often than not there is some non-descript Conference National game showing so it would be more interesting especially for those supporters who do not have digital media access.

Torquay are at St.Albans last game of the season, I think Billericay has suddenly become more attractive.

Nice to see a report of the match featured on the Mail Sports pages yesterday.(Along with a picture of Sean Rigg "dispatching" a Torquay flare) The reporter also sang the praises of Twerton Park being a "proper" non-league ground. It`s good to see the club being profiled nationally. A nice reward for everyone`s hard work.