From Crisis to Consortium

 

The role of the Supporters Trust with Torquay United in administration in 2024.

By Robert Dickinson with kind thanks to Bob Cole, Nick Brodrick and Rick Williams.

 

Introduction

Although football clubs form a vital part of their local community, many lead a precarious existence, losing money year-on-year and at some point, these losses eventually need to be made good. Unfortunately, Torquay United AFC found itself in this very situation sparking an insolvency event in 2024 that would last for exactly 100 days.

In these difficult situations, which hopefully, but not always, see a transition to new and more stable ownership, Supporter Trusts can play a significant role such as our near neighbours, Exeter City, whose Trust managed to save their club by taking it over in 2003 and still control it today at a higher level in the Football League. Therefore, while some fans did not think TUST (Torquay United Supporters Trust) could be a player during this period as “they had no money,” many hoped or had confidence that the TUST could help save the club.

As it happened, TUST, along with the wider fanbase, did end up playing a significant part in saving TUAFC and while this was ultimately down to the Bryn consortium, they would not have been formed, certainly within the tight timescales needed to put a bid in without the involvement of TUST.

This is an updated account originally written by Robert Dickinson a year after going into administration to mark this event and show Torquay supporters and fans of other clubs what a supporter’s trust can do during a crisis situation.

​

Before 22 February 2024. The TUST board at that time consisted of nine ordinary fans united behind the TUST mission statement which is ''TUST promotes good governance and seeks to ensure the long-term sustainability of our club for the benefit of current and future supporters and the wider community. They were:

• Nick Brodrick – Chair

• Rick Williams – Secretary

• Ali Bryant – Treasurer

• Robin Causley – Co-Chair

• Bob Cole - Co-Chair

• Sam Druiff - Board Member

• Rob Burkitt - Board Member

• Michel Thomas - Board Member

• Robert Dickinson - Board Member

​

Unfortunately, we found ourselves in a situation where TUFC was losing £1,000,000 a year with debt of around £5,000,000 overall, a sum certainly not sustainable in the National League South down in the sixth tier of English football. Furthermore, there was a distinct lack of communication from the then owners of the club, not just with supporters but the whole community.

 

The previous ownership model was unusual in that chair Clarke Osborne’s stated intention was to build a new football stadium to enable the club to become sustainable and then leave. This was to be funded by “enabling development,” whereby it was hoped that the Local Authority would allocate land along with planning permission to fund this development.

​

While some fans were in favour of this, others were not so sure, looking at the similar situation at the Clarke Osborne owned Swindon Speedway where at the time there was lots of residential development but precious little work being done on the promised new stadium. As reported then by the Swindon Advertiser, Swindon Borough Council were investigating if Gaming International and its property partner Taylor Wimpey had breached planning requirements by building homes in Blunsdon without finishing the agreed new Abbey Stadium. Speedway fans were also on tenterhooks waiting for an announcement over the new home of the Swindon Robins after the team was told it could not continue at the Abbey Stadium.

​

My friend and colleague on the TUST board Bob Cole probably had a stereotypical viewpoint of many fans, subsequently writing that "Self-confessed ‘petrol head’ owner Clarke Osborne had made no secret of his desire to make money from his ownership by relocating the club away from its spiritual home of Plainmoor. Osborne and his CEO George Edwards refusal to communicate on any level with the fans left them infuriated. Prompted by the supporters’ trust holding a fans forum which resulted in the seeds of protest being sown, a videoed club “fans forum” with the three directors and manager Gary Johnson answering limply and glibly to pre submitted questions only made matters worse."

 

On the pitch, things had gone from bad to worse during the 23/24 football season. With the stated aim of returning immediately to the National League, the team had gone on a run of only one win in 12, the atmosphere at Plainmoor had turned toxic and a yellow card protest was in the process of being set up by TUST in conjunction with Torquay Talk, Talking Torquay and the Travel Cub along with elements of the Tom Lapslie Appreciation Society. It was organised under a WhatsApp group entitled WKOF - (wrong kind of fans – a reference manager Gary Johnson made about those expressing dissent at the ground.)

​

Richard Hughes in his Wednesday opinion piece of 21 February 2024, writing for Devon Live - thought that this protest was valid because owners Clarke Osborne and CEO George Edwards had ignored major concerns for far too long. He highlighted that the ownership had refused to talk to him during their tenure at the club (another example of the communication issues) although he did sit on the fence somewhat highlighting the £5 million debt and what he felt were the lack of alternatives for the club going forwards.

On that Wednesday evening local director Mel Hayman had messaged Nick Brodrick requesting a meeting with her and the CEO on Thursday afternoon. It was to be a harbinger of a tumultuous day.

​​

Thursday February 22 2024 - A Fateful day

Timeline, only a selection from what proved to be a very eventful day.

​

8:00 The day started well with Daniel Storey’s article about Torquay United, helping raise the club’s profile at a difficult time. The TUST board who had contributed to this had a draft of this circulated for editorial comment the day before.

 

10:00 Talk on TUST WhatsApp group about setting up a zoom meeting with the WKOF group to fine tune the protest on Saturday.

 

13:19 The Bombshell - Rob Burkitt posted owner Clarke Osborne statement -

​

“It is with sincere regret that I advise that circumstances beyond my control during the last five weeks have bought me to the position that I am unable to continue financial support for the club and I have today filed on behalf of the Directors, an intention to appoint an administrator to the club and company.

The prospect of creating a new stadium and commercial facility was the driver for the investment, the excitement to deliver something truly transformative for the Club and Torbay. I would reiterate what I have said many times, that Torquay United is blessed with fantastic, passionate support and I am sorry that we have not been able to reach our goal for the Club and fans, despite significant effort and investment.

I would like to pay a personal tribute to both George Edwards and Mel Hayman who have worked tirelessly for this Club, voluntarily. Their selfless time, commitment and passion for the Club have been limitless despite some very difficult headwinds.”

 

While this moment had been anticipated by the TUST board, the timing wasn’t, following the aforementioned club fan’s forum the previous month.

​

13:47 It was reported to our group chat that TUST had 6 new membership sign-ups in the last half hour. The start of a flood as fans flocked to the TUST banner. The story had broken on Talksport and presenter and Torquay Fan, Charlie Baker asked for everyone to give their support to TUST.

14:09 TUST email inbox was reported filling up with fans offering practical help.

14:14 Nick confirmed he was still en-route to his meeting with George. He actually heard about the news from a BBC reporter driving to the club from his home near Taunton while still on the M5.

14:46 An emergency zoom board meeting was set for 17:30, TUST secretary Rick Williams joked, “poor Nick, when he comes out of his meeting with George, he’s going to have about 2000 messages to catch up on!”

16:00 Nick reported he was out of the meeting at the club and should be back home more or less in time for the zoom meeting. 17:30 Zoom meeting. Nick reported back on his meeting at the club. No CEO but Nick met director Mel Hayman who took him to one of the hospitality boxes to meet Robin Koolhaven, a solicitor acting on risk (no sell of club, no fee) and four others from an administration company. (Begbies Traynor). The contents of the meeting could be summarised as the club had an 88k a month wage bill and needed to keep payments going until it was sold. A request was made for the £50,000 in the TUST Forever Yellow Fund to be transferred to the club to help keep it going until this time. Nick said no, subject to confirmation from the board which he got. Mel was visibly upset when she saw Nick out.

​

The purpose of the Forever Yellow Fund, saved up from members subscriptions over many years, was to either help save the club or to start a new Phoenix club in the event this was not possible and wasn’t there to prop up a failing regime. However, the board did everything it could to help increase support and funds for the club to keep it going. It was subsequently reported to us via third parties that the CEO wasn’t happy with this, allegedly saying “we were the only supporter’s trust not to have given funds to the administrators.” Other items discussed was setting up a Zoom meeting at 9am in the morning to discuss membership sign-ups and an extraordinary board meeting for the following evening. Various GoFundMe accounts were starting to be set up by fans which were well intentioned but ultimately the piecemeal nature of this would be detrimental to setting up a timely and coordinated campaign.

​

We agreed upon an initial statement which was sent out shortly afterwards as follows.

​​

“In light of today’s announcement that Clarke Osborne is unwilling to continue his financial support for the club and has applied to appoint an administrator, Saturday’s proposed yellow card protest has been suspended.

Instead TUST would encourage every supporter to get along to Plainmoor to get behind the team and the club’s staff and to show their support for the future of the club.

We can assure all supporters that the TUST board will be working tirelessly to do everything it can to secure a long-term future for the club. We thank those who have already offered their assistance with either practical help or financial support. We are already in discussion with a number of individuals and organisations that can advise us.

Now is the time to join TUST and to fight for our wonderful football club.”

​​

20:12 Rob Burkitt, our social media lead was feeling the strain with all the monitoring of social media and posted “I feel like four days have passed today with what’s going on!”

20:43 Ali Bryant advised that she had 147 unanswered emails with a potential 75 members to process. WhatsApp chat continued until 00:20 and stated again at 06:25.

​

February 23rd to March 2nd – A New Hope or a Spring Clean?

​

After the bombshell of administration the day before the TUST board now had a very challenging period to get through with uncertainty as to whether the football club would still exist at the end of it. We were a close-knit group and worked well as a team but were all volunteers with approximately half of us in full-time employment and with the pressures we were now under it was obvious we needed both more bodies and expertise.

To this end we brought in Matt Gorman and Jon Gibbs who were already on our strategy team and had considerable financial expertise between them. In addition, Shaun Tanner was a Torquay fan that we knew of and working in the insolvency sector, his experience would prove to be invaluable helping us understand the process that TUAFC were now going through. All three were formally co-opted on the TUST board at our extraordinary board meeting which was held on Friday evening, the minutes are available here – EGM minutes

​

Friday 23rd - We had a subgroup meeting at 9am looking at processing the flood of new members and setting up a crowdfunding page. Rick, Nick, Jon and Matt had a meeting with the FSA at 2pm to obtain further advice and update them on the general situation. A crowd funding page had been set up in the late afternoon and by 10pm over £2000 had been donated. In addition to our evening board meeting fans were updated on progress made – TUST Update - 23rd February

​

Saturday 24th – This was a match day where it was hoped that a big crowd would attend. TUST signup cards were to be handed out before the match to continue to expand our membership. We were contacted that morning by the chair of Weymouth

football trust club who wanted to donate £5 for every Torquay away fan attending the game the following Saturday.

We were still getting good media coverage with Charlie Baker on TalkSPORT directing fans to our website. Before the game Bob Cole, his partner Andrea and Ali Bryant were all busy processing new trust members. The news on the grapevine was there were apparently three interested parties in buying the club which was positive.

​

Sunday 25th – Another zoom meeting was held at 10:30 in the morning. After COVID we had kept our zoom subscription going which meant unlimited meeting times which was invaluable. We were able to release the good news about the Weymouth offer which was announced here – WEYMOUTH FC OFFER SUPPORT There was quite a bit of debate about this over the next week on social media and with both clubs before it was agreed that the money would be passed on to Torquay United to pay for player and staff wages. Bob, Ali and Andrea meanwhile were processing new members at a rate of about 50 per hour. By 16:31 our membership had risen from just under 400 on Thursday morning up to around 760.

​

We released 2 updates today, one on membership, crowd funding and prospective owners -which can be found here - TUST Update - 25th February. In respect of new prospective owners we asked the following:

As the main group representing supporters' interest, TUST is keen to liaise with any individual group considering making an offer for the club. We would also like to hear from anyone able to make a financial investment who is interested in being part of a possible consortium bid in partnership with TUST.

Nick Brodrick advised us at 19:16 that Norman Smurthwaite was going to call him tomorrow. As it happened, he was to receive a call from another very important investor.

​

The other update was about postponing a potential fans forum which was provisionally set for 29 February as well as giving further advice on administration - TUST FANS' FORUM - UPDATE. Finally at 9pm both Robin Causley and Sam Swann who hosts Torquay Talk appeared on Talk TV for an interview about the football club’s situation. Both TUST and Torquay Talk working together to raise the profile of the situation we were in.

​

Monday 26th - at 11: 59 Nick Brodrick advised the board that he had had a telephone conversation with a potential investor who was looking to set up a consortium with TUST.

Rick Williams advised that TUFC had been featured on the price of football podcast that day. Focus was now on raising money for the club to keep it going until it was sold. Nick, Bob and Michel had a zoom meeting with Kevin Foster our MP. Subsequent cross-party meetings were held with the local authority. Zoom meetings were held by the TUST board daily throughout the week to catch up on and feedback news.

​

Tuesday 27th – Sam Swann of Torquay Talk was again featured on national media, this time Radio Five Live at 5:50 p.m. TUST had contact with former TUFC manager Paul Buckle to see if there was any investor potential in the USA where he was now based. Nick Brodrick and 2 other board members met with Mel Hayman, Robin the Solicitor and the administrators at the club for an update.

​

Wednesday 28th - new holding statement issued with details of yesterday’s meeting at the club- TUST Update - 28th February

 

Thursday 29th - Nick Brodrick conducted an interview with Brent Pilnick for BBC Sport website - Torquay United: Supporters' Trust chairman confident new owners will be found . Simon Baker emailed TUST offering them a place on the community sports trust board. Nick Igoe, former FSA consultant emailed us some very useful financial advice.

Another TUST update was released summarising the previous week since it was announced we had gone into administration - TUST Update - 29th February

​

Friday, March 1st – Nick Brodrick asked if I was available to meet with him and Rick Williams and a potential new investor that had contacted us on Monday - Michael Westcott. It was to be held at the Old Ship Inn in Upwey before the Weymouth game. I agreed with the proviso that I was taking both my son Matthew and father-in-law George to the game so they would have to sit at another table in the pub. After Nick's recommendation and introduction, Michael Westcott spent four hours at Exeter City football club initially meeting then their trust chair Nick Hawker on a fact finding mission. While he has bought and sold businesses before, a football business was something completely new to him.

​

Saturday March 2nd – It was an important away match for the club at Weymouth. I started the day by picking up my son and father-in-law in Somerset and then driving down to meet Michael Westcott at the Old Ship Inn.

It was a very interesting meeting, Michael had done his homework well the day before and laid out his vision for the club which we were all immediately onboard with. It was that good that some of the other TUST board members thought it might be too good to be true!

He also was in the process of trying to set up a consortium with us and maybe two other businessmen that he felt may be interested in this investment. Our condition in forming a partnership was being able to appoint two board members onto the TUFC board as part of his consortium which he agreed to.

At the match and by coincidence, it transpired that Nick and Michael had bought tickets in adjoining seats! Not the last time that the stars would align this way for Michael....

​

Sunday March 3rd to Wednesday, March 20th – The Ides of March

​

Sunday March 3rd - After the game I drove back to Somerset staying overnight and then dropped my son and daughter back at Castle Cary station on Sunday for them to get the train back to University at Cardiff. I had a "sliding doors moment" when they got into the carriage, as out stepped Torquay United author and correspondent Steve Harris who had stayed over at Weymouth before getting the train back with his one change being at the station.

It was good to report back to the rest of our board that just maybe there was "some light at the end of the tunnel" in what was a very serious time for our club.

It was nice to see an article in the nonleague paper written by Charlie Baker with his fee to be donated to TUST.

 

We also had contact from a Torquay Fan and a senior legal director at a large company, Sam Barnes, offering his help with him eventually joining Bryn as a non executive director.

 

Tuesday, March 5th– after previously signing an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) with the club, Michael Westcott continued with his due diligence, using his solicitors, Wollens to assist him in this respect. After the kind offer from Weymouth to the TUST, a lot of discussion and sorting out various issues was needed over the week with the best part of a £3000 donation coming in to help pay players’ wages.

​

Wednesday March 6th – an extraordinary board meeting was held to discuss recent events in person at our normal Chelston Manor meeting room. Praise was singled out to Rob Burkitt for his work on social media which had been and continued to be intense. It was reported in the minutes that Michael Westcott, although his name at this point was kept anonymous, had a vision for a community focused club with a robust infrastructure to support this. Other interested parties that Nick had spoken to by this point were Pete Masters, Norman Smurthwaite and Simon Robinson. (The latter also eventually joining Bryn)

​

Thursday, March 7th – Nick Brodrick was again on Radio Devon. Following last night's meeting, TUST updates for supporters were released in respect of Weymouth – link and a summary of events up to this date - link. TUST secretary Rick Williams worked tirelessly drafting a multitude of updates for us to approve during this period. The notice of intention to go into administration was given a 10 day extension by the Court. Nick also reported that he had spoken to Norman again who seemed to think that they were 4 interested bidders at this point. He was also of the opinion that TUFC would be getting a 10 point deduction imminently. Nick also advised that Michael was meeting a lawyer with contacts to an American investor as part of his bid to form a feasible consortium.

​

Sunday, March 10th – Nick reported that Michael was unable to get his hoped for other investors on board and needed help to get additional interested parties in. There were also rumours circulating that one of the bidders may be from inside the club. As a first step, Nick suggested Pete Masters and passed on his details with a call arranged the next day. Not everyone was happy that he was the right person but time was of the essence as we needed to put a consortium together and fast, with bids due in by 19th March. There was no guarantee that there would be any other serious bids, in which case, that would be the end of Torquay United and after the divisiveness of the last few years, having at least one solid fan friendly bid was deemed to be pretty crucial as well.

​

Tuesday, March 12th – Nick reports back that Pete Masters has agreed to form a consortium on a short-term deal by providing a loan. We still needed more investment but it was a feasible stop gap measure. Wednesday, March 13th – Rob Burkitt was at his son’s football training session the previous night and heard about another consortium that were considering bidding for the club, one of the names mentioned was Mark Bowes Cavanagh. Co-opted board member Matthew Gorman knew him from his footballing days and one of his friends was a friend of his. Rob had also heard rumours of a pharmaceutical company bidding link which tied in with this person’s background.

​

Matt Gorman managed to obtain Mark Bowes Cavanagh 's number whom corroborated the rumour that he was an interested party with another call was set for Friday morning. Our 10 point deduction for an insolvency event was confirmed.

 

Thursday, March 14th – Nick had a message from Norman Smurthwaite confirming that he was withdrawing his interest. Remaining interested parties were given a term sheet which had the national league requirements. Friday, March 15th - After contacting MBC, Nick was able to put him in touch with Michael Westcott although it took a few days for this to happen.

 

Sunday, March 17 – Rick, Matt, Jon and Nick held a 90-minute zoom meeting with Michael with indicative offers due in by 5pm on Tuesday. Michael had been unable to contact MBC on Friday and was trying again today. Monday, March 18th – Bob Cole on our board had been in contact with Joe Lovell, CEO of VX3 and he advised that he had signed an NDA and subsequently done a significant amount of work on how the club could be run sustainably. He wanted contact details of who was best to speak to at TUST. He had previously messaged Bob on 23 February. Nick spoke to Joe prior to our meeting at the Chelston Manor that evening - and put him in touch with Michael.

 

Tuesday, March 19th - deadline day. Nick and Rick had another one hour zoom meeting in the morning with Michael and Joe Lovell where they proposed forming a partnership with an agreement in principle for TUST to raise in a community share issue, funds of £150,000 to obtain a 50% share to make the bid work with a long term objective of full TUST ownership.

Zoom meeting for board to approve was held at 2:30pm. (Things were very much in flux at this stage, part time football was on the table before others came in to strengthen our position.)

Due to the last-minute nature of events, with additional parties coming on board, Wollens requested and got an extension to the 5PM deadline which was put back until the next morning.

George Edwards was chasing Joe Lovell for his bid but he had joined our bid leading many to suspect that we were the only player at this point. Michael Westcott was also speaking to an American investor who was a Torquay fan describing him as the final piece in the jigsaw.

​

Wednesday, March 20th – Nick confirmed that Pete Masters was no longer part of our bid. Bid Letter was submitted with about 15 minutes to spare. Zoom meeting was held on that evening and the following statement was released - link. It was now a waiting game with administration imminent.

​

Thursday 21st March to Tuesday 9th April – snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

​

Thursday 21st March – it had been a hectic month and to now be part of a bid for the club probably exceeded our expectations of what we could do in this scenario but we were very fortunate to make early contact with Michael Wescott who became de facto project leader and then having the input of Joe Lovell who had a good understanding of football finance and was now key in preparing our formal bid. To this end, Rick Williams, Jon Gibbs, Matt Gorman and Nick Brodrick had a very positive three-hour meeting with Michael, Joe and the solicitors from Wollens and were now part of the process, this working party signed nondisclosure agreements. Mark Bowes Cavanagh had finally made contact with Michael Westcott and was now very much part of the consortium and with their business background, were now being affectionately referred to as the dragons! News from the club was that the notice of intention to enter administration had been extended for another two weeks which would be for the final time.

The club also gave an update that payments to the end of March had been secured and discussions with interested parties were now in place.

​

Friday 22nd March – out of the blue we were informed that Michael Westcott had enlisted well known and former TUFC football manager Neil Warnock to be a potential football adviser after meeting him on the train and they were both to attend tomorrow's match in one of the hospitality boxes. Nick Brodrick was to release this development to the media and not long after noon was on the Devon live site - link. More details can of course be found on the club's "Taking Flight" documentary - link. Elsewhere Sam Swann was continuing his media campaign on Radio Devon.

​

Saturday 23rd of March – Zoom call in the morning for the rest of the TUST board to be debriefed on events. There were some concerns over being able to carry out the necessary due diligence.

Afternoon was spent watching our home match with Michael Wescott hiring out one of the family stand’s hospitality boxes for himself, Neil Warnock, Simon Robinson, Marco the sports lawyer from Wollens together with Chris Hart his Chief Executive. Nick, Rick Robin and Bob were in attendance with others from the TUST board popping in before the game to introduce ourselves. Reporter Dave Thomas also managed to briefly get in at one point, the old newshound trying to sniff out what was going on. He had of course briefly worked with Michael Westcott back in the 1980s at the local newspaper.

​

Elsewhere Stuart Chapman was the TUST’s 750th member and was presented with a signed copy of Steve Harris's latest book. Feedback was that apparently Neil Warnock really enjoyed his afternoon back at the football club again.

​

Sunday 24th March – Michael and Joe spent most of the day working on the budget that was due in that week Monday 25th March – things were going slowly with lack of communication from the club and we were also waiting on the Dragons to firm up their position on how to set up the club going forwards.

 

Tuesday 26th March – another zoom meeting to discuss draft statement for release.

​

Wednesday 27th March – Tom Allen and Sam Barnes were confirmed as new members of the consortium although Sam needed approval by his company before been formally inducted. Our statement needed to be approved by the Dragons.

​

Thursday 28th March - statement was approved by Michael Westcott and the other dragons with a few alterations which we held a brief meeting to agree upon. It was pleasing to see that we all basically had the same vision for the club. Statement released with details of consortium at this point which can be seen HERE. This heralded a busy time with Nick being in demand with the media, being interviewed for the Yellow Army podcast and on Radio Devon news bulletins with a slot also on the breakfast show the next morning. Bob and Michel meanwhile attended a Senior Greens event where more than 200 turned up to find out about our plight and they managed to raise £85 for immediate funds to go to the club with a further £100 donated to TUST. Rob Hawes contacted ourselves and was passed on to Michael Westcott as another potential investor and consortium member.

​

Friday 29th March – membership was steadily growing and Ali reported that we now had 817 members.

​

Saturday 30th March - it was confirmed by Robin Koolhaven, solicitor acting for the administrators that there was one credible other party in the bidding process.

 

Sunday 31st March - further coverage of the club in the nonleague paper – ‘fans swoop to rescue of gulls’.

 

Monday 1st April – Nick, Matt and Rick met with Michael and Joe to discuss the bid and were able to give the rest of the board a positive update.

 

Thursday 4th April- further meeting with Nick, Rick, Matt and Jon with Michael Westcott, Mark Bowes Cavanagh and Joe Lovell plus Chris Hart and Marco Floreale from Wollens to discuss the offer documents which was to be submitted by 5pm. Business plan was finalised with our community share issue being baked into this.

 

Friday 5th April – while waiting to find out if the bid was successful, discussions were focused on the scenario that if no bids were accepted by the administrators, then our contingency plans to create a Phoenix club would have to be initiated. The club formally went into administration and we provided the following update in response to this - link

​

Monday 8th April – in discussions with solicitor Robin Koolhaven, Michael found out that he liked our proposal the most and they were having a 2pm meeting with the National League to talk through both proposals and that formal notifications on whether the bids were successful or not would be made the following afternoon. It was suspected there wasn't much to choose between them. Meeting at Chelston Manor was organised for the next day at 17:30.

​

Tuesday 9th April - We headed to our meeting full of anticipation. Michael drove straight over there after a 45 minute call from the administrators and gave the bad news that we had not been successful. It was both good and bad news. There was a successful bid after all to save the club which was our prime objective. The unnamed party was said to have been able to provide greater capital investment, arrange payment of creditors in full within 12 months and give a commitment to full-time football. Michael had had a brief call from someone that was part of this bid promising to contact him again but this never came about. We could only now wait and see how events would pan out.

​

April 10th to May 1st – snatching victory from the jaws of defeat

​

10th April – after a frenetic six weeks we suddenly found ourselves in a hiatus as we sat back and waited for events to unfold. Like everyone else, we were desperate to find out the identity of the preferred bidders and learn about their plans for the club. Without any direction the rumour mill was in full swing with the Brewdog owner now becoming the main source of speculation. TUST released a statement confirming that we were delighted that the football club’s future had been secured but disappointed that we were not able to deliver the exciting vision we had for the club. As the acquisition process was ongoing it was not appropriate for us to comment any further so as to allow the bidder and club to have the time and space to continue their work and bring this process to its successful conclusion. We also confirmed that we would support any prospective owner who is able to secure our future, place the club on a sustainable financial footing and foster closer engagement with the supporters of the football community and local businesses and allow Torquay United to remain competitive on the pitch. Thanks was given to all TUST members and others who had offered messages of support for what we had been trying to achieve.

 

12th April– news broke that the club was to suffer a further point deduction in addition to the 10 for going into administration after fielding an ineligible player. It really capped off the shambolic running of the club and how the set up wasn't really fit for purpose.

 

16th April – a week on and still no news from the preferred bidder who had indicated to MW on 9th April that he would contact him during the next week. We won against Taunton which almost certainly confirmed our safety from relegation.

​

17th April - news broke that it looked like Taylor Wimpey had been the developer who had pulled funding to Clarke Osborne forcing him to withdraw funding for the club. Article on the Torbay Weekly about the no news and rumour mill - link The lack of information was like being stuck in the doldrums.

​

18th April – Michael Westcott advised us that he had had a hour long conversation with Robin Koolhaven and seemed that they still wanted to keep us around and on board while the process was ongoing. He was advised that it would take another two and a half weeks until the deal was agreed, half a week to agree terms of the CVA and then the 14 days notice period to creditors. Unbeknown to us, this was perhaps the first hint that the administrators were starting to have doubts about the preferred bidders. MW recommended that the club issue a holding statement about progress.

Our board was now starting to get jittery about dates, it was probably too late to create a Phoenix club ready for next season and the National League AGM was set for June 8 with the club needing to be out of administrative control by then to be accepted in the league next season. The Ian Twitchin Trophy was allowed to be presented on the pitch at the final game on Saturday with Rob Burkitt and Bob Cole getting the engraving and new trophy sorted. It was a three-way tie for starts with Ollie Tomlinson winning by having the most minutes on the pitch.

 

19th April -  holding statements came out on the Torquay United website as per Michael Westcott's recommendation. The 8 week period for our Crowdfunder which had been set up came to an end and raised £5506.55 once collection fees were deducted. 20th April-final match of the season and by now we were confirmed to be safe from relegation. Ian Twitchin Trophy was eventually presented after delay after getting misplaced somewhere within the club.

 

24th April – Michael Wescott was quoted in the Torbay Weekly as standing ready to help and share his business plan with the preferred bidders with the massive time pressure issue being talked about- link 

 

25th April – 22:59 – message from Rick Williams on TUST board WhatsApp group. “Brace yourselves team. Michael Westcott has just reported that after a very busy day he has reason to believe that the opportunity may be coming back to us.” We had agreed on an informal meeting at the Chelston Manor on 29th April the following Monday and Michael was to attend and update us then. As we now know, the administrators had approached Michael during the match on the previous Saturday 20th April which was after Robin Koolhaven had initiated a long conversation with him two days before. It can be seen from 18th April, that both solicitor and administrators had expected the CVA to have been agreed by now and gone out for consultation to the creditors. Whether the preferred bidders were being too slow with time for the football club really being of essence, or they had funding issues, or a change of heart can only be the subject of speculation but for whatever reason, the administrators at least had enough doubt in their minds to turn back to the Bryn Consortium and give them another opportunity to modify their bid and then reassess the situation. After the palpable disappointment from the TUST board on 9th April I think Michael waited until he had made sufficient progress before notifying us as he probably did not want to get our hopes up unduly.

 

26th April – lots of rumours on the forums that the existing preferred bidders were about to complete today. It seemed very much at odds with the information we had received yesterday and obviously did not allow for the 14 day creditor consultation period but did sort of fit in with the timescale for agreeing the terms of the CVA and undertaking the due diligence.

 

28th April – zoom meeting held with the community share issue adviser who confirmed that it was fine for our type of society to raise funds to buy a minority share in the club. Michael Westcott and the rest of the Bryn Consortium were working hard over the entire weekend improving the bid for the creditors including settling all outstanding debts within a much shorter six month period. Due to the short timescale, we were not part of the modified bid but would come on board at a later date once funds had been raised.

​

29th April – Torbay Weekly article on the worrying deafening silence with still no news for the public - link. At our evening meeting Michael Westcott turned up and gave the good news that the administrators had accepted our amended bid and it was now all hands to the pumps!

​

30th April - another update from Michael where he advised that the administrators were to issue a brief statement tomorrow about the changing circumstances but would not be mentioning TUST. The consortium would now be handling the dual process of carrying out due diligence and agreeing the CVA and begin the process of recruiting a manager as with every passing day we were falling behind other clubs, particularly as we literally had one player on the books.

​

1st May – the short statement from TUST after the administrators had released theirs was agreed with all parties. Jon Gibbes with one eye on history amended this to take into consideration that it was literally the 125th anniversary of the club’s formation. A nice touch and felt like it was meant to be. - On what is the club's 125th birthday, TUST welcomes a statement released by the administrator today. Our discussions with the Bryn Consortium led by Michael Westcott are positive and ongoing. More updates will be issued when appropriate.

​

The administrators held a meeting at the club at 9:15 to let the staff know about the change of circumstances. We were later told that you could hear a pin drop when they announced the news about the new preferred bidders and apparently was also

a shock to both George Edwards and Mel Hayman. With the statement about to be released I couldn't help posting on the wrong kind of fans WhatsApp group just before 9:15 - “Standby.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t minutes but took another hour for the statement to be released so I unintentionally kept them all on tenterhooks! 

The dawn of a new era had begun but we were still in administration.....

​

Thursday, May 2nd to Friday 31st of May – sealing the deal.

​

The ball was now firmly in the Bryn Consortium’s court as they had to undertake the necessary due diligence before being able to exchange contracts. A good analogy is comparing the sale of TUFC to that of a repossessed house. A company acting on behalf of the lender needs to sell the property as quickly as possible so they can recoup the funds which are owed. Any buyer found will then need to commission searches and survey/mortgage valuation (due diligence) before being in a position to exchange contracts with subsequent completion. In both cases there are a lot of extra fees involved and the process is generally very expensive.

​

​Saturday, May 4th – our focus was now on the proposed partnership with the Bryn consortium and it was confirmed that TUST would be buying shares in TUFC directly and not in Bryn’s holding company.

 

Monday May 6th – Nick, Bob, Jon, Matthew and Rick held the first meeting to discuss the logistics of the community share issue (CSI) to meet our pledge of raising additional capital to help save the club.

​

Tuesday, May 7th – another extraordinary board meeting was held- link, our third in 3 months and their frequency meant they were in danger of becoming just ordinary. At this meeting we were advised that Bryn were hoping to exchange contracts the following evening and a draft CVA had been circulated. Consideration of our longer-term vision and appointing board members onto the TUFC board had now begun together with consulting our membership on the use of the” Forever Yellow Fund” to purchase shares in TUFC .

​

Thursday, May 9th – Michael Westcott commented in a tweet - “seems like May 9 is an auspicious day for TUFC,” quoting a Torquay Fan Stats posts highlighting that on this day Bryn the police dog bit Jim McNichol and Leroy Rosenior was appointed as manager. Was this the proverbial white smoke?

 

Friday 10 May – 9:59am Rick confirmed to the rest of the board that MW had contacted him confirming that the conditional sale agreement had exchanged the previous evening. Once again, exquisite timing. We were now locked into a transition of new ownership at the club. Due diligence had been completed in just 8 days but there was no time left for anything more than that after the wasted three weeks given to the initial preferred bidder.

 

Saturday May 11th – it was confirmed to us that Neil Warnock was to join TUFC as a football adviser.

 

Monday 13th May – 10:13am – we had a request from Michael Westcott that due to various reasons that could be summarised as they did not yet have the keys to Plainmoor, they needed an alternative venue to host a press conference. After brief discussion on WhatsApp the Livermead Cliff, where we had recently held our own fans forum, was mooted and after initial contact from Bob Cole to ensure availability, MW was able to confirm by 11:31am that the booking had been made for the next day with Rick and Nick invited to attend.

NB, BC, JG MG and RW from our board later held a meeting with Michael Westcott and Joe Lovell where it was revealed a new (and final) investor had come on board with Bryn. Confirmation was given at this meeting agreeing that there would be two TUST appointed board members subject to a successful CSI raising enough funds. Michael Westcott also invited a representative from our board to attend the National League AGM on the 7th and 8th June and requested that TUST lead on the stadium refresh project which was now a priority.

​​

Tuesday 14th May – prior to the press conference, Paul Wotton was announced as the new manager together with the first, now familiar, signing on video- link - The conference at the Livermead Cliff was a success with subsequent interviews and fans now seeing tangible progress in the regeneration of the club.- Torquay United manager Paul Wotton ready for the challenge - Devon Live

​

Wednesday 15th May – after advertising on social media for help in the paint up Plainmoor project we had over 60 offers including two professional decorators. Future board member Danni Wyatt also offered brushes and rollers on behalf of Wickes where she worked as operations manager.

 

Thursday 16th May. – to understand what works needed doing, Nick and I met the Plainmoor maintenance employee for a tour of Plainmoor. It was a sobering experience, the Stadium was in a poor state, partly due to maintenance having been cut back to the bone by the previous ownership with said employee now just working on Saturdays which was somewhat problematic when we had a home fixture. On the plus side I was able to take lots of pictures and produce a condition report so that the necessary works could be sequenced and prioritised.

​

Monday 20th May – at our monthly board meeting - link there was discussion on the draft consultation for members to use £50,000 of the Forever Yellow Fund to buy the initial tranche of shares in the club. As expected, the vast majority of members were very much in favour and while a few suggested holding a formal ballot this was rejected as the results of the consultation were overwhelming and would only delay matters. Sam Druiff agreed to go to the Celtic Manor to represent TUST at the National League AGM.

​

Tuesday 21st May - Nick Brodrick, by now travelling down to Torquay from his home near Taunton almost daily, had his first meeting with Ken Dowell, a recently retired carpenter who had volunteered to do preliminary works such as repairing rotted timberwork before decoration could be undertaken, initially estimating there was at least five days of work, this was significantly added to, turning into months of work, both for himself and the many others who would end up tirelessly work on this project. Nick Brodrick had another meeting with Danni Wyatt who indicated that perhaps TUFC could be designated as Wickes one allocated community project for the year to allow us to access more resources.

 

Wednesday 22nd May- yet another zoom meeting was held where we agreed to allocate funds so that more materials could be purchased to enable the scheduled works.

​

Tuesday 28th of May – Nick Brodrick gave an update on progress at the football club advising that Ken, the carpenter had made a good start.

 

Friday 31st May – completion of the takeover was finally confirmed with the Bryn Consortium now having the keys for the club. Jon Gibbes was confirmed as club secretary in addition to having financial oversight, with the mess of administration and just one player on the books, not sure he appreciated at this time the mammoth task he had ahead of him. The Ian Twitchin Trophy was awarded to Ollie Tomlinson with various pictures undertaken. David McNair became new project manager for “Paint Up Plainmoor” which was now underway in earnest.

​

Post administration

​

The Supporters Trust found itself in a strange position of now launching a community share issue to save the club after it had already been technically saved, although funds were still urgently needed to recover from almost going out of business. We need not have worried, our great fanbase again came together raising an additional £222,001 and together with the £50,000 from the TUST Forever Yellow Fund meant that we were able to purchase a significant 28.6% share in the football club.

​

On the pitch, after losing his only previously contracted player early in the season Paul Wotton somehow managed to finish joint top of the division with the best crowds at Plainmoor for 50 years. In typical Torquay fashion we missed out on promotion by a goal difference of just two, then losing in the play-off semi-final but the more important battle off the pitch had been won. The squad was again strengthened for the 25/26 season where it was hoped we could go one better.

The success of the community share issue meant that the supporter’s trust had a significant stake in the club together with two directors on the board of TUFC. Nick Brodrick was appointed from the TUST board and the second place was put out to the wider membership and after a rigorous 3 stage interview process life long fan Danni Wyatt was appointed.

​

TUST now has significant influence in the running of the club and continues to raise funds both for capital items and to also contribute to the playing budget as they look to provide the necessary support to the club as part owners.

​

​

​