History of TUST
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The story of Torquay United Supporters' Trust
Origins and Development
The first meetings with a view to setting up Torquay United Supporters Trust (TUST) took place at the end of the 2005/06 season. By the time the “Torquay United Supporters Society Limited” (i.e. TUST) was formally registered with the Financial Services Authority (now the Financial Conduct Authority) in November 2006, Mike Bateson had handed Chairmanship of the club to Chris Roberts who had purchased a 34% holding in the club immediately, with Bateson holding on to a further 51% pending further payments.
The existing Torquay United Supporters’ Club agreed to merge with TUST to provide one strong body to represent supporters.
Strong concerns soon emerged over Chris Roberts, causing TUST to hold a vote of no confidence in him. Roberts’ failure to make further payments led to Mike Bateson stepping back in as he still held a 51% stake.
At the end of a tumultuous season, Torquay United were relegated out of the Football League but there was some good news as a fan-friendly consortium under the Chairmanship of Alex Rowe took ownership of the club and introduced a much needed injection of new capital.
Between 2007 and 2012 – under the Chairmanship of Chris Fleet, Hayden Jones and John Mowl – TUST worked closely with the club acting as a valued critical friend and encouraging fan engagement. TUST funded improvements to facilities for wheelchair-bound supporters and provided equipment to allow commentary for the visually impaired. TUST produced and distributed fixture posters and sponsored the return of reserve team football. TUST also set up and ran a thriving junior “Future Gulls” section. The club enjoyed great success on the field, being promoted back to the Football League in 2009 and reaching the League 2 playoffs in 2011 and 2012.
By 2012, new Chairman Steve Vincent was struggling to find volunteers to replace those who had stepped down. As a result, TUST was virtually inactive for two years.
In November 2014 both Steve Vincent and his vice-chair announced their intention to resign and it looked as if TUST might fold. In November of that year, Michael Goulbourne stepped into the breach offering to rebuild TUST - pledging to give the organisation credibility and ‘deliver a position of influence for TUST’. Supporter organisations including Supporters Direct (later to merge with the Football Supporters Federation to become the Football Supporters Association, FSA) were contacted for help and advice.
In May 2015 the ‘Torquay United Supporters Society Limited’ changed status from a “non-profit Industrial and Provident Society” to a “Community Benefit Society”. Also during 2015, through the work of board member Robin Causley, Plainmoor was registered as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) giving TUST six months exclusivity on any bid to purchase the leasehold of the ground (the freehold being owned by the Council). In March 2020, with the agreement of the council, the ACV was renewed for a further five years.
A Time of Crisis and the Prospect of Fan Ownership
In January 2015, Thea Bristow – who was by now funding the club single-handedly - hired businessman Kelvin Thomas to find new investors. In March, she announced that she would step down as Chair at the end of the season and cease funding the club.
With no “white knight” on the horizon, TUST organised a public meeting at Torquay Museum on 8 April 2015 to activate the fall back plan of Community Ownership. A unanimous vote authorised the TUST board to pay for a detailed financial review to start the process. Before this could take place, Kelvin Thomas announced that he had found a well-funded buyer, so the process was aborted.
The buyer ended up withdrawing and Kelvin Thomas lined up a local consortium led by Commercial Manager Dean Edwards without informing TUST. The consortium met with TUST, said that they had £300,000 of capital (from ten businessman at £30,000 each) which would be invested in a holding company and rejected an offer by TUST to join forces and add additional funds through a Community Share Issue.
In June 2015 Thea Bristow wrote off all loans due to her, both to cover operating losses and for the building of Bristow’s Bench, and sold 80% ownership of the debt-free club to Edwards’ consortium for £1. Dave Phillips became Chairman with Edwards salaried Director of Football and Steve Breed salaried CEO.
Unfortunately, the new proposed holding company was never formed and investment came by way of loans not share capital. The promised ten contributors were only six to start, but two quickly withdrew their funds. So the new under-funded regime started with just £120,000 of funding. Manager Chris Hargreaves was among a number of staff who were dismissed or made redundant.
Paul Cox came in as manager for expenses only but soon quit and was quickly followed out of the door by Dean Edwards. New manager Kevin Nicholson managed to avoid relegation on a shoestring budget – even driving the team in a mini bus to away matches.
It became clear that the new consortium could only be an interim regime. With a view to making an informed bid for community ownership by the trust there was a confidential non-disclosure agreement (NDA) between TUST and the TUFC board. A full financial review of TUFC was undertaken by Supporters Direct on behalf of TUST. (This included the yearly accounts for 2014-15; the management account for 2015-16 and the profit and cash flow forecast for 2016-17.)
At this time Gaming International and Clarke Osborne were introduced to the consortium and expressed a strong interest in buying the club. It is believed that they asked for six months exclusivity while they considered purchasing TUFC. As a result, TUST who had expressed an interest with an informed bid for community ownership, were sidelined.
Significantly at this time, fearing relegation to the National League South, the board accepted the offer of a loan of around £120,000 from Gaming International.
At the end of the 2015/16 season, Gaming International withdrew their interest in purchasing the club and the Dave Phillips board continued its search for new investors. TUST was kept out in the cold despite none being found.
In December 2016 the crisis at the club deepened when it was revealed that the deadline for the repayment of the Gaming International loan was the end of February 2017. The club was now only weeks away from going into administration and facing a points deduction.
Clarke Osborne and Gaming International agreed to fund operations in return for ownership of the club being handed over to them for £1. Dave Phillips and his consortium had no alternative but to accept. In December 2016, Gaming International, via a new holding company Riviera Stadium Limited, became the majority owner and Clarke Osborne became chairman of TUFC. The ownership of Riviera Stadium Limited, and so indirectly of TUFC, was later transferred from Gaming International direct to Clarke Osborne.
Torquay United Supporters' Trust in the Clarke Osborne Era
In 2017 Michel Thomas was co-opted onto the TUST board to liaise with the club, supporters, local and national organisations due to the chair Michael Goulbourne’s ill health and in the November Michel took over as the chair.
Fearful that the club was now owned by a property developer (who had overseen Bristol Rovers lose their Eastville Stadium to an IKEA store as well as two speedway clubs at Reading and Swindon lose their stadiums to development without the construction of the promised new one) TUST had meetings with Torbay Council who own the freehold of Plainmoor.
Meetings were also held with local MP Kevin Foster, whose knowledge of the politics, and potential pitfalls, of new football stadiums had been enhanced by him being a Councillor in Coventry when a new ground was built for Coventry City Football Club. Later disputes with the club’s owner relating to the stadium’s ownership resulted in the club spending seasons playing in Northampton and Birmingham to the despair of fans.
In July 2017 Clarke Osborne revealed a Five Year Plan for the club which included moving to a new purpose built stadium. Torbay Council, influenced we would like to think by the meetings with TUST, agreed not to sell Plainmoor's freehold until any plans for a new stadium came to fruition.
In August 2017, in order to improve the mutual understanding and dialogue between the club and TUST, board members met with the then club secretary and CEO with the aim of creating a Structured Dialogue Agreement, to sign off a Memorandum of Understanding and to agree the role of an independent supporter liaison officer. All of these documents had been scrutinised by Supporters Direct and the Football Supporters Federation. Sadly, despite repeated requests, the final drafts of these documents were never acknowledged or signed.
Alongside the Trust’s efforts Kevin Foster had been asking Clarke Osborne for a meeting to discuss his plans for the club and ground. In September 2017, after several postponements, Kevin Foster obtained a meeting with Clarke Osborne after inferring any further delays in holding it would result in him using parliamentary privilege to discuss why it may have been delayed. TUST’s meetings with Kevin Foster had directly influenced this and emphasised the importance of getting any answers he could as the local MP.
In July 2018 Clarke Osborne and the Gaming International team gave a presentation at the Mayor’s Forum outlining their plans to build a new stadium at Nightingale Park at the Willows in Torquay. At this public meeting TUST asked for an outline for the implications for the use of Plainmoor so that they could be scrutinised by the supporters and the local community. The Mayor avoided allowing this question to be answered.
On 30 November 2018, chairman Clarke Osborne announced in a statement that he was commencing “the building of the Board” with the appointments of Mel Hayman as a director and George Edwards as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Despite assuring BBC Radio Devon in April 2018 that he still intended to establish a board of local directors, the board only ever consisted of these three directors.
At the request of TUST, in October 2018 Supporters Direct produced a report on the club’s ownership and the proposed new stadium project. The report could not be circulated publicly as some of the information it contained was subject to the confidentiality of the 2015 NDA. Its conclusions included that: the Nightingale Park project was unlikely to happen because of the absence of a coherent plan and lack of means to fund it; that Clarke Osborne is patient in pursuing opportunities and may be prepared to wait some years to achieve his objective; if he ends his interest in TUFC, he has no track record of insolvencies and a better option would be for him to sell the club.
The next four years proved to be a frustrating period for the trust. TUST was the only functioning democratic organisation representing Torquay fans. Yet the club rebuffed all approaches to hold face to face meetings. This was principally due to the directors refusing to accept TUST performing the basic function of a supporters trust, namely, to act as a critical friend. In August 2019 George Edwards went as far as to say that he would not engage again with TUST unless he could see that its stance had significantly changed. There were sporadic Zoom meetings with the supporter liaison officer but these ceased in September 2021.
Efforts to re-engage with the Club
In the spring of 2022 Nick Brodrick began a lengthy “courtship” of the club with a view to resuming a meaningful and constructive relationship whereby TUST could once again represent views and concerns of fans. A number of casual impromptu meetings took place with the CEO George Edwards at Plainmoor before and after matches.
After five years sterling service, in November 2022 Michel Thomas stepped down as chair of TUST and Nick Brodrick stepped up to the plate. As the chair he was able to bring greater focus to the discussions with the club.
During Nick’s meetings with George Edwards, five in total over a 12 month period, it was suggested that TUST should prove its positivity towards the club. Director Mel Hayman became involved and a number of possible ideas around improving the match day experience for children were discussed. Out of these discussions the Children’s VIP Treats project was conceived. The club would work with Play Torbay and Torbay Social Services to identify local children who would not normally have the opportunity to see games at Plainmoor. They would enjoy a pre-match day visit with play materials, watch the match from the family stand and receive a voucher for £25 to spend in the shop or on food. The project was fully funded by TUST with a donation of £2,600.
Allied to this TUST recommended sensory items, such as fidget spinners and stress balls, should be available for these special needs children and they were made available in the club shop.
With the Children’s VIP Treats joint venture up and running relations between the club and TUST improved. Early in 2023 the meetings between Nick Brodrick and George Edwards became more cordial and it was agreed that a formal meeting could take place between the Supporter Liaison Officer Dom Mee and two TUST board members, the chair Nick and secretary Rick Williams. The meeting took place in March, thirteen months after Nick’s first approaches were made. Arrangements regarding minutes and confidentiality were agreed and a number of “soft” questions were given to Dom Mee that were to be put to George Edwards, with his responses being relayed back at the next meeting.
It was requested that the meetings be monthly. However, no meeting date was offered in April and a meeting was scheduled for 9th May. The day before the meeting was due to take place Nick Brodrick received a phone call cancelling the meeting with no explanation.
It was later confirmed that there were to be no more meetings. No reason was given by the club for the cessation of the meetings.
From this time until Clarke Osborne pulled the plug on his funding of club on 22nd February 2024 there was no communication between the club and TUST. After the Bryn consortium took over the club it emerged that club staff were warned not to having anything to do with the trust.
Torquay United Supporters Trust & Bryn Consortium combine to save the football club!
The Supporters Trust were instrumental in helping to form the Bryn Consortium in 2024 after Clarke Osborne placed the club into administration. You can read the daily accounts of that time period and the role that the Supporters Trust played by clicking the following link: TUFC in administration - An inside view from the TUST board. | TheTFF Torquay United Fans Forum (Link opens in new window)
