Torquay United:August 2010

Greetings from Toronto and a warm welcome back to my Torquay United story. Well my weeks vacation is almost at an end with very little progress on this story as the wife gave me too many jobs to do around the house (:

Anyway back the The Riviera…

The new season kicked off at home against Brentford in front of an almost capacity crowd. We came out in a very attacking mood  and had some good chances before Nicky Wroe’s pass found new boy Steve Irwin darting in from the right to score a goal on his debut. Minutes later Wroe broke down a Brentford attack and his pass this time found Barrowman whose thunderous shot flew into the back of the net. The score stayed the same until after the interval when Benyon added a third following a cross by O’Kane which was poorly cleared. Brentford pulled two back in the space of nine minutes as both complacency and fatigue settled in. Fortunately we held on for our first League One victory.

The following game was trip to St Marys to face Southampton in The League Cup. Out first round as usual. No more to be said. Central defender Daniel Ayala was released following another poor performance with an average rating of just 6.00

Next up was a trip to Morecambe who were promoted along with us last season.  We laid seige to their opponents goal for the opening 20 minutes and eventually a lovely pass by Ecekersly found O’Kane whose cross ball from the left flank was met first time by Barrowman and the ball flew into the net. The home side replied with their first attack of the game catching Ryan Carolan flat footed for an easy goal. Barrowman hit the bar and sent one narrowly wide before the interval after which we continued to dominate the play. With the introduction of Chambers for Irwin saw renewed vigor down the right which eventually paid off with a cross to Nicky Wroe whose header found Barrowman to strike home for the winning goal 10 minutes from time.

The following game was back at Plainmoor against Wycombe who were in the bottom half of the table. The opening 30 minutes were a very dour affair but a diagonal pass by left back Eckersley found Steve Irwin who somehow kept the ball in play and his cross found O’Kane unmarked on the far post to head home. The second half was very much like the first until Demetriou came on and his pace seemed too much for Wycombe and he scored on a lovely individual effort after receiving the ball on the half way line. Irwin made it 3-1 from the spot after Benyon was brought down though Wycombe scored a late consolation goal which was very much offside.

Next up was a trip to Hartlepool which turned out to be one of those “drab” matches and ended in a 1-1 draw and so our 100% record in League One was over. New striker Paul McGowan scored on his debut which was our only real highlight of the game.

It was back to Plainmoor for our following game against Norwich in front of a capacity crowd and I felt the need to adopt a less attacking tactic as Norwich would be a tough opponent. The change saw us control the game more than I had anticipated and we were finally rewarded as Eckersley found Barrowman with a telling pass whose shot was cleared by the Norwich defence straight into the path of Livermore who unleashed a screamer from 25 yards out. We held the lead until half time when the visitors began a series of attacks hitting the woodwork twice but we stood our ground and fought hard to scrape a victory to the delight of the home fans.

The final game of the month was our 1st round JPT clash against Bournemouth. Although this was a derby game of sorts I decided to field a mostly different team so as to view other players who hadn’t really featured so far this season. Bournemouth scored within 30 seconds. We certainly didn’t look anything like our normal selves and the visiting team easily created opportunities for goals in the second half and although after being 3-0 down we clawed back two late goals a Mark Ellis own goal right at the end sealed our fate in the competition. I’m not overly concerned by the defeat as now I’m more clear in my mind who my best eleven are.

Results at a glance

League Table

Player Ratings

Steve Irwin was the stand out player for this month and here is his profile

A quick snapshot of the clubs finances and things are starting to improve!

Upcoming Fixtures

So that completes the update for August which finds us in second place and a top of the table clash against Barnsley to look forward to. We did get knocked out of two cup competitions straight away but now we can focus our energy on the league campaign.

Thanks for reading!