GARY JOHNSON
FEW areas have been hit as hard by the pandemic as the English Riviera.
But while the hotels, pubs and bars of Torquay sit empty, the town’s formerly run-down football club is raising the spirits – and giving Gulls’ supporters genuine hope of a return to the Football League after a sevenyear wait.
All Gary Johnson, their welltravelled manager, needs is for the continuation of the National League season to ensure that the club’s table-topping start to the season hasn’t been in vain.
He said: “It’s sad, it’s very sad – the hotels, the eateries, they’ve tried to stay afloat, but it has been very tough. Everywhere has been affected. You hope that this summer would be different because the town needs a buzz.
“Hopefully the football club is going some way to providing that at the moment.
“Am I confident that the season will finish? I don’t think you can be confident of anything at the moment. Of course we hope it does because it’s important that while the EFL are playing then the National League are as well.
“You have to keep that promotion and relegation going because you don’t want to be cut adrift of the Football League.
“Our league is predominantly a full-time league so for all the workers and all the players that are on contracts, they don’t want to be out of work. While we’re still playing, we want to do our best to win every game that comes – then we’ll see what develops in the future.”
A fleeting exchange of Christmas presents on the Bristol Downs apart, Johnson says hasn’t seen his son, Lee, the current manager of Sunderland, in months. An experience mirrored by families up and down the country.
In an area of the country that he knows better than almost anyone in football, though, Johnson (above) is most definitely among friends.
He added: “When we were young we would go on holiday to Seaton (on the Devon coast).
“I grew up in London and my dad and a lot of my relatives were black cab drivers – we would drive from London to Devon in convoy.
“I remember coming back from Latvia, where I had been the coach of the national team, and I was due to go on holiday with my wife when a friend of mine called and asked me if I fancied the Yeovil job.
“I said, ‘Yeovil? Where’s that? I’ve never heard of it’.
“He convinced me to drive down on the Friday when I was going away on the Saturday.
“It was a long journey from London, but I liked what I saw immediately. That was my first job in the West Country and I loved it. It’s a similar feeling now.
“I live in Bristol, but when we’re in Torquay we enjoy the seaside, we love the walks and the fresh air.”