WE ALL SHOULD HAVE GONE UP!
THE season is over. The playoffs are happening. A tentative start date of mid-September is on the cards.
For Gary Johnson, though, three months of tortuous wrangling has resulted in the wrong outcome.
“It’s great that two teams will go up from our league,” says the Torquay United boss. “I’m pleased that North and South will be part of it. But I wanted to get us all promoted. I still do, and I’ll keep talking about it until somebody listens.”
He is talking, of course, about League Three. Ever since lockdown began in late March, Johnson has been a vocal advocate of a revised pyramid that would see the National League top-flight absorbed into the Football League.
“I know it’s controversial in some quarters and I know I’ve said it before,” concedes the former Latvia, Yeovil Town, Bristol City and Cheltenham Town manager. “But the truth is, this ain’t Non-League any more. Not in the true sense of the word. How can you call teams like Notts County, Chesterfield, Hartlepool, Stockport and Wrexham Non-League? They aren’t.
“When I was at Yeovil, 15-20 years ago, it was Non-League. Part-time players. Amateur set-ups. Teams who had never played in the Football League.
“Now, 99 per cent of clubs at this level are full-time. Good facilities, good stadiums. Proper businesses.
“But players would rather go and play in the bottom half of League Two than the top half of the National League. It’s got nothing to do with money, or ambition, or the quality of football. It’s purely because there’s a stigma attached to being ‘NonLeague’.
“Look at me. Officially, I’ve done something like 900 games. But that doesn’t count the three or four hundred I’ve done in Non-League over the years. Why not? It’s not like they’re any less stress! You would get rid of that by making us part of the League. Even if that was League Two
North and South, I still think it would be a good idea.”
Johnson believes this week’s departure of top-scorer Jamie Reid to Mansfield Town illustrates his point.
Reid, 25, scored 63 goals in 176 appearances for the Gulls and was instrumental in last season’s promotion from National League South. But he rejected a new deal at Plainmoor to join the Stags, who finished last season 21st in League Two.
“Jamie’s a local lad, a Torquay supporter who lives in the town,” says Johnson. “What they offered wasn’t massively different to what we offered, and if our league had that ‘EFL’ tag then I think he’d have stayed.
“But he saw this as his chance to get out of Non-League, and that’s exactly what I mean about the stigma. Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m happy for Jamie. He had two great seasons for me. He’s a good lad and I hope it goes well for him.”
Limbo
As for recruiting a replacement, Johnson is – like every other football manager right now – in a state of limbo.
Whilst the authorities are working towards a mid-September start date for the 2020-21 season, there is not yet any firm guidance about when players’ contracts should begin and end.
Nor do clubs know when they will be permitted by the government to open their doors to supporters, which will have a dramatic impact on how much can be offered in fees and wages.
“As soon as we go back to training and come out of furlough, then you can start signing people on,” explains the 64-year-old. “Ideally, that would be the start of August, but no one knows. Nobody has worked out the dates and we’re waiting for the authorities to tell us what those contracts will look like.
“At the minute, players have been offered terms but they can’t sign them. You’re saying ‘Here’s my offer, would you like to come? If you agree, it will start on August 1 or the day we get back to training’.
“As I say to all of them, if Man United make an offer in the meantime, I understand if you don’t come to Torquay. But if you stay committed to us, we’ll stay committed to you. In other words, I won’t go and chase another player in the same position. Right now, that’s all we can do.”
Like many of his peers, Johnson is also expecting losses over the summer and a climate of uncertainty to prompt a savage reduction in player wages.
“The agents will still say ‘My player is worth such-and-such’,” says Johnson, who has kept the majority of last season’s squad together. “They’ll still demand a fee. They’ll still negotiate high.
“But the fact is, a lot of players will have to take a drop on what they’re used to because nobody has had any money coming in for months. They’ll hold out, alright. But they may just have to take whatever’s there at the end – and that might be even less.”
Advantage
Johnson also believes clubs like Torquay – who finished the season in 15th place – are at an advantage over Notts County, Halifax and the other four sides forced to cough up five-figure sums to compete in the play-offs.
“Those lads, I don’t know how some of them are going to rustle up a team,” he adds. “Especially people like Boreham Wood and Barnet, who released a lot of players well early.
“They’ve obviously kept in touch with a few. They might just have to go cap in hand and say ‘Will you come back and do the play-offs even though there’s no contract at the end for you’.
“And only one of them is going to be happy at the end. The rest will have spent a fortune. They’ll have had plenty of arguments, trying to get players back who don’t want to play. Lots and lots of discussions. Then they’ll be straight into a new season.
“Teams in the middle like us, we’ve been able to plan ahead. The furlough scheme has helped unbelievably and we might even come out stronger when we get back.”
Does that mean, then, that Torquay can aspire to more than
We will be good to compete enough level. at this shame It’s just a that this level is still Non-League Gary Johnson
mid-table security in their second season back in the top flight?
“Whatever the finances or the squad is like, any manager will say he wants to compete,” laughs Johnson. “Otherwise nobody buys season tickets!
“Honestly, though, we were 15th when the season stopped, but we had three games in hand on Stockport in seventh. We believed that we could have put a run together and been a point off the play-offs. We knew we probably had to win seven out of ten, but we’d won eight out of ten at a previous point in the season. We did think there was still a chance.
“I believe we will be good enough to compete at this level. Definitely. It’s just a shame that this level is still Non-League.”