Osborne’s big appointment goes long way to restoring fans’ faith

Actions nearly always speak louder than words and, in the single act of appointing Gary Johnson as Torquay United’s new manager, the Gulls’ owner-chairman Clarke Osborne has done more to win over the club’s fans than nearly two years of plans, assurances and good intentions have done.

There may always be some supporters who won’t have Osborne at any price – only a cross between Saint Francis of Assisi and the Sultan of Dubai is likely to be good enough for them – and others will withhold their approval until United are back in the Football League and in a new stadium complete with ‘Wow’ factor. Fair enough. But in the wake of his decision to part company with Gary Owers, how many people really expected Osborne to seek out, convince and install a man with the record, profile and charisma of Johnson?

The general reaction to John- son’s arrival supplied the answer to that question.

It’s worth stressing a couple of points before going any further.

First, Osborne may be a wealthy businessman who is used to making hard-headed decisions, but his record at Plainmoor would hint that he does not relish sacking people.

There was more than one weekend of home defeats in the Spring of 2017 when former player-manager Kevin Nicholson expected every phone call to bring news of dismissal. It didn’t come.

It was only when Osborne decided, after a summer, a fresh budget and a worrying start, that he needed to make a change.

If only four games into last season seemed a little harsh on Nicholson, Johnson got exactly the same amount of matches before he was sacked by Cheltenham Town last month.

And Johnson had taken the Robins back into the Football League, kept them up twice and just sold his leading scorer Mohamed Eisa to Bristol City for £1.5 million.

Even Cheltenham’s former chairman and shareholder Paul Baker described the decision to dismiss Johnson as ‘ridiculous’.

It was more painful for Osborne to part company with Owers, a man he had been convinced would do the job.

Even in the face of a series of unconvincing performances, including those unacceptable home defeats by Hampton & Richmond Borough and Chippenham Town, Plainmoor insiders and Owers thought he would be given a little longer to stop the rot.

But the big decisions at Plainmoor are now being made by Osborne with his close associate and operations director George Edwards, who has seen most of United’s recent matches, home and away.

Once they decided, after the Chippenham defeat, that Owers was unlikely either to turn things around or win over the majority of supporters, things moved fast indeed.

Johnson had not been approached weeks in advance.

He was at home in Portishead, taking a deep breath after his Cheltenham disappointment and, at 62, planning to wait for a suitable job to come up – a last hurrah, if you like, to a 30-year managerial career which has included more senior promotions (five) than anyone except Neil Warnock.

He had not envisaged dropping down to National League South level, so it doesn’t take a genius to work out that the offer which Osborne and Edwards made to him raised even his own eyebrows.

But it wasn’t just the contract which appears to have been a ‘no-brainer’ for Johnson.

The man himself has been quick to report that Osborne and Edwards ‘sold’ the whole Torquay ‘project’ to him, including a longed-for revival on the pitch, with the resources to do it, and that planned new-stadium complex.

“If you’ve got a stadium like this (Plainmoor) or a new state-of-the-art stadium, you have to have a team in the Football League,” Johnson said.

Osborne is almost certainly at a point in his business and private life when he doesn’t really need Torquay United, and certainly not the aggravation and financial commitment that goes with it.

But he chose to be here, he has hung his proverbial hat and a fair bit of his reputation on the club and he has not delivered yet. And another thing, if the events of the past week have told us anything, it is that Osborne does not like failure – in himself or anybody else.

DID YOU SEE?

Popular former Gulls midfield- er Eunan O’Kane will be out for the rest of the season after a serious injury at the weekend.

Ulsterman O’Kane, 28, star of United’s 2012 League Two play-off team under Martin Ling, suffered a double leg-break in Luton Town’s 1-0 win over Bristol Rovers.

O’Kane was recently loaned to League One Luton from Leeds United.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Icelandic defender Axel Andresson always said he comes from a big footballing family, when he played here on loan from Reading last season.

Sure enough, his 17-year-old brother Jokull turned up in Hungerford Town’s goal, on loan from the Royals, against United last Saturday.

Axel, meanwhile, has now been loaned to Norwegian First Division club Viking FK, armed with a new two-year contract from his parent club Reading.