Can Johnson Put Torquay United Back in Pole Position for Promotion?

Clubnets News Devon Football Torquay United

At the end of the 2013-14 season, Torquay United slipped out of the Football League. Unlike the previous occasion when they lost such status, there was no real serious push for a swift return.

Following three successive mid-table finishes in the National League, the Gulls suffered further ignominy when they dropped down another division at the end of the 2017-18 campaign. From this nadir, however, they got themselves back on the road to recovery under the management of Gary Johnson.

Johnson started out in management 35 years ago, at Newmarket Town, but he came to the attention of south west football fans when he took Yeovil Town from the Conference to the third tier of English football before becoming Bristol City boss.

In 2008, after getting them promoted from League One, Johnson took the Robins to the play-off finals. But for a stunning Dean Windass winner for Hull City, Johnson would have probably been a Premier League manager! Such are the fine margins in footbal

Upon his return to Yeovil via less successful spells with Peterborough United and Northampton Town, Johnson steered the Glovers to victory in the 2013 League One play-offs and into the second tier for the first time in their history. That put his Wembley hoodoo to bed five years on.

Even when Johnson’s Cheltenham Town team dropped out of the Football League, he got them straight back in there by winning the 2017-18 National League. That is the pedigree and calibre of the manager Torquay are blessed to have had at the club for three seasons now.

Johnson picked the Gulls up off their knees and took them to the National League South title in his first season in charge, recording a sixth career promotion and smashing several club records in the process. That was the start of Torquay’s resurgence and until this evening’s round of games, they were sitting pretty at the top of the National League.

That immediate turnaround in their fortunes under Johnson gave everyone at Plainmoor belief that they were back on the way to where they belong – the English Football League. That belief may have been dented in recent weeks, with top scorer Danny Wright missing since Christmas and the Gulls losing three out of their last five games, but they do have a real opportunity to get things back on track with a kind run of fixtures this month. If they can get a good result at Boreham Wood on Saturday, Gary Johnson’s men then have five games against bottom half opponents to try and get back to winning ways.

Although Sutton United and Hartlepool have tonight reeled in and edged above Torquay, 888 sport football betting odds suggest that promotion is still very much on the cards. With Johnson enjoying a win rate of over 50% (the best form of his career), there is still cause for confidence.

On the other hand, with only the champions of the National League automatically going up to EFL League Two, it could be the nail-biting prospect of the play-offs that is their most likely route back.

If Johnson does achieve a seventh career promotion by guiding the Gulls back to the league, he will have proven his doubters wrong in the only way he knows how – titles, trophies and promotions.

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