VETERAN GARY'S BIG TEST

ONE of the most interesting things to watch out for in the new National League campaign is how Torquay United fare. For a chunk of last season it looked as though Gary Johnson’s Gulls were going to cruise to the title and win their place back in the Football League after a seven-year absence.

- John Lyons

However, Sutton United had other ideas and came storming through to take the crown, showing remarkable consistency along the way.

If that was a blow for the Gulls, then, as we all know, another punch to the solar plexus was soon to arrive. Despite goalkeeper Lucas Covolan’s remarkable last-gasp equaliser in the play-off final against Hartlepool, Torquay succumbed 5-4 in a heart-stopping penalty shoot-out at Ashton Gate.

Joy unconfined for Pools, despair for the Gulls. Afterwards, Johnson said it would take a couple of weeks for his side to ‘grieve’ after such a massive disappointment.

Indeed, you wonder how much psychological damage has been done by suffering two major setbacks in a short space of time. And losing on pens will have left them with that hollow feeling of ‘what if?’. It could just as easily have been them getting ready for EFL football.

Since the play-off agony, the Devon outfit have lost Brazilian goalkeeper Covolan to League Two outfit Port Vale and defender Kyle Cameron to National League rivals Notts County.