Wotton feels now is the right time to take on Torquay role

PLYMOUTH Argyle legend Paul Wotton said he has been given a competitive budget to try to get Torquay United back into the National League - as he sat alongside new football advisor Neil Warnock at the first press conference of the club’s new era on Tuesday.

- RICHARDS HUGHES

Wotton and Warnock starred in a video that the Bryn Consortium released on X (formerly Twitter) when they were announced as the new dream team at Plainmoor - and it went viral with fans lapping up the comedy of the pair sitting on deckchairs in the pouring rain on Princess Pier, discussing Torbay’s weather and the fact that there was a job available ‘just up the road’.

“Shall we do it?” says Wotton, in the short clip. “Yep, I think so,” says Warnock, before they wander off under green umbrellas - actually towards the sea! But it would be churlish to pick faults. The fact is, it was a brilliant way to announce the appointment and herald in a new openness from a club that has lacked the most basic of communication skills with its supporters over the last five years. At the last check, the video had been viewed nearly three million times - not bad for a tweet made by a club in the National League South.

Wotton, the 46-year-old former Truro City manager, who played under Warnock at Plymouth Argyle,said: “I am absolutely thrilled to be here. It’s a great opportunity for myself. Torquay is a football club that I know all about, it’s a club I am excited to be joining.