article: A new board, backed by £15m lottery-winning supporter Paul Bristow, took control of the club in the summer of 2007, with a new manager and a new squad. The Gulls had endured a chaotic final League season, with five men occupying the dugout from the January 2006 until their eventual demise in May 2007. But promotion followed two years later and, despite Bristow his wife Thea took on the legacy. However, after an appearance in the and 12 months later, it seemed history was beginning to repeat itself. In January 2013 then-manager which was later The Gulls brought in the experienced Alan Knill to after weeks of uncertainty had seen Torquay go from mid-table security to relegation fodder. Knill kept the club up, and days after the final game was after Thea Bristow, who had become chairman earlier in the season, sacked Ling for a This season Knill oversaw just five wins in his 25 league games in charge before and While Bristow is still chairman, there is as there was when her family's numbers first came up. So where did it all go wrong? The manager who led the Gulls back the Football League, Paul Buckle, former defender Guy Branston, whose last Torquay game was the 2011 League Two play-off final, and life-long supporter Steve Breed give BBC Sport their theories: This season Torquay have had 14 different players join on loan, while three free agents arrived well after the season had begun. "The people you bring to the club are important and they have to know what entails playing for Torquay," said Buckle. Media playback is not supported on this device "I used to say that if I got the right vibe, that they were really on board with this, then I'd go with it, if not I'm not interested. "I wouldn't allow anyone to come to the club unless I was really sure they were right." And Branston believes there are not enough players in the current side with the correct mentality. "It's important that the lads have got to be here for the right reasons," he said. "I know a lot of Alan Knill's lads were brought in on good contracts and he brought in a lot of loan players, but I think for a club like Torquay, you've got to make sure you've got the right players. Signing them from the pre-season onwards is big for a club like Torquay. "Plus you've got to be looking to produce your own players that have the right mentality for what the club stands for and what it's all about. "It's having that togetherness as a group, and if you're constantly bringing in loan players it disrupts that core." "I didn't think it was significant at the time," said Breed. "But in hindsight it clearly was, because we were doing OK up until when Martin went off sick. "With Alan Knill coming in at the back end of that season, he said he saved us, and ultimately he picked the team that kept us in the League, but only in
summary: When Torquay won the Conference Premier play-off final in 2009, few at Plainmoor thought they would head back out of the Football League just five years later.