Torquay United manager Paul Wotton ready for the challenge

New Torquay United manager Paul Wotton said he has been given a competitive budget to try to get the team 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.

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...

Read More - Torquay United appoint Paul Wotton as new Gulls manager

Read More - Torquay United are at the dawning of a new era

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.

“I think it’s time for me to make that jump and Torquay is the perfect jump for me to take - so I am looking forward to it. I am very excited. As some of you will know, I don’t smile very often, but I am genuinely thrilled to be here.

“I managed against Torquay on Boxing Day and there were nearly 4,000 people at the game. The atmosphere was great and I feel I am ready for that challenge - and I just feel like it’s the logical step for me as a young manager.

“The club has got a tremendous fanbase, it has some tough times of late, but with the new board it is exciting times. It is a clean start for everybody, myself included. They are tremendous people who have bought the club, and it is a vision we all share. We want to move forward - it was an absolute no-brainer for me.”

Wotton said he has already talked to a few of the players from last season’s squad that he would like to see return - but with only one player actually signed on for the coming season he is going to have to put together what will essentially be a brand new squad, with the help of Warnock of course, who he calls ‘the Gaffer’.

He said: “Like the Gaffer said, I have got work to do recruiting players, but I am in negotiations this morning with a few of last season’s squad that I am keen to keep, and look, it’s going to be a busy time, but what I will say is, every off season for every manager is busy. You never have a holiday because your phone is going non-stop anyway.

“I have got to get busy and get some players signed. Those players have obviously got to fit the criteria that I want - not just the ability but also the character. The character is going to be huge because every successful team that I have been in, whether that’s as a player, as an assistant or a manager has had a tremendous work ethic, tremendous will to win and a tremendous togetherness.

“I need to sign the right characters, that’s for sure, definitely, I need to sign players that will give everything on a Saturday for Torquay United. That’s pretty much the only promise I can make. I am not going to sit here and say what we are going to do, because I don’t know, but I promise you that the 11 players on the pitch on a Saturday will give everything they have got for Torquay United - otherwise they won’t be playing.”

Wotton will be full time and also confirmed he will have an assistant manager, with a mixture of full time and part time players making up his squad. And with a budget rumoured to be one of the biggest in the National South, Wotton should be able to build the kind of squad that Torquay fans can get behind in their numbers. “I am happy with the budget,” he said. “It’s a competitive budget and it is what it is. It’s up to me to spend it and hopefully I’ll spend it well.”