Knill: Locale helps team spirit

Torquay's new boss Alan Knill believes the club's location as a footballing outpost makes it easier to foster team spirit.

Plainmoor is over 200 miles from London, 170 from Birmingham and 100 from Bristol which means management and supporters have often discussed the difficulty of persuading players to make the move down to the English Riviera. But Knill, who was unveiled as the club's replacement for Martin Ling last week, believes once players agree to join the Gulls then knitting them together into a team becomes less of a challenge. "It is one of those places you have to commit to," he said. "Once they are here it is easier to create a team. "Invariably now at clubs they are travelling from all over just to come into that base to train for the day then they leave. I think once you get a team here, chances are they are going to be within a 30 minute radius of where you are training. "It is easier to create a team once you get them here then it is our job to persuade those players to come and make it effective for them to enhance their career - that this is a place where we will push them to be better." Knill also confirmed that he has asked Chris Brass, who joined the former Bury boss at the club during the final weeks of the season, to come back to Plainmoor but a decision is yet to be made on the future of Shaun Taylor.