After waiting over 90 years for one league title, Torquay United are now mounting the challenge for a second in the space of three years amidst one of the most challenging periods in modern history.
The Gulls head into 2021 with an 11-point lead at the top of the Vanarama National League table, as they bid to secure a return to the Football League under Gary Johnson - two years after winning the 2018-19 National League South title, United's first championship winning season since the 1926-27 campaign.
Against some other events in the club's history such as the intervention of Bryn the Police Dog against Crewe Alexandra in 1987 and Leroy Rosenior's infamous ten-minute managerial reign in 2007, winning a league title in a season where for the most part fans aren't allowed inside the stadium due to Covid-19 restrictions wouldn't pale in comparison.
While yours truly hasn't witnessed a game at Plainmoor in what can be described as normal circumstances since February 29, 2020, when United beat Chorley 2-0 - whether that date is coincidence or not who knows? - a limited number of spectators have been allowed into Plainmoor for their last few fixtures. However, following Torbay's move (alongwith the rest of Devon) from Tier 2 to Tier 3 coronavirus restrictions, the Gulls will now revert back playing games behind closed doors for the foreseeable future.
Watching games via the many streaming services offered by National League clubs will now become the preferred viewing method of choice again.
Another factor in addition to the reduced capacity of Plainmoor which could be regarded as strange is the fact that by this stage of the season the Gulls would normally have played over half their fixtures. United have only played 16 league games so far in the 2020-21 campaign, whereas in previous seasons they would have competed in the region of 28 league encounters.
Nevertheless this shouldn't deflect from the job that Gary Johnson has done at Plainmoor. Should the Gulls secure a return to League Two in the summer of 2021, it would be Johnson's seventh promotion as a manager, and his third from National League level, which would see him trail Middlesbrough boss Neil Warnock by one (Warnock currently has eight).
Every achieved by Johnson has been done in the wake of losing his leading scorer Jamie Reid to Mansfield Town in the close season. Reid found the back of the net 21 times in the 2019-20 campaign, but the opportunity to test himself in League Two saw him uproot himself from South Devon to North Nottinghamshire, but the goals have been spread more evenly throughout the team in the current season.
Summer signing Danny Wright is United's current top scorer with eight goals, but trailing him in joint-second place with five each is Asa Hall, Connor Lemonheigh-Evans and Ben Whitfield. This is in contrast to 2019-20, where Whitfield was the Gulls' highest scorer with seven and Jake Andrews was in third place with six.
Given the events of the previous year, it will be a brave person to predict what will happen in the next 12 months. However, that doesn't mean that it won't be interesting to see how it all pans out.
