Following the news of the recent passing of Mervyn Scoble, Torquay United co-chairman Michael Westcott has paid his own personal tribute to the former TUFC webmaster.
In Memory of Mervo
Some people support a football club. Others hold it together.
For Torquay United supporters of a certain age — especially those of us who spent years living far from Plainmoor — Mervo was one of the people who stubbornly and brilliantly held the support community together.
I first came to know him through the thing he built: a home for Gulls fans online. In the mid‑1990s, when being an exile (in my case, 16 years living and working in Asia) meant missing not just matches but the rhythm of South Devon itself, Mervo’s site was a lifeline. It let you swap rumours, share frustrations, relive the goals — and remember that, however far away you were, you still belonged.
That feeling didn’t happen by accident. It was curated — carefully, daily — by someone who cared.
Mervo understood what Torquay United is really made of: not just Saturday afternoons and league tables, but people — friendships built over decades, familiar names, and the banter that makes you laugh out loud in a different town, or even a different time zone.
He also understood something else: love for a football club isn’t always polite. Mervo would rather be irreverent than irrelevant — and he was always relevant.
He could be strident. Uncompromising. Wonderfully blunt when he felt the club — the real club, the one in supporters’ hearts — was being let down. But it never came from ego. It came from care, from standards, from a deep sense of responsibility.
Crucially, he had the rare ability to challenge without detaching, to criticise without walking away. Even from thousands of miles away, he stayed close to Plainmoor in spirit — and he helped countless others do the same.
Today, others have taken on the Mervo mantle of being a critical, but caring friend; long may that continue.
Over the years I had many interactions with him — warm, forthright, lively in the way only football conversations can be. The through‑line was always the same: Mervo wanted what was best for Torquay United, and he wanted exiles to feel part of the TUFC family.
To Mervo’s family, and to everyone who loved him day‑to‑day: thank you for sharing him with us. Rest in peace, Mervo — and thank you for keeping so many of us connected to the Gulls, to South Devon, and to each other.
