FOLLOWERS of the National League who weren’t focused on Yeovil Town’s ball boys being sent off may well have noticed Torquay United’s 4-0 mauling of Stockport County on Saturday.

Manning the centre of Torquay’s midfield was Matt Buse, the former Taunton Town player having joined the Devon side this summer after scoring nine goals in 49 games for the Peacocks last season.

Still only 22, Buse has taken advantage of midfield injuries to become a regular in the starting line-up in the last month.

Buse departed Taunton with the club’s best wishes, and it will be interesting to see how far his ambition will take him.

But what of some other players to have left Wordsworth Drive in recent times?

The most sizeable chunk of the ex-Taunton diaspora is at Willand Rovers, where striker Craig Veal – who scored six goals for the Peacocks last term – has joined Ben Mammola and Josh Searle.

Douglas Camilo, the Brazilian midfielder, is also at Willand, who have also loaned Luke Manley from Taunton.

Division 1 South of the Southern League is awash with recently departed Peacocks, in fact, with Toby Down and Ben Palmer in the Bideford squad, and talented if erratic centre-back Josh Nelmes playing at Bristol Manor Farm.

Left-back Nuno Felix is at Paulton Rovers, helping them beat Salisbury (complete with new signing Leroy Lita) 4-0 in the Challenge Cup on Tuesday night, and fellow defender Keith Emmerson at Winchester City.

Striker Lewis Powell, who was at Taunton very briefly in 2017 (his second spell at the club), has four league goals for Larkhall Athletic this term, and in the league above, Exeter City’s Joel Randall is now on loan at Weston-super-Mare.

Chris McGrath is turning out at Western League side Buckland Athletic, and injury-hit Arran Pugh is now academy operations manager at Exeter.

Finally, wing-back extraordinaire Ross Staley is still in Australia, scoring goals for Eastern Lions Soccer Club.

He helped the Melbourne-based side become 2019 NPL2 East champions – he’s the wizard of Oz!