Just what do you expect from Barnsley?

I was thinking on Saturday, walking away from Oakwell with that fantastic feeling of a great result, performance, atmosphere, everything about it was excellent.
Did I think that this euphoria was tempered with the fact we are in League 1?
No, not at all, when I think back to the seasons struggling in the Championship for years, just avoiding relegation, the only 2 real fantastic seasons have been 2006 and the win at Cardiff, and the 2016 victory at Wembley.
Both achieved as a League 1 club.
So my most enjoyable times recently have been as a league 1 club
Why do people demand Championship football?
What's wrong with League 1 with a good following, good football, good results?
Feel good factor!
Look at Bournemoth
Bournemouth have signed Spanish full-back Diego Rico from La Liga side Leganes for £10.7m
A club with 10,000 home attendance, will they survive?, no guarantee and we can't get even close to that spending.
Who cares about Championship/Premiership? Billions spent to no effect.
If you enjoy the day, the occasion, the atmosphere, the result, who cares what league you're in?

 

Feel very similar myself. Although do believe in competitive sport the desire to better is important. But it shouldn’t come “at all costs” which has happened to so many clubs.

Once the heart of a club goes it never comes back. I love Barnsley. And the feeling I get from a win is the same. I don’t think I enjoyed beating Chelsea or Liverpool any more than I enjoyed watching us beat Oxford or Millwall. However I do enjoy the attention “little Barnsley” get when we upset the apple cart.

It could be the start of something truly special now, has that feel about it. Equally it may be a false dawn. But as long as we have a club, we enjoy watching the football, and it’s honest hard working folk working behind the scenes then it’s all good with me.

 

Booooo no ambition. Boooo what's the point. Boo, boo, boo!

 

guessing that the OP and Occook are too young to remember 96/7 the prem promotion season then ?

 

That was special! The best bit was we were the plucky under dogs coming from nowhere. Now it seems that unless a club lobs £100m at it then it’s a rarity to even get close to the Premierleague. Although there are still a few exceptions.

 

I hear what you're saying but we had good times in the championship too promotion to the premier league obviously Bassett's season that almost got us there too was brilliant and the cup run beating liverpool and Chelsea. At the end of the day we have to compete at what ever level we're at if they do that it's enough for me

 

Totally agree. Only downside to League One, at present, is the lack of local derbies.
But it's nice to walk down to Oakwell with my lad insisting 'we should beat these', instead of the Championship stance of 'we'll do well to nick a draw today'.
Championship teams are starting to crumble as a result of FFP, so let's consider this latest stint in the third tier as regrouping before coming back stronger.

 

Think not, first match in 1970, saw hundreds of games in division 4, my point is the great feeling we get from a good day out at Oakwell, whatever the league we are in, does it HAVE to be in a league which we can't afford to be in?
Relegation from the Prem, financial disasters after that sent us bust.
Not worth it in my opinion

 

A good question.

I'd like us to be like Brentford in the short term. At least a mid table championship side, but with an annual hope that we'll be there or thereabouts . And, if we went up, Burnley would be the side to look at.

 

I have been a supporter for over 60 years first went in 1961. We have had a lot more sunshine in our teams fortunes than a huge amount of other clubs TBH.

 

I want us to end up like this post where a guy ran Football Manager for 1000 years and we won 93 Premier League titles and 21 Champions' Leagues.

Wednesday won one.

 

Not at all. That season still stands, with the premiership year, as two of my favourite. But football finance has moved on. Back then I was obsesssed with any football I could watch. Knew every player in the premier league even when we were struggling in the championship or L1. Now I have no interest. I believe in all sports you should better yourself. I enjoyed the wins at Wembley more than any other match. And that was the JPT and L1 playoff.

It may be age. But I don’t think so. I think it’s greed and obscene spending in times of hardship and poverty that is killing my love for “the people’s game”.

 

I hear what you are saying and agree. I for one have preferred to have been on the 'roller coaster' that is Barnsley FC.... I certainly would not want to be a supporter of any of the 'Plastic' teams ... and they are not all in the prem.... there's one down the M1 from us and 1 Up the M1 too... and we all know who they are.

 

If we can get to the Premier League again without overstretching ourselves, the TV money means that we can more than afford to be there. Contracts just have to be drawn up sensibly to include relegation release clauses, and any parachute money should be reinvested as much in the infrastructure of the club as in expensive panic buys to get back up quickly. The reason for us getting into a pickle last time was a combination of the ITV digital collapse which was completely out of the club's hands, and the bank calling in what was on the grand scale of things a very small overdraft. Prudent financial management should ensure that nothing like that ever happens again. The trick of course is getting into the Premier League without either gambling the club's financial future, or outright cheating like Wolves, Bournemouth and Brighton. It can be done , as Huddersfield, Palace, Burnley and Swansea have all showed in recent years, but it takes a lot of skill both off and on the field, and even more luck.

 

I see your point, but when we start to struggle, the players get crucified on the forums, there are some awful posts about our players, we get the annual scapegoat who is called from a pig to a dog.
The posts after Saturday were refreshingly positive, never mind what league we were in, it was the performance, the entertainment and the all round good feeling that I enjoyed

 

Depends whether you just want to be entertained or only interested in your club if it's actually winning / achieving something. Would Liverpool fans enjoy getting the Champions league final any more than us getting promoted from League 1 - maybe not? Massive difference in footballing quality apart, but that goes hand in hand with obscene ticket prices and wages.

 

That's the main bugbear for me. Do I really want to see any Barnsley player earning 50-70k a week? Certainly not. I don't particularly like the idea of us paying the players 15-20k a week, but realistically that's what we'll need to be doing once we get back to the Championship in order to compete. I don't like it, but it's a bloody sight better than going through a repeat of last season's farce.

 

I think the problems really come when your club pays players that are either just rank bad, or decide to take the money and sit about. Jack rodwell for example. Why any club would pay him again is beyond me. If I was a Sunderland fan, scraping enough for a £700 season ticket I would feel sick to my stomach a lad was sat around doing nothing for £60k a week or whatever it was.

 

Brentford keep their players, or most of them, presumably because they pay proper wages . People were angry last season because we lost Hourihane, Bree, Winnall, Scowen, Watkins and Roberts within about six months, all to teams in the same division as us. We could have kept at least three of those players and built a team around them.

I see no reason why this group of players couldn't have performed like this in the championship, had they only been brought into a team rather than expected to create one .