Is it an age thing

Reading many of the posts on here makes me wonder if opinions of the club come down to supporters age.I'm one who has seen Barnsley at the bottom of the old league four and I make no bones about saying how pleased I am with our current position in one of the best Leagues in the world.We had fans who grew up watching Championship and Premiership football and the odd bad spell in the 2000's so they've not really seen a club struggling at the wrong end of the football spectrum.I've just read where Newcastle have spent 55m this season.It kind of puts things in to perspective for me.I imagine Barnsley will raise the bar again in transfer targets in the summer to continue to solidify our Championship status.I for one look forward to the challenge.

 

I think you have a strong point there. In my second season, after 10 games we were bottom of Division 4, and almost broke. As you might remember, the start of our brief resurgence came where Messrs Buckle, Edmondson and Dennis injected £10k to buy Evans and Thomas. I saw us beaten 2-0 by Rhyl at Old Trafford in a second cup replay as we crashed back into Division 4 under the awful John McSeveney. Our current lofty heights compare very well to my early experiences. I would not wish those days on any fan, but I regret that it is so difficult to put our current position into the correct context for those without our experience.

 

What do you expect will happen?

 

I completely agree with you both. I think you and I must have started in the same season RR, bottom of Division 4 and my uncle took me to my first game which was (i think) against Workington Town on a Tuesday evening, less than 2000 there if I remember correctly, a nil nil draw and it was throwing it down. Dark, dark days which are a long way from where we are now.

 

I think you have something there, I too remember the dark days of the 4th Division, my dad took me in 1960s. Contrast that with the experience of my 2 lads, they only saw a couple of seasons of League 1, but saw them at The Millennium in 2006 and Wembley in a cup Semi Final in the first few years after I started taking them.

It must have been tough for my dad back in the 60s and 70s, he supported the Reds from 1932 and apart from the odd season they were a solid 2nd division side occasionally dabbling with promotion to the 1st.

I'm happy with where we are, not so happy with the way that our best players went in January but there's sod-all I can do about that. We have an owner with the club in his heart and pockets which are unfortunately not bottomless. The club has to stand on it's own feet otherwise administration and relegation are certainties. Remember that even if we had kept those players, reached the playoffs and won them, there would still only be 18 to 20 thousand in Oakwell next season.

 

It is an age thing. I've been going since 1955. Seen some awful, depressing times and so the present, in so many ways, is very good. However it's all a bit like buying a pint. If you get a poor one, do you keep sipping, put up with it even though you aren't enjoying it. Or leave it and walk away. I've mostly kept sipping - and you do get used to it, accept it. This season, we had a great pint. And we've now spilled some of it and the bit that's left is going a bit flat. Carry on and finish it as the next one will hopefully be good too. Or better.

 

Maybe an age thing, and also a social media thing.












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I'd say I've a similar outlook to you despite growing up in the 90's.

Financially, the club was on its arse after losing its premier league status, which has to go down as one of the darkest parts of the club's history, including our prolonged stay in the 4th tier surely.

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Me too, but having been a lovely rich malty ruby-red strong caramel-malt English Bitter, it's now a pale hoppy "lager-look-alike" brew with unpleasant notes of defeatism.

I think I've been in CAMRA too long......

 

I hope we do raise the bar or I can see a long season ahead next time round.

 

I thought you meant an age thing as in all the old people moaning

I don't think it's related to age at all, just the type of person someone is and the general outlook they have.

 

Not sure a lot of fans who started mid to late 70s like me are the rarest of all breeds glory hunting Barnsley fans as it was just success after success. And we have experienced the most successful 40 years in our history

More seriously we lost the first 6 games I went to without scoring and I genuinely thought Jim iley was called Ileyout at first. It does give you perspective I guess.

 

Both my brother and I started about 76, my dad now in his 80's, was extremely disappointed with our January sales (called it buy one get one free!) and had just started going back down a bit (with me) and getting a feel good factor. He argued that if someone had put an offer in for the goalposts we would have sold them too!! (thought that was funny myself!

 

I moved to Barnsley when I was 13 and a couple of years later (1969 I went with a couple of friends to Oakwell and remember the days of Bob Earnshaw, Eric Brookes, Spud Murphy Eric Winstanley followed by Robson etc... Stood in the Ponty when we got 12-14000 regularly and the atmosphere was great (even if the footy wasn't the highest quality the aforementioned always put in a shift. Even as a schoolboy I could afford the admission I think it was about 1s 6d (old money) and about 5s for upper West and about 2s 6d used to walk from Monk Bretton and back every home match.

The thing was that Barnsley in the late 60'sand early '70s for someone coming from London via Blackpool was a dump. However, I grew to love the place as it was a bit like a frontier town. Rough and ready miners who worked hard and played hard (sorry for the cliche), The place had a sense of purpose and the people in it had self respect and justifiably so. People were generally honest hard working and even if you could guarantee seeing a good scrap outside the White Hart on a Friday or Saturday night the place felt safe even for a wimpy Southerner like me. I used to love the Mayor's parade with the big NCB floats and seeing the miners gala with the brass bands, Mayday Green market on a Saturday - the whole place was buzzing. People travelled from far and wide to the Panto at the Civic. BFC may have been a bit crap, but people still watched, enjoyed, and the humour on the terraces was brilliant. Even the moaning was entertaining with the 'gallows humour'

Maggie and the pit closures for me, took all that away. The town lost its sense of purpose and with it went the self respect and optimism of many. Many on here are doom and gloom and it has little to do with the football. The ground was to be frank, a '****-hole' albeit one with history and character.

The amount of negativity on here, be "the country is doomed because of the Torys in power, Brexit, Trump,...BFC board are not ambitious, Hecky will leave....blah..blah...

Since I first attended Oakwell I have seen Barnsley plumb the depths of struggling in the old 4th Division to the highs of the Premiership season and various cup wins,over the likes of man Utd beating Liverpool etc. This season started with the objective of establishing the team in the Championship and not be fighting relegation. Objective met and yet, just because we had a glimpse (and it was only a glimpse) of then playoffs it is now a disaster and the board and owner and even Hecky!! are coming in for some stick.

I think as you get older you do tend to have more experience and can reflect on what was and what now is. On that basis, for us 'gimmers' things now are nowhere near as bad as some of the younger posters believe

 

Can I ask an important question here. This thread seems to be full of older people saying how they all agree with each other about it be a younger person trait (to be unsatisfied with the club). My question is: are the serial moaners on here young? If not this whole thread is a bit pointless.

 

Isn't there also the sociological phenomena that the older you are the more right wing and adverse to change you become...

 

I don't think it has anything to do with age. I'm in my mid to late 40's and I am seriously frustrated by the events of January. Just because we have been tripe in the past doesn't mean we should be immune from disappointment now. I don't think 'oh well we had a real opportunity of doing something special this season but it doesn't matter because we're still better than we were in 1976'.

 

Hard to tell what age or gender people are on here, but if we're talking facebook football groups, and twitter, then a lot of the kneejerk posts seem to come from the younger end.

Having said that, I'll give you Brian the Blade.

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