promotion to the premier league. Now do not get me wrong it WAS a wonderful acheivement.I was there at the match Vs Bradford which clinched it, the aftermath was wonderful and is in my heart forever. But sadly that was also the day that began the struggle for BFC to this present day. I now see my self watching BFC like the old days of cinema , "The Pictures" as we used to call them, when I was a kid, basically in the 60's. I began supporting BFC as a 6 year old, we were in the 4th division. I am wondering how soon I will be saying , "Hey this is where I came in " and then leave the cinema. .
Disagree, in my opinion, a few things buggered us up. Nigel spackman, (have we ever recovered) The day Eric winstanley left us ITV digital. I don't think we have ever recovered from the above 3.
I think it affected some fans perceptions of the club in a very bad way. Like too many beers it went to some of their heads and they expected too much. Even years later some think we are bigger than we were.
I don't agree with that at all. For the majority of my life we have been a second division/championship Club. I'm over 60. We didn't spend too many years in the old 4th division. The Spackman era was the problem with money being spent on too big a squad full of old crocks on big money. Sean Lewis during his aborted take over attempt told me the Club was haemorraging money. There were a a number of non-football staff at the time who were paid in excess of £70k a year. An Ex-director who's Wombwell based business went bust was also employed by the club on a substantial salary. You only need to look back on the Court cases ex staff took out on the club when their contracts were terminated to see what they were being paid.
Twaddle. Hoping nay expecting to stay at this level is miles apart from expecting promotion I think some will only be happy when we are in the fourth division again
. Correct. Considering we have played more games in the second tier than any other team in the country I think there is only Keith and one or two others who think we're expecting too much by wanting to stay in this league.
It's not just Keef, it's the "board". Cryne might have rescued the club but he's doing a great job of pushing it back again.
We're supposed to be an established championship club but while other clubs have progressed we have just stagnated and it genuinely feels like we are dying a long slow lingering death.
A lot of other clubs haven't progressed at all,when you look through the teams in the Championship (or Div 2) from years gone by,there are a lot you will have forgotten were there with us at the time,just as a few teams who've played in Div 1 and Premier......Oxford,Oldham, Portsmouth, Bradford, LeytonOrient,Wimbledon are just a few who spring to mind....... and Sheff U
I know where you're coming from, but I would say it wasn't the year in the Prem as such, it was the attempt to stay there by buying people like Hristov for big (for us) money and on big contracts that did it. We should have stuck with the side that got promotion augmented with a few experienced premiership players on sensible contracts. We probably would still have got relegated but our finances would have been better and we wouldn't have got relegated in 2002 or gone into admin.
Add to this the closure of the pits. Back in the early eighties we were one of the better supported teams in the division. The town is on its arse & hence there's little in the way of local benefactors to bank roll the club & £28 a game is too much for whats on offer
Not quite. It was the management of relegation, especially the first season back down when we attempted to get a very achievable promotion with a rookie manager in charge. Plus selling Redfearn didn't help, nor did signing Mike Sheron on silly money. Then some of the factors were absolutely beyond anyone's control, such as the very serious injuries sustained to Watson and Hristov in the first month of the season. Had they stayed fit, then John Hendrie may still have been in football management now. Fine lines.