King Keith..

If Brown hadn't pole axed Butterfield he probably would have been sold in the January window. Drinkwater still would have left as he wasn't our player to refuse a bid for. Vaz Te would probably have still gone, as players do who perform at the level he was for us.

 

PS

That's not to say he isn't a funny bloke and he hasn't got any style, because he is and he has. I can understand why people like that about him. For me, that makes things worse. To have all that charisma, all that charm, only to use it to belittle our town/club/fans at every opportunity is criminal in my opinion. He could have sold us to the wider footballing world better than any manager we've had before, he could have appealed to the Barnsley public better than any manager we've had before, but he never even tried. He came here with a chip on his shoulder and he left with it firmly in tact.

Barnsley is a good place with good people. He never bothered to get to know us or the town and I'd be surprised if he saw anything of Barnsley other than the A628 and Oakwell.

 

In my opinion he did completely. He wanted out for whatever reason. I think it was the Birmingham and/or Blackburn game at Xmas last year, 2 abject performances. Flitcroft was trying to gee the team up and he just sat there for the full 90 and didn't move once. He was very, very negative in the press at that time as well. I'm not one that thinks managers should wave their arms around on the touchline for the fun of it, but there was a clear change in his actions that, to me, signaled that he wanted out.

 

I still have mixed feelings to this day about Keith. I was very supportive when he took over and feel like I frequently gave him the benefit of the doubt. Certainly more than other managers we've had with better records than he.

I was encouraged by the fact that he was trying to establish a brand of football throughout the club and seemed to have longer term aims other than simply surviving in the division. I still don't think he was particularly helped behind the scenes with this, certainly not to the extent that Flitcroft has been. I liked how he developed players like Butterfield and Vaz Te. I liked his swagger and the fact that he had a bit of charisma unlike countless other managers we've had.

However, I had two huge issues with him that refused to go away and were the reason why in the end, I wasn't too gutted to see him depart. Firstly and perhaps obviously, results. There's no way round it, they weren't good enough. Despite the mitigating factors of selling players, financial restraints, injuries etc we were plummeting towards League 1 and had he stayed there's no doubt in my mind that's where we would have ended up.

Secondly, his constant criticism of the fans. I tolerated the 'tightrope with no legs' comments as I feel he had a point with that. I tolerated the requests for patience as I appreciated what he was trying to do would take time. What I couldn't tolerate was blaming fans for not being encouraging, being critical or just not turning up. Ticket pricing as it was coupled with increasingly poor results was hardly the advert required to bring folk through the gates. Even if he had a point, his maungy attitude certainly wasn't going to change it for the better. He would have been better served using his undoubted humour in a positive way rather than constant sniping at the people paying his wages. And anyway, I always though he got quite an easy ride from the fans probably because we were all do disillusioned with how things we're that we couldn't be bothered.

 

Always remember Simon Davey getting a much tougher time with our fans, Hill didn't know he was born!

 

It was right interesting though. Never a dull moment. Not with Kanye Hill

 

Mick mccarthy, ronnie glavin, david hirst , ashley ward, de zeeuw and neil redfearn, just 6 players off the top of my head who i have watched in my time supporting barnsley, all who have for varying reasons left oakwell, , and imho all were far better than anyone that hill lost in his time here. Also seen plenty of good uns get injured, too many to remember,Am sure there are plenty before my time that other bbser's will remember with the same feelings(wasn't 1 of the busby babes formerly a red ?). But for some reason keith hill is the unluckiest manager alive because, shock horror, barnsley fc sold a couple or some got injured. Absolute tosh, hill simply showed himself to be a manager who buckled horribly when the pressure hit. I dont wish ill health or bad luck on either hill or the rochdale fans but i couldnt care less what happens to them 1 way or another football wise.

 

Shame the football wasn't.

 

Apart from the 90 on the pitch.

**** manager and a ****** of a human being. Absolutely no ill will towards Rochdale FC and the supporters though. If owt it should be the other way round.

 

I have never quite got the him being anti-the fans thing though, I still think its a myth. When this came up previosuly no-one could really find evidence of him having said anything bad about the fans. He made some (very valid IMO) points when he first came in about people being on the players backs after the second game, the atmosphere at Oakwell not being conducive to patient football, and unrealitic expectations. All of which in repsonse to a baying press. Which he should have ignored.

I accept he is/was a bigpheaded loudmouth and compeltely understand why that pissed some off. I just loved it

 

The early days? Like when he lost his first three home games in a week and started slagging the club and the fans from the off. Great times.

 

Disagree. Some of my favourite ever Barnsley games were in that period. and after the dour football of Mark Robins tenure anything was going to be exciting

 

You must not have gone in 2012 much then. Utter ***** the majority of it.

 

But we would have had £2 million to reinvest in January rather than the loss of our best player and then not being able to replace him. Maybe we'd have signed Drinkwater with that money? Or got Carayol like we were after.

Who knows? That's why I cling to the hope that it could've been great. Ah well.

 

Not people, just Conan & Mark.

 

It was one big Keith love-in at the start of October 2012. Admittedly mainly involving me

http://bbs.barnsleyfc.org.uk/showthread.php?174743-My-love-for-Keith-Hill-is-now-unconditional

http://bbs.barnsleyfc.org.uk/showthread.php?175210-To-Keith-Hill-a-love-letter

 

No, I mean the first 4 or 5 months where we were in mid table playing brilliant football with a squad of no hopers and misfits. Then.

 

"I have never quite got the him being anti-the fans thing though, I still think its a myth."

Do you know that thing people do when they make a noise like a sheep when they're pronouncing Barnsley? "Oh you're from Baaaaaaarnsley." You must have heard it, every thick fcuker does it when they're trying to mock the way we speak. Of course, no one from Barnsley actually does speak like that, but that doesn't seem to stop them. Keith Hill did that. Multiple times in the same interview on Radio Sheffield. The manager of our club, our representative in the media, the voice not just for the club, but in some way for the town, mocked us and tried to belittle us on radio. It's a good job I wasn't within earshot, because I'd have ******* lamped him.

That's just one example, extreme enough in itself and in my opinion an immediate sacking offence, but there were hundreds (literally) of others. Never so in your face, often sly and underhand, but for some reason I just can't figure out, you refuse to acknowledge them. It's always puzzled me, you're clearly a very intelligent bloke, sensitive too, but for some reason you never saw it and I can't understand why. I don't hold it against you, I think you're a really sound bloke, but to this day I find it very odd that you couldn't see when someone was purposefully and repeatedly taking digs at us our club and our town.

 

It could've been w ank too. Just as it ended up being.

 

Keeeeeeeeeeeeeef!!!!

Top fella.