Things that I loved About Being a Barnsley Fan That Have Gone.

For years whatever the state of our team or the style of play or the results we always gad at least one payer who stayed for years and who was talented and who the opposition we scared of and wished we was in their team. I'm not talking about stalwarts about good solid professionals like Joy Joyce or Bobby Hassell who are good solid pros with a lot to offer but real quality players who made an indelible mark on the club. Someone who as a kid you identified with and wanted to be.

I guess the last player that came anywhere near this was Brian Howard though even his case it is perhaps stretching a point given that his stay was 3 and a bit years but with him in the team in his prime we had a player respected and feared by the opposition. We have had good players since in Vaz Te, Stones, Hamill and Butterfield but none stayed with us long enough or were at their true peak which is a shame but symptomatic of the shift in modern football where players chase cash and there is always something better on offer somewhere else.

The first player of this type that I remember was Ronnie Glavin.



With Ronnie in his prime running at defenders causing mayhem hair flying in the breeze you could see the opposition shrink as he attacked them. You would feel that surge of pride seeing him in the red shirt. And he became part of the fabric of the history of our beautiful club.

At the same time we had local legend Mick McCarthy putting his body on the line. Fire, guts and passion allied with genuine ability. Mick personified the town and the club.



Taking over from Ronnie we then signed two players who pretty much single handedly kept us in Division one for years in Paul Futcher and Clive Baker.



Futcher despite looking like the result of some experiment in an East German lab played football with grace and ease and style. Nothing seemed like effort. He beat the opposition forwards by being quicker in thought than they could ever be. I remember seeing him in the flesh once and being too awed to speak to him. Before us his temper had seen him bounce round many clubs with us he found a home we loved him and he loved us. My heart broke a little when he left.

Clive Baker a diminutive genius in a school of giants. Agile, brave. I lost count of the games he won us on his own. The away points we scraped as he dove and caught and stretched every sinew. He would make the biggest player look small.

Up front Dave Currie came flickered into beautiful life but was gone a little too quickly to fall into this. category.

Following on from these two came publicans favourite Gerry Taggart and the living god that is Neil Redfearn.



Taggart married old school hard as fook defending with no little skill and an ability to bring the ball out from the back and score some important goals as well as sone great legends like getting himself set off so he could go on the lash to Blackpool. You could see opposition forwards shrink as they came on the pitched and saw man mountain Gerry playing for them. He even survived the gayest chant ever in oooh Gerry Gerry to become a local hero.



What can anyone with Barnsley in their heart say about Redders. We've had more skilful players, 'better' players but no one with the heart and drive of Redfearn. Probably the most influential figure in Barnsley's history. Goals goals goals. Driving the team on. Inspirational. Again a bloke who had shunted from club to club before coming home to Oakwell.

Overlapping Redfearn we had De Zeeuw and another fantastic keeper in Dave Watson.

De Zeeuw the best defender we have ever had. Deceptively fast. Good in the air and centre forwards always fell for one of his two tricks.

Watson a local lad full of natural ability. Another relatively small keeper. Used his ability to read the game to act as an extra defender coming out of his area to mop up and his ability and agility to defend often fragile leads as we attacked. I have never been more upset by anything in football than the injury the robbed him of his career and the England appearances that would surely have come.

This type of player then slowed to a trickle as ideas like loyalty and forging a good career became outmoded and players moved on. I suppose you could make an argument for Dyer a natural goalscorer who served us well. Certainly after relegation to Division 3 he was on a different level to team mates and opposition.

I guess I can be accused of having a nostalgia fest. But I guess the point I'm trying to make is how do we as fans identify with the club and players if we no longer have inspirational figures to mould our hopes and ambitions around. I know for myself I feel less emotionally involved over the last few years with the revolving door of players signed on loan or short term contracts. It's disillusioning and depressing and that important link seems broken.

Love Barnsley Hate Football.

 

Even at end of 90s money wasn't doing the talking and so clubs didn't just buy any half decent players.

Howard staying for a while being the exception with millennium but I'm not sure we ever got a bid for the £10m man. More like he forces a move by playing poor for months

 

For entertainment value you missed out Rodger Wylde. He was at the end of his career, but the way he treated every goal as if he'd just got the winner at Wembley was fantastic in front of crowds of less than 4,000. And we now know that the lengthy spell he had out of the team was because he was being treated for cancer, and yet he came back and fired us to the top of the league for a short spell.

Incidentally, I know what you mean about being dumbstruck when you had the chance to talk to Futch. I once saw Futch and Baker, pints in hand, stood at the side of the dance floor in Whispers and looking completely out of place. Two of the first names I put down in my all time favourite Reds team though.

 

Managers lasted a bit longer back then

And had the chance to build a squad of permanently contracted players, not loannees or folk passing through.

But like, whatever. Football's great now, it's on the telly a lot and everything.

 

It was the footballing equivalent of meeting your musical hero isn't it? I inched interviewed Paul Weller for a student rag took me 10 minutes to breathe.

Hi Rodger the dodger. I loved those celebrations. Knowing the backdrop now it's early to understand why.

I guess I missed Aggie off the list as well. Underrated but again a player of understated genius.

 

Luke Steele comes close to this lot for me. Long serving, some truly brilliant performances. A fair proportion of our fans spend most of their time slagging him off.

 

And Bobby....

 

I didn't know that. This is the first I've ever heard of it.

 

Good post, would also add Ian Banks, Gary Fleming & Higgy....

 

He talks about it in his book. At the time the club and Wylde decided to keep it to themselves, but when he got back to fitness Clarkey was reluctant to play him, even though he was doing well in the reserves. Eventually Sheffield United (his boyhood team, rather than Wednesday, who he played for) tried to take him on loan, but Clarkey knocked them back and stuck Wylde in the team. He then got 12 goals in the last 16 games and kept us up. He continued to score at the beginning of the next season and his 2 goals against Plymouth took us top of the table, but for some reason he doesn't even mention this in his book. It's a good read, by the way, but it concentrates more on his physio years than his playing ones. You can almost hear him laughing as you're reading it, as he takes the pi55 out of himself as much as he does others, especially Gary Megson.

 

I thought about Luke when I wrote this. He's the nearest of our current squad but he just fails to make that tradition from great servant of the club like Joe Joyce or Bobby or Darren Bernard to that extra bit of stardust. That type of player that any knowledgeable opposition fan knows and fears when his name is read out.

 

He would go on my list too.

 

Mine too, although Barnard would have been at the top of mine, and he doesn't make it either.

 

It's Dazzllers cheeky smile and flicks hair isn't it. Fantastic player and should probably have been in but I didn't want to bore on too much.

 

To be fair I don't think the opposition fans or teams hold Luke in the same sort of regard they would Glavin or Redfearn or McCarthy or Taggart. I don't see Luke in quite that class. More in the loyal servant class.

 

Only because our defence is so bad. I reckon they've robbed him of his place in the hall of fame. Lots of teams do praise Steele though and say they would like him to be theirs.

 

You interviewed Weller...wow!

 

Re: You interviewed Weller...wow!

Couldn't agree more... When I think back to the likes of Glavin, Banks, Parker, Aylott, Cooper and Currie, Redfearn etc, we had real quality in those sides with players genuinely capable of hurting the opposition. Nowadays we seem to get a brand new team every 12 months with a constant merry-go-round of mediocre talent. I too have started to lose interest and what really says it all is that when we lose to a 94th minute goal, I don't really care... There's not much to feel loyal or passionate about anymore. Jesus, I'm starting to sound like bloody Philip Larkin... Really must cheer up.

 

Paying £2.40 to get in, is up there in my top five things I miss about barnsley!

 

Re: You interviewed Weller...wow!