I cannot understand why Pat hasn't been able to find a buyer

This guy started with next to nothing and built a health services business that was eventually floated on the stock market at a value of ONE £££ BILLION.
He jumped on planes and travelled the world to gain business from clients throughout the world.

He has persistently said that he has only purchased Barnsley Football Club to save it from administration and that he is just the caretaker until he can find someone to take the club off his hands ...........and yet for 8 years he has been unable to sell a Championship club with next to no debt.

In that 8 years we have been anchored to the bottom of the Championship and now we are relegated

Pat Cryne has saved the club (which we will always be thankful for)...........but then he has just sat on it.......not moving forward, sideways or backward (except for today).

Taking his track record as a business man into account......his reluctance or inability to find new owners for the club just doesn't add up

 

The club is now only worth the players contracts isn't it.

Only the ground isn't strictly speaking the club's.

That will put folk off straight away.

Understand the reasoning behind it but your unlikely to sell a club when there isn't much to sell.

 

Dnt think where as attractive to these sugar daddies in compar to leeds or forest although no doubt if we were to get one and he took us back to prem oakwell would be full evey week

 

The biggest value the club had was Championship status, now we don't even have that. He's going to have to put his hands in his pockets just to get into the top half next season, although he'll probably be looking at O'Grady and Jennings and thinking there's £2m between them two if sold.

 

In a word it's because he doesn't have an asset that anyone wants to buy. We don't have a massive fan base or the capacity to grow the fan base in the current economic climate. Teams like Portsmouth and Coventry have a far greater potential for growth than we do. An international investor would wonder what benefit or kudos he or she would gain from owning Barnsley FC. We're hardly back page news in this country so we're hardly going to register on the Richter Scale internationally.

When I look at the dodgy background of some foreign investors in to the English leagues I really do wonder if an element of money laundering is taking place and in his defence Patrick Cryne has always said he would only sell to the right investor and just maybe he's quickly despatched some of these chancers before it went public.

If I have a criticism of Patrick Cryne it would be his choice of people to run the club on his behalf as a hands-off owner. Ridsdale, on paper seemed to have the pedegree but didn't seem to have learnt from his mistakes at Leeds and I always thought Don Rowing was too lightweight in that role. We desperately needed a marketing man to sell the Club and drive us forward both on and off the field. When I see Virgin Atlantic investing in Huddersfield Town and sponsorhip from John Smiths at their Stadium I realise how low we've sunk. Prince Charles once recounted a tale of how his helicopter pilot was using Oakwell as a navigation aid when he could see John Smiths or Barnsley Bitter emblazoned on the roof of one of our stands. Then again with the town laid low economically there's little wonder we can't attract that sort of sponsorship and that's why we're not an attractive proposition for outside investors.

 

..................................In a word it's because he doesn't have an asset that anyone wants to buy. We don't have a massive fan base or the capacity to grow the fan base in the current economic climate. Teams like Portsmouth and Coventry have a far greater potential for growth than we do. An international investor would wonder what benefit or kudos he or she would gain from owning Barnsley FC......................................

Are we not bigger than Burnley or Wigan or Bolton or Blackpool or Blackburn ????????

How are bankrupt clubs such as Portsmouth and Coventry, one of which aint even got a ground (like Rovrum hadn't a couple of years ago and are likely now to replace us in the Championship).....have in your words 'a greater potential for growth' than Barnsley?

I think you are getting Barnsley Football Club mixed up with Frickley Football Club.

 

No I think it's you who's making Barnsley FC out to be bigger than the Club really is. Dave Whelan has deeper pockets than Patrick Cryne and they haven't had a managerial turn over like we have. Portsmouth is a city with a population in excess of 200,000 and Coventry a city with a population in excess of 300,000. Blackburn a population in excess of 100,000. Bolton's population nudging 140,000. The latter two have both had a longer time in the Premier Division than we did and if I was an outside investor I would think both Pompey and Coventry have sunk as low as they can and might be worth investing in because of the capacity for growth there.

 

A think if us blackburn and bolton got promoted to premiership at same time we could pull in gates just as big as them pompy and cov I agree with though but if we got to prem they would all come out of the woodwork and oakwell would be full of season ticket holders as it was in 98

 

We'll be under Italian ownership come next season, mark my words!

 

Patrick as done a decent job giving money to recent managers, only trouble was it was given to the wrong managers that only knew bargain basement players. They never aimed higher. Most successful teams build from the back and this is where we have always failed. I was always against foreign ownership, but I don't think it could be as bad as the last few years. Maybe its time Patrick sold us, but I hope he doesn't hold out and want to make a profit. He has to think we are now a 3 tier club. Fingers crossed a buyer can be brought in very soon so a squad be be built and challenge for Championship return. I am sure the right person could clear the decks and maybe buy the club outright. Just a thought from me thats all. No matter what happens I will support them as many of you would too.
You Reds.

 

Yeh............and Barnsley with a population of 240,000 surrounded on all sides by approximately FOUR FOOOKING MILLION

So point lost there cocker

 

Isnt it just the players/ team thats for sale wasnt the club split into two arms , so who ever bought the team would have to pay rent to play on oakwell, similar to what happened at boro many years ago when the said owners then failed to pay the rent and were the locked out. I think it was said that this way it stopped anybody coming in racking up debts against the land and thus causing us to go into administration.

 

Aye. And there's about 232000 of them surrounded by four fooking million on all sides who don't turn up every week.

Crowds went up when we were promoted in 1997 and would if we got there again. But even if we did, should we get up and stay up the ground would be half empty within two to three seasons when the novelty wore off.

The reality is that ours isn't a hugely supported club. We have a number of historically big clubs within 20 or so miles - the Sheffield clubs and leeds, plus other clubs of presently comparable status within even less distance in donny and Rotherham.

The same would be said of the greater manchester/Lancashire clubs but look at the history of the blackburns and burnley's. League titles, multiple trophies. Geographically and economically the Barnsley area and those surrounding would lead you to conclude there's massive potential in the club. But I think there's a huge amount more apathy towards Barnsley football club around Barnsley than there is towards the clubs in some of those towns. There's probably as many man utd fans in Barnsley as there are in Bolton or Blackburn or Preston. Maybe less - but there's also a hell of a lot of wendies, blades and leeds fans too, plus the random Liverpool and Chelsea lot and presumably some latter day man city fanatics.

I'd compare us against donny. Comparing the two, what would make a foreign or any previously unattached investor choose us over them?

 

IF we were to get back to the Premier Division AND we were to stay there I'm not sure crowds would drop off to the extent that you say but otherwise I agree with the points you make.

 

if we were ti get up and stay up a dont think crowds would drop in 97 we could of sold more season tickets then what we did

 

Who'd want to buy a football club stripped of it's assets?

It should be the surprise of nobody that we've not been bought out.

 

FFP is already in force in League One. You spend what you generate. In theory that should be to our advantage.