John Hendrie (the manager)

This forum has done Keith Hill/Mark Robins/David Flitcroft/Simon Davey threads to death. But I can't remember so many debates on the tenure of Super John. Thought it'd be an interesting topic for us to discuss.

So... was he good, bad, or just meh?

 

For a glorious three week period we were amazing.

 

He should never have been given the job.

He was a populist appointment designed to lift a heartbroken fanbase, but in so doing we wasted a precious year of parachute payments.

We had the best squad in our history, and were financially as strong as we have ever been, and we pinned our hopes on, essentially, a lovely man with no experience. It wasn't good for the club, and he never managed again.

Mistakes happen!

 

His tenure wasn't that bad considering is lack of experience. I always thought that there was something to build on but the club chose to get shut instead of bringing in an experienced mentor.

 

21 November 1998 Sunderland 2-3 Barnsley - against the top of league, who hadn't lost a game all season, only lost 3 by the end of the season and just this one at home, who went on to recorded 105 points. We had 10 men from the 37th minute and missed a penalty.

27 November 1998 Barnsley 7-1 Huddersfield - and let's be reight, we should have had 15 (Sean McClare missed a hattrick of sitters alone) and could have got 20.

We've never been better than that. That week was as good as Barnsley have ever been. Barnard, Eaden, Hignett, Ward and Dyer at their absolute best, marauding forward, simply destroying the opposition who just couldn't get close to being able to cope. Pass and move like the majority of teams have never played. And if the opposition dared attack us Morgan and De Zeeuw would kick them in to the wall bottom.

But Ward left (Hignett, Ward and Dyer just played that one game against Huddersfield together), Dyer struggled with injuries over the next few months and our front two consisted of any combination of Karl Rose, Deon Burton, Mike Turner and Don Goodman. From heaven to hell. And then we got Sheron...

On the whole Hendrie didn't do a very good job, but he was the wrong appointment, it was a mistake, and I'm not going to start slagging him off because he was a good guy and fantastic player, I'd prefer to just remember that.

 

Wasted opportunity. John Dennis could've taken his time to attract a really solid proven man - we had money, a good squad, peak attendances... dreadful really.

 

Looking back, we'd just come down from the Premier, Oakwell was still getting packed out every week, and we still had a squad of very good players - that should have been appealing to some very good managers, it does seem daft that a player got his first (and only) job in management.

If it wasn't for Hendrie we'd probably have never seen Higgy at the club, certainly one of the best players we've had in the nearly thirty years I've been going.

The turning point in our history was the play-off final defeat, that sort of highlighted the overspend which eventually lead to administration, relegation and loss of fans which never really came back after promotion which meant we never had a chance to compete in nearly a decade back at second tier level.

 

Appointing Hendrie and losing the play-off final have led us to where we are today.

It just shows how fine a line a football club treads: Barnard apparently only took the penalty at Wembley because of a matey agreement with Hignett. I take one, you take one, I take one.... and it happened to be Barnard's turn.

Had John Dennis not gone for Hendrie, we might have had two goes at promotion, and not just one.

Not that I'm blaming anyone. It just happens. Dennis didn't appoint Hendrie to see him fail; Hendrie didn't want to fail; and Barnard didn't want to miss. Looking back, though, those decisions have led to us being where we are now.

 

A poor appointment lacking any vision but one made from the heart from John Dennis and Hendrie gave it his best shot but he just lacked the experience and knowledge to drive us forward. We just needed an experienced hand to drive that fantastic team forward. As I understand it behind the scenes Hendrie was a divisive character this is certainly hinted at quite strongly in Lars Lees book. I was devastated when we flogged Jan Aage and I still suspect it wasn't a footballing decision on Hendrie's part. Some of the decisions and mistakes he made reminded me of Flitcroft last season.

I admired Hendrie as a player skilful, whole hearted and talented but his qualities as a player hindered hm as a manager.

Fine margins as someone else said. But in the annals of Barnsley FC a pretty catastrophic mistake.


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For me it was the biggest mistake JD made, I wasn't happy with the appointment at the time but I went with it and supported him until the very end. I still believe that with the right appointment we would have been serious promotion contenders. The rest is history as they say.

 

In fairness to Hendrie I think we were in the top 10 of the Championship when he was sacked.

 

With a team that should've got promoted.

 

Winnie should have been appointed as caretaker, and with that, the Board would have been given time to make the right appointment.

 

All we lacked was Ashley Ward, and a decent keeper in my opinion.

Dave Bassett recruited Shipperley and Miller and Bob's your uncle.


I can see why we saw it as a failed appointment. Perhaps appointing a quality, well known manager at that time may have been the better option were we looking for an instant return to the Prem. However, if that 'was' the plan, we hardly backed JH in the Summer did we? We lost our star player, and only really recruited once Ward went. I think JD was hoping he'd drop on again, as he did with Danny.

 

Should never have been given the job, a lazy decision really by JD. Also, as soon as he became manager Fjortoft was pushed out out of spite, simple as that. Too good a player to be jettisoned on the basis of personal huffy from the manager because a player took your place in the team previously.

 

There's a whole load of crap in this thread which seeks to attribute the appointment of Hendrie as a catalyst for our spiral down the league

It ignores the fact that we ended up in the play offs after all that. And had our second chance.

And that we have always been roughly where we are now.

And always will be.

Ceteris paribus of course

 

We've always been the the third tier ?

 

Roughly.

Yep

 

Swindon FA cup away 0-0 and Rose and Goodman up front? Drenched.

 

Without JH there would have been no Hignett at BFC, and we would gave got half as much for Ashley Ward.