Not a podcast

That is one hell of a gamble, Red Rain!

 

If the fans choose to walk away from the Club then it is the fault of the Club for not providing a product that is worthy of our hard earned coin.

You can't, in all honesty lay the blame at Patrick Cryne, for the constant changes of strategy and managers and then point the finger of blame at fans who have, in the main been patient with his tenure at the Club when they no longer wish to buy in to what appears to be the current flavour at Oakwell.

The football at Oakwell this season has been largely uninspiring and it certainly isn't winning football. Discounting the JPT we haven't won at home since the 26th September. 3 months without a win - almost third of our home fixtures without anything to get excited about. And yet if I decide I have better ways of spending Saturday afternoons and Tuesday evenings next season it's my fault if it all goes pear shaped at Oakwell???

 

Your post gets to the catch 22 that is at the very heart of football finance.

The catch 22 is this. A club cannot improve its poor team if it does not have finance. Finance comes from the paying public. The paying public will not turn up in sufficient numbers if the team is poor.

The question is this. How do you think that the club can break this circle if it no longer has a sugar daddy, because Patrick Cryne is not going to live for ever. None of us are.

I have a totally different view of supporting the club to the view that you have expressed. I continue to turn up through the bad times because I have faith that my continued support will eventually be rewarded with a better team. Eventually being the operative word here. If people like me do not continue to support the club when others walk away, there will be no club to walk back to when times improve.

 

But purely to put the opposite argument, at the level we have sunk to now, will continued support ever lift us up again to challenge in League One? What would it mean? 8,000 becomes 10,000? Would that really be enough? I think we have squandered the position we had after Ritchie's promotion. I think that another uplift will depend on proper investment. And I still think that the situation with the ground and assets scuppers any chance of that as things stand. I suppose you could say in short - I'm depressed about the state of the club!

 

First time I've listened to one of these and I enjoyed it. Agreed with a lot of what you said.

Loved the Dale Jennings sidetrack and the fact that it temporarily derailed you from your main point!

Will be tuning in regularly going forward. Thanks for taking the time to do them.

 

So sticking with a strategy blindly for 5 years regardless of ongoing impact would not be PC's fault but the fans who have only two courses of action open to them?!

I'm sorry but that just isn't logical.

And you don't have a monopoly on understanding that there's more to it than results.

 

You are clearly "lucky" enough not to have other potentially more enjoyable pursuits calling for your time.

 

Life will go on.

 

Taking away the issue of the ground, which we will have to agree to disagree on, why else would someone want to invest in Barnsley Football Club. I can tell you why they would not. The town is small, unattractive, has a depressed economy and low disposable income per head of population. The football team has lots of competition within a 20 mile radius with many of those teams capable of attracting better support for a winning team. The ground has only 16,000 seats for home supporters and gates are therefore limited to that figure plus the away support. Revenue is therefore limited and the chance of any return on an investment more so.

 

That mirrors my view exactly RR. What a shame though that so many on here choose to ridicule it when such a view is expressed.

I didn't spend most of my adult life telling people who will never, in their lives, set foot anywhere near Oakwell that I am a Barnsley supporter for nothing. I told them this simply because it's true, come rain or come shine. Nobody ever ridiculed me for my faith.

The answer is simple enough. If you don't like the product then stay away and leave the supporting to those who mean it.

 

Your character is right. It's a forum. Debate and discussion. And whilst the videos were originally meant as a bit of a giggle, I've found them a great replacement for the blogs which had become stale and consumed time which is very much at a premium for me nowadays. So they're there to be shot at.

Me too. Because I'm usually half cut on those occasions.

I get that. But sometimes I'm not half cut but still feel like getting a few things off my pigeon chest and instead of posting umpteen threads on here it's easier to just bang it all on video and let folk who might want to know what I think, hear what I think. I'm giving folk that option. About 300 or so folk watch these uploads, but plenty will see the thread or tweet and think "**** that off". I got treble the amount of 'viewers' for the blog posts. I'd be a ******* terrible salesman.

Not really. I referred to Patrick's reasoning for dismissing Danny Wilson. It formed part of the narrative (another term I hate), it set up my next few minutes of ********. Which you have to 100% always remember, that's all it is. It's ******** opinion from just another bloke who watches BFC. I'm not judge or jury. I'm just expressing myself.

I also referred to Lee Johnson describe the draw against Sheff Utd as feeling like a win. And read out the Ryan Williams statement upon signing for the club. So I get where you're coming from, but I hardly think those three examples sound like the stuff you're referring to in the next bit I'm quoting below.....

......Let's take the three examples one by one.

Mr Cryne referred to dead fish eyes, being dragged into a relegation battle as two reasons for dismissing Danny Wilson. I've quoted him on that in the video. I don't believe in hindsight he didn't think they had dead fish eyes. I don't think hope or expectation came into it. And I doubt he thought we wanted to hear him say that...

None of the quoted paragraph of yours relates to me repeating what Lee Johnson said about the United result. If you'd said I'd mocked his voice (badly) I'd have accepted that.

And my point of reading out the Williams statement was to suggest that it didn't sound like something I've ever heard out of the mouth of a footballer. It read like stuff he was told to say, or, stuff that he didn't say but someone said for him.....


But yes, you shouldn't take everything said by people at face value, and so on and so on, for the reason you set out above. I agree with that. But humans will always do that. Look to the past to understand the present or anticipate the future. Basic instinct. Which leads me onto this......

....Are you not falling into the trap of believing what someone has said? You've just said I shouldn't read things that folk have said previously and gave me reasons why I shouldn't do that and even suggested I was to blame if I've read or heard someone say something and believed them.

Yet, here you are (above quote) blatantly pedalling stuff you've heard Cryne say. Hmmmm.

I've been saying that for years, and I reckon in Hill and Wilson we've had men in position to give that kind of time/patience. But that's the point - you can't just back any old wally. This manager I was willing to see given time (I'm not going anywhere so I'm willing to see owt aren't I really?) but from being one of his staunchest supporters, right up until that Altrincham embarrassment I am now at the point where I don't have faith in him. I don't believe he's very good. He might well be eventually, as might the players and so I can only see what happens because yep, apathy or not, I'll always be here and always a red. I'm not at the stage where I can't be arsed with the club and our results and status don't dictate my support. But I can't give you one example, one thing that I'm impressed with regards Lee Johnson. He's a nice bloke, I like him, I wanted him to be THE man and I still hope he proves me and many others wrong. I'm not calling for his head. I did ask him to go after Altrincham but I'm not a broken record. My opinion, my ******** is no more worthy of being heard/read than the next wally's. But aye, fully endorse the long term view but with a manager showing signs of achieving something, anything. Take the first four games away of his tenure and the JPT wins (that's 8 wins in total) and the rest is unacceptable for any club, let alone a fairly big and well supported one as ours is. I don't demand more, but I do expect a hell of a lot better than I've seen since February and his arrival.



Thanks for your feedback.

 

Haha. You should see him now. He's so overweight. When your face is looking really fat then the rest must look horrendous. No wonder MK are releasing him next month.

Chuffed to read your feedback. Nice one.

 

Sanctimonious much

 

Put like that, why bother?

I maintain that should we ever get back to the Premier League we'd get 30k minimum if the ground held it

 

All good points and all well made.

I am very much more patient than most people on here and I guess that I am searching for a reason that we should not do the same things that have failed us so many times before. There is no point treating a headache by banging your head against a wall, and when that does not work, bang your head against a wall some more. Being patient with a manager is not an issue if we are winning games. The problem is that the last 14 managers have not won games consistently. Being patient only becomes an issue when you have sacked the last 14 managers because their record has not been good enough, and the next manger's record is not good enough, and that is still the preferred solution for many.

 

But this is division three with a playoff budget and we're losing more than anyone else.

 

Patience young Jedi.

 

Cryne told me that Luke Berry was sold because he 'lacked pace'.

 

He could have sold most of the team based on that then.

 

Sometimes the catalyst for change comes from those in charge of the Club. There are times you have to speculate to accumulate.

I first started going regularly to Oakwell in season 1966/67 when we down at the foot of the old fourth division and it looked like we were going out of business. Ernest Dennis and Geoff Buckle pumped in some of their own money to enable the Club to go out and buy Barrie Thomas and Johnny Evans for £10K. Those signings had an impact on the gates. The first game they played at Oakwell saw the attendance rise to just under 5K and after two very good away games on their return to Oakwell 11.5K turned out to see them.