I don't trust these new owners one bit. Their tenure so far could not have gone any worse!

As much as I like hammhill he is no longer good enough for the championship anymore and it's no good giving him a contract to get rid next year (hopefully we will be back in the championship next year). We should be fetching championship players in now to get us out of this league and ready for next season not player's to get us out of this division and then have to recruit again!

 

Yes, Championship players would love to take a huge pay cut to drop down a league, to a club with no manager, in the hope they may get promoted again. Winning idea!

 

Hammill is a rare breed who delivered in two different spells, but people seem to forget he hardly started last season for either manager

 

He played most games this season barring about a 10 game spell under Morais.

Whether he would’ve done had it not been for Isgrove & Hedges been so injury prone is another question but Hammill has played about 3/4ers of our games this season

 

It doesn't say Barnsley FC on the advert. There is no reference to us being a football club.

We're a pet project for a group of very rich individuals. A vanity project. There is no better example of that then the advert in Times Square which is basically a photo of Grace Hung saying "Look at me I'm in Times Square". Self promotion and little else. We're surrounded by adverts all the time, they're everywhere. I don't know anyone who spends their days researching these adverts on Google. Maybe something extremely stylish or innovative, but not that sh*t. At best it looks like an advert for a cuddly toy.



It's served no purpose as far as BFC is concerned. The argument that our new owners are rich and therefore know what they're doing is completely without substance. Rich people make the mistakes all the time. The amount of limited companies allowed to go to the wall by the super rich is criminal.

That we are a vanity project doesn't mean we can't be successful. Chelsea are a vanity project. But it does mean, at this stage of the new era, we're not going to attract investment or supporters from over seas. It is up to the consortium to invest if they want us to be successful. It's up to the consortium to attract local people and businesses to the club to help finance that challenge. Should they begin to make us successful then they'll have a product to sell, but at the moment they have nothing.

I'm actually in favour of the new owners, but that doesn't mean I'm incapable of analysing their actions or criticising their decisions:

My analysis thus far is this:

When they arrived we were out of the bottom three, but we were eventually relegated. We went backwards.

When they arrived we had a manager who had won us promotion and a cup, but we lost him to another club. He wasn't sacked, he was tempted elsewhere. There are differing views on that, many might think it was a good thing, but the language that came out of the club was a clear indication that they didn't think so.

His replacement was an omnishambles and has already been sacked.

We are currently without a manager.

There is much argument about how well the team and individual players will perform next season, but the reality is none of us know. The primary reason for that is that few have played at that level. Of those that have, their teams haven't done very well. The one player from the squad who we all knew was an excellent player at that level has been released.

Marketing of the early bird season tickets was poor to non-existent.

The advertisement in Times Square was entirely wasteful, and if the cost came out of the club's coffers I'm extremely annoyed about it.

It's early days, but what's gone on so far has been s*ite. Not that I'm saying it will continue to be so, but let's call a spade a spade. I'm all for turning us into a global brand, but putting up a photo of yourself in Times Square to allegedly attract investment from abroad, yet not even bother to address the supporters who have followed the club through a shambolic season, spending an awful lot of money, is pretty crappy.

 

Well, apart from the badge in the top left corner, the scarf around the woman’s neck and a depiction of our mascot which again displays the club’s badge...

 

It says "Barnsley F.C." on the club crest both at the top left corner, and on that "anime" style Toby's shirt.

But I do understand what you are saying, and agree with many parts of the post. It's just don't think that an advert in Times Square can hurt anything in the long term. If the owners end up a success, and in turn they grow an overseas following, than great. If not, then you don't get anywhere if you don't try.

As for the early bird marketing, completely agree. But I don't think the club has been any good at marketing it's ticketing offers for at least the past 15 years either, so I'll give them a pass on that(for now, if it's the same next year and beyond then questions need asking).

 

You can read that can you? I know you know what it is, as do I, because I'm a Barnsley fan, so if they're appealing to us, why is it in Times Square?

 

It will be more than readable to people in Time Square....

 

It's the effort that has gone into that, but the lack of effort that has gone in to appealing to people in the local area that has rankled.

 

Why not? What harm is it doing? It’s a marketing ploy. It’s not as though we’ve got a pile of money on the table and they’ve had to decide between an advertisement in Times Square or new hand dryers in the West Stand toilets. I honestly don’t see the problem with it and with thinking outside the box.

It’s very easy to pull the club down, if you’re so inclined.

 

This spice drug in Barnsley is taking over.

 

And on that, I 100% agree. There is no excuse for that. All I can think(and I'm guessing here!), is that they have had analysts on board, who have, in their wisdom, decided that a bit of local marketing won't shift enough extra tickets to cover their costs. I hope not, as that's a shocking conclusion to come to....

 

I would imagine there is a budget for marketing. So if it's used up on that rather than appealing to people who actually might put some back in then yes, it's doing harm.

 

That’s pure guesswork. Also, you’ve got to speculate to accumulate, irrespective of where the money has come from.

I personally loved seeing this, it certainly shows that we’re thinking outside the box.

When you say appealing to people who might actually put some back in, what are you talking about exactly? What sort of marketing campaign do you have in mind?

We’re currently sponsored by Palmer Construction, CK Beckett, Bapps for Bolts etc, all local firms which is excellent but isn’t at the sort of level to bring in serious money. The Times Square campaign isn’t just to highlight the club to potential fans, it also opens up a whole host of other business opportunities and I’m all for it.

 

How does it?

My pure guesswork at least has some foundation in reality. I don't think it's fantasy to assume there's a marketing budget. Almost every company has one. I don't think it's fantasy to aim that marketing budget at people/companies who are actually likely to buy the product or invest. Where as I have absolutely no idea what business opportunities you think the advertisement has opened up. It's not because I'm incapable of thinking about it, it's because it's just meaningless words with no substance.

As for a marketing campaign that I had in mind... I would have quite liked it if my dad, who has been ill and missed all the games since Christmas, who has had a season ticket for as long as I can remember, was told about the early bird offer so he could have bought next season's ticket during that time.

 

The only people who would know that related to Barnsley FC.... is a Barnsley fan. I've been to Times Square, its full of light... nothing much catches your attention. I don't know how many seconds that image was on for, but I wouldn't expect it to have had any tangible benefit.

 

Without meaning to sound incredibly callous and insensitive, why didn’t you just tell him? You’re a regular on here and there are countless threads going back months regarding the season ticket prices/renewal.

There was also information sent out by email, I got something in the post and I saw information in the matchday programmes.

As I said, it’s easy to pull the club down.

 

Fired us into the championship before and he could do it again. We need to be focused on building the best possible League 1 squad possible. Planning for life back in the championship would not only be a bit Wednesday but also pointless as we have to get there first!

 

Because he was very ill and season ticket renewal was the last thing on my mind when I visited him. And as I had no correspondence myself, I didn't actually know about the renewal until well into April, purely from going on here.