He was sacked and rightly so. This was the official statement at the time : "Following a long discussion about the way forward for Barnsley Football Club and David Bassett, the board of directors have reluctantly agreed with David that there be a parting of the ways." . The "way forward" meaning we don't like the style of tootball and why Spackman was brought in, his polar opposite. It was the right decision - we were awful, averaging less than a goal per game, playing some of, if not the worst football I have ever seen.
Executive Director of a coaching academy in the U.S. l think he's been over there a few year. http://www.ssaelite.com/Default.aspx?tabid=275194 Our old goalkeeping coach is there too.
That would be resigned. Mutual consent usually mean you have been sacked but come to a arrangement regarding the terms of the departure.
I remember the times, how bad it really was and I am also reading between the lines a little.....the "way forward" and the appointment of Spackman says it all to me. Arguably he could have gone in and asked for more funds and been denied. Either way it was in our best interests he left.
Not sure I agree to be fair- we have never been able to hang onto players like Hignett. We were always going to struggle after not winning promotion to the Premier league. Were the players what his budget could afford probably. ... You mentioned Hill but we were close to the play offs but again another manager hit by losing his best players. A common theme. We did concede a lot under Bassett but we scored for fun- attack is best form of defence in my eyes. We 'got out of jail a lot then as we scored a hell of a lot of goals. As for the boring long ball stuff - he surprised me a lot that season and st was certainly worth it. Took us to Wembley for the first time in our history - he deserves a lot of credit in my eyes You can't defend Spackman at all - he was an appalling manager - one of the worst I've seen
Never said I expected success, but we deserve to be entertained and when he had to build his own team, we were anything but. Of course it is always going to be difficult, for any side, when they lose their best players. I was referring to the standard of football and his recruitment in terms of the type of players he brought in. I never said Spackman was a good manager either, just that he had an impossible job based on how he wanted to play and the playing staff he inherited. He was a bad appointment under the circumstances. Keith Hill has proved to be a good manager.....he was just a bad fit for our club, talking it down and alienating himself with many of the fans. At least his teams play football the right way.
I agree with you , I loved Bassets tenure & that season we reached the play off final we were the leagues top goalscorers with 87 & let in 67 , never boring
I never said you claimed him to be a good manager ... Tactically inept and poor man management - did nothing after he left us.
56 points in a season is hardly 'turning us into an established championship club'. Its 1 win more than Simon Davey and Keith Hill. And over the course of a full season, is less than Flicker.
those managers were in relegation scraps. Robins had the team between 9-18 for the whole season really
Keith Hill and Simon Davey had us in the top half for spells. All 3 of them had good first half's and poor 2nd half's to the season, Robins was no different. We finished as high as we did because the league was poor that year. 56 points was enough for 18th that year, under Flicker it would have been enough for 21st for example.
did we ever look like getting relegated under Robins? no. Did we ever lose at home under Robins? very very rarely. Have we assembled a squad as good as the one Robins built? certainly not.
The first 2 parts are fair arguments, but the squad under Bassett and arguably the team we had 18 months ago were better sides. The football under both Hecky and Bassett with the 2 squads I've mentioned was considerably better than under Robins.
Yes but I was referring to players actually signed by the manager. As we know the focal points of the team were signed before Hecky arrived with Wilson bringing in Scowen, Hourihane & Winnall (plus giving Bree his first run of games) then when LJ was head coach signing Watkins, Hammill, Roberts, White. Since the sacking of Wilson it is not necessarily the head coach who makes the signings of course.
Bassett was an Arjan de Zeeuw away from a side that could have won that division in 99/00. Arguably a better side on paper than what we had in 96/97. Some of the best attacking football I've seen a Barnsley side produce. Our overall decline really set in when Bassett left, and with the financial shift in football, prospects of ever repeating that achievement are slim, but not impossible.
We lost at home in the JPT and in the league, it was the game where uriah rennie sent kay and Austin off, Austin for shoving someone over the advertising boards. We also lost at Donny too so they beat us 3 times
You have a point about home form, in the full season under Robins at home, we; Won 11, Drew 6, Lost 6 and didn't concede more than 2 goals in a single game, and all the loses were to top 10 teams.
Aye they were a real bogey team until the Darren Moore sending off and then we had the upper hand for quite a while.