[Official Site] AN UPDATE FROM PAUL CONWAY

whose fault was it that it went wrong in the pitch?

 

You pay your money to watch a game of football like everyone else. Yes we are invested emotionally but that's as far as it goes.

They can do what ever they want they own the club

 

I appreciate that, but the amount of importance you place on being a fan is irrelevant. You pay for goods/services, so you're a customer.

 

Of course. But like every other fan I make my voice known/protest/object/praise and support however I see fit and what I see as in the interests of my Club. And I will. What I won't be doing is meekly tugging my forelock if I think someone is damaging my Club; 'Customer' or not.

 

Let's just disagree on how we see our relationship with the Club.

 

No, I agree with you on how we see ourselves and our relationship with the club, we've sunk a load of money, time and emotion into our team; I'm just saying it's irrelevant to the people that own the club. I don't think fans get additional consumer rights compared to Tesco customers.

 

But I think I should get additional rights as a fan. For example it might be useful for the owners to follow the example of some other Clubs and, at the same time pre-empt the Govt, and sort out a fan rep to join the Board. Radical stuff eh! But not really - just for England.

 

Sounds like heresy!

Joking aside, I'm not keen on fans being on Boards, runs the risk of acting emotionally rather than rationally. It does seem to work in Germany though.

 

They're all too logical in Germany. Like having 30,000 Mr Spocks.

 

I've always wondered what the difference between a Tidy, and an Untidy profit is.

 

Never any excuse for hate mail. But I also don't get this 'thank god for the owners, don't know where we'd be without them'.

The only money they've invested is to acquire the assets for themselves. A group of adept yet relatively penniless locals could run the club as effectively and prudently as this ownership. It's about competency, not resource.

They're not doing a scandalously bad job. But neither do we need to be thanking them for allowing us to have a club to support. They're here to make themselves money.

 

I wonder if anybody on here contributed to the hate mail.

 

Hi Ik311, it's not that I want the council to spend lots of money but rather as Landlords do the minimum to maintain the ground. I got the impression from the interview (possibly wrongly), that the club were also willing to invest in renovations too. This would mean a possible change to the tenancy agreement and converting to a longer lease at lower annual charges. As part owners of a property that is or has failed safety checks, then it is beholden on them to fix them.

 

The council have plans to build the new Youth Hub on the land at the top of Harbrough Hills, which is projected to cost about £9 million. The plans for that look great and exactly the kind of thing councils should be investing in. That might mean no spare money to help develop Oakwell though. However, the Youth Hub would help to bridge more of a link with the club and the town centre, as will the actual bridge when or if it's ever built!!!

 

Getting it all in shrapnel complete with trouser fluff?

 

I disagree, we aren't just customers we are stakeholders.

But even as customers we are very different to Tesco customers. At Tesco I go and pay money as and when I want some food. At bfc I invest a few hundred quid up front every year. They currently have roughly £300 of my money which I haven't received goods or services for yet. That's a totally different scenario to me walking around Tesco with a basket of goods which I am yet to pay for so I have a stake in bfc and a vested interest in it as well as an emotional one.

I know that technically we're all just customers but in reality we are stakeholders

 

I don't understand the bit about groundsharing. It's something he doesn't want to do but if the club cant even host a match the it could be a short term thing. What's that mean then? Why wouldn't we be able to host a match? Is that a threat to the council that if they don't do something then we won't extend our lease? Or does it just mean if the place goes up in flames tomorrow? In which case it seems an odd thing to mention. It's a bit line me randomly telling people I dont want to move back in with my mum but if I break both legs I might do it short term.

 

Unfortunately not, we're just customers, we'd like to think we're stakeholders but we're not and you know that, you'd struggle to legally define emotional attachment being the same as a stakeholder. In fact, thinking about it, we probably have less consumer rights than a traditional customer as we can't take our season back if it was bad.

 

A stakeholder IS someone with an emotional investment in a company as well as someone who is a customer of a company and someone who has money tied up in a company. I did business studies at college years ago and Barnsley FC was used as a key example of how season ticket holders and supporters in general are stakeholders in companies and how they are so much more important to keep happy in a company than a transient customer with no brand loyalty is