You say potato and I say potato, You say Grove Street and we say OAKWELL

First of all, how is everyone? I hope you are all well. I stepped away from the bbs right at the start of the month when it had finally dawned on me (I'm a bit slow on the uptake) that my presence on here serves very little positive purpose, for me myself, as a human being. Having been a regular contributor for much of the last two decades in some shape or form, the last five had become increasingly more difficult for obvious reasons. I'd stopped enjoying it on here, basically.

There are still some cracking people on here though. Folk that I've known for years, and had the privilege to get to know properly in person. Good people. And @Bossman.

And I still pop on a couple of times a day to see what's being said. I don't do social media so the bbs remains my gauge in terms of fan-feeling. Things are a bit **** at the minute aren't they? It's not been an easy few months at all. But that's life. Good and bad is always around the corner. And we all cope in different ways.

But anyway, let me address this Grove Street stuff one final time.

When I grew up watching the Reds, the match programme was called 0akwell Review. We've huggins of them in the offices of 0akwell, from years gone by. They were a lot thinner back then, and basically just recapping previous results, reports and photos, with information about upcoming games, tickets etc. Because of course, it was a different world, a different time, pre-internet I suppose.

However, having gone back through the archive, it appears that the first programmes didn't have a name at all. Then, post-war, they had the words 'Barnsley Football Club' and the town crest on the front, and 'official programme' at the bottom somewhere. This was the case until the 1970's when 0akwell Review was born. By the late 1980's and early 1990's, whilst still titled 0akwell Review, that font was quite small, with the word BARNSLEY being the standout title. In 2008, that became the new name of the programme. For a couple of years it was just called Barnsley. Next, it became UReds for a couple of years, before, under Ben Mansford's tenure, it was rebranded BE RED. The reason being, Ben had gone with the BE PROUD, BE BARNSLEY branding, so it fitted nicely with that. It's also a decent play on words, Be Red.

Anyway..

As we entered the June to July 2020 behind-closed-doors fixtures, we realised we'd have to do the programmes in a different way. So we did a double-header for Millwall and Blackburn, and then one each for Wigan and Forest. These were to be posted out, of course. We didn't sell anywhere near as many as we'd done pre-COVID, naturally.

So when we had our little team meeting in Harrogate ahead of last season, we discussed the way forward. Just a couple of years back, programmes had been moved from being mandatory, to being a choice for clubs. Quite a few stopped producing them. Because they weren't making money from them. But we do make money from them, or we did, until COVID. In my time at the club, we've shifted between 1,000 and 2,000 copies per match, depending on the opposition, how big the game is, current form, the weather, whatever. Occasionally, we've done well over 2,000. The 130-page special edition we did on our 130th anniversary match vs Aston Villa is the best selling BFC programme ever. One of the proudest pieces of work I've had the privilege to be a part of. Same week we had to stick a load of cardboard on Ponty End seats for the 130 tifo. And invite a load of legends to the game. Of course we lost 0-3. Naturally.

So yeah, Harrogate. We had already put an article on the website that included a survey for fans to let us know how we could improve our offerings on social media, website content and the matchday programme. We expected that the season would be played behind-closed-doors, at least until a few months into it. So we'd have to again look at a subscription model, postage etc. But that would be so hard to do, considering the congested nature of the fixture list, with games every few days. How would we get programmes out to people on time, and so on. We decided it was nearly impossible to do full, 64-page programmes for the 20/21 season. We'd lost a member of staff just before COVID too, so we were struggling on that front also.

We then had an idea for something similar, but brand new - a monthly magazine. 100 pages, A4 size, glossy and perfect bound. It wouldn't just be about the matches, the usual programme stuff. We'd get creative with it. The plan was to have two covers. The front and the back. The front would have someone current on it, so Gerhard Struber for example. But they'd be proper photos, not just a photo from a game or whatever. We'd have a proper photoshoot. The back cover would be someone from the past - Nicky Eaden for example. We'd invite a legend up every month, take them around Barnsley and interview them, photoshoot, and so on. We'd even record the interviews on camera, and other behind-the-scenes stuff showing how we put the magazine together. That footage would go together to help promote the mag, but also on iFollow etc as another piece of content. We'd focus on the town, the community, its people, its COVID heroes, other local clubs, the pub scene, food spots and up and coming musicians etc. A proper Barnsley magazine, where yes, it's BFC themed, but had more to it than just the football.

It would be called Grove Street. And cost £5. Released on the 1st of each month.

At St George's Park in pre-season, we did huge sit-down interviews with Gerhard Struber and Conor Chaplin. When back at 0akwell, we invited Nicky Eaden up and spent a couple of hours with the great man. We later visited Athersley Rec, spoke to a local singer, dropped into a pub, had food at a town restaurant, visited local heroes who'd done amazing things during the pandemic. And so on. There was a quiz, we did pieces on tattoos, aftershave, and got local celebrities involved. We had the first issue all mapped out, it wasn't far off going to print. I was even writing up the press release to announce it. And I knew there'd be some backlash that we were ending match programmes. But we'd done our research, and 20 clubs in the Championship had said they weren't doing programmes anymore. But ourselves and Derby County were looking to launch a magazine.

But then, the powers that be, and our print company were having doubts about whether it was financially worthwhile. Could we do programmes on a subscription basis, and the magazine? Could we ****. We don't have the bodies or the time. And so the magazine idea died, right at the last minute. And we decided to carry on doing 64-page programmes, even though we knew it'd be so hard to do successfully.

But we liked the name Grove Street. So we decided to rebrand the programme, and use elements from the magazine idea, for the programme.

Why Grove Street? I dunno. We were rattling off names in Harrogate and that seemed a really cool name for the magazine. There was very little else to it I'm afraid. And when we had to revert back to the programme, we'd been thinking of changing from BE RED for a couple of years, as it was a Mansford thing. So we all agreed that Grove Street was decent. It's the street on which the club resides, it's the street on which the programme is sold. There was nothing clever about it really.

But then of course, the 0akwell rumours surfaced at the same time and so that wasn't helpful. Although I still can't get my head around folk saying "It's 0akwell, not Grove Street."

It's a match programme. We haven't renamed the stadium. The programme was called BE RED, and before that UReds. It hasn't been 0akwell Review since 2007.

Maybe we'll put a survey out again towards the end of this season, and see if fans would prefer a different name?

But considering the season so far, it's selling well. I'm proud that we managed to pull it off last season, whilst 90% of clubs didn't bother. Because I think, once you stop producing programmes, you're not going to bring them back, are you? And for me, they're a part of what makes football in our country so special. Like the sh** pie at half-time and the Bovril that scalds you for life.

Before I go then, I'd like to wish you all the very best. Keep supporting the club in however fashion you deem appropriate. Be yourself, I suppose. I'm gutted that the Reds are suffering this season. It was always a long-shot to replicate the successes of last term, and for a plethora of reasons. But not for the life of me did I expect this sort of season. And as I've said to one or two privately who've been in touch, I completely feel the hurt and upset caused by the stand closure. I'm so sorry for those affected.

Take it easy.

You Reds.


Link to survey: https://www.barnsleyfc.co.uk/news/2020/august/bigfansurvey/
Link to Grove Street launch: https://www.barnsleyfc.co.uk/news/2020/september/grove-street-launch/

 

Thorough explanation sadly undermined by the apparent sitewide find and replace of Oakwell with Grove Street (at the time I was reading anyway)

 

And then I realised I'd tried to type the name of the stadium on a post pointing out that that name was being replaced automatically! D'oh!

 

Great to hear from you, even if it is for a final time. I've always appreciated your candour and honesty on here, but I've never worried too much about your breaks from posting, as it has always been very clear that you don't have the same freedoms as we all do to post exactly what you'd like to on every topic.

Fully understand why you wouldn't want to continue posting at all now and, assuming this is the end, then best wishes to you and all of the 'ordinary' staff members at BFC who are no doubt finding things tougher than usual, in terms of the workplace, given the current mood.

I didn't re-quote your entire post, but just wanted to suggest that the next re-brand should perhaps be as BoRed.

 

Brilliant whoever did this. This thread has had me chuckling with incredulity.

 

Boo! Down with this sort of thing!

 

Love a good Father Ted reference

 

Indeed. Although that would, of course, be an ecumenical matter.

 

So what you're saying is we're moving to Burnley, right?

 

That's how I read it.

 

careful now.

 

Look mate, we know you are doing your best under difficult circumstances.

A parallel may have been West Ham's old ground. Was referred to as Upton Park, but was technically the Boleyn Ground. Not sure many Hammers fans used the latter name though. In the big scheme of things it is the least of my worries at the moment.

Keep up the good work. I understand why you have been quiet on here, as you can't change anything, just keep the media stuff going.

 

That 750k was just resting in our account

 

Nightmare on Grove Street would be a more apt name at present methinks

 

Interesting read.

My comment earlier wasn't about the program. It was about referring to Oakwell as Grove Street, which is how the thread began then morphed into addressing the title of the program. I've never really thought much about the program as I don't buy it, but I've thought about it now and I quite like it. I flat out don't like referring to Oakwell as Grove Street, particularly as Oakwell is, not entirely unique, there's an Oakwell Hall, but synonymous with us. I don't dislike it enough to get shouty on the subject, but it pretty much stops me in my tracks if I'm reading an article and it's referred to that way. It jars and I don't read past it.