I think it lacks consistency sometimes. I do think Hemmsy was winding folk up, but he did have his convictions. One of my favourite posters on here sadly said probably the most disgusting thing I have read to another poster quite recently and is still here, it was something that was hateful and infinitely worse than anything Hemmsy ever directed at anyone. I think we have to be careful not to discriminate based on popularity on the forum, and I don’t like people being banned, especially Hemmsy as I don't think he deserved it.
Hemmsy for sure rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way, and seemed to completely lose the plot at points. However, a lot of the abuse he got was also completely out of order, and I'm still not sure whether he was intentionally trolling. From what I've heard he's absolutely harmless in real life, and in no shape or form remotely malicious.
Lol. I didn't think I'd commented much about Khaled in either of the threads about his interview. I won't disparage The Reev, I guess he's still upset about getting banned from here. We should all be pulling together as a fan base though. It is a really exciting time to be a Barnsley fan. This is going to be a really exciting season. I think we'll be really strong on the pitch, we'll hit the ground running under Michael Duff and we'll do some good recruitment. I'm pretty sure we won't see the fire sales of last season. We've got a professional women's team for the very first time. On the subject of Khaled, someone else said in one of those threads that he's probably the best CEO we've had. If people don't see that currently, they will do by the end of his tenure, in my view. Since the advent of the CEO role at BFC, we've had people come in with big ideas and not implemented any/many of them. This maybe wasn't always their fault; budget probably has a lot to do with it. Then the next one comes with their new , different, big ideas, changes and improvements and the cycle repeats with little change. I'd say Khaled is delivering change. We'll see that with his big announcement. He's already made many big changes in the club, how they work, empowering people, the culture, agile management, improved processes etc. People also talk about how well Mansford engaged with the fan base, and he did, but I'd argue Khaled is doing a better job of this as well. Look at the early days when he walked into a board room in dispute and was left to sort out the mess of our rogue CEO. He took a lot of flak, carried the can for a lot of it, but still, he'd go along to meet any fan groups that would invite him along and be positive and listen. He never hid even when the mood was pretty dark. Even when the Conway Out meeting took place, he turned up to talk to those at the meeting, people there who were really upset with the club . He (and the new board) have engaged with all the fan groups more than ever before in my view. CEO of football clubs aren't always going to get everything right, but I think there's plenty of evidence of Khaled listening to feedback when he hasn't. He delivered on recruitment last summer, we got our head coach, some great player additions. Khaled got involved in initiatives to try and improve the atmosphere at Oakwell, and yes some of that can happen because you are on a good run, but I think a lot has come from engaging with the fan base and getting everyone involved. The atmosphere, pre-match for the Bolton game, the stuff that YT and his colleagues worked on for that game, was amazing. We want that sort of thing every game at Oakwell. Fans backed Khaled's call the get the stadium filled up for that game. We must take all that as a fan base and build on it for next season. Oakwell was electric towards the end of the season. We remembered how to back the team and it makes a big difference to the team. Khaled and his coleagues made that happen. People laughed when he talked about his season ticket targets, but we've got 9K season ticket holders already signed up in June which is a record for this level. If you're still on the fence about a season ticket or got out of the habit after the Conway season debacle and if you can afford it, GET YOURSELF A TICKET! It's going to be really good this season, you'll probably regret it if you don't We're on the up, there's really exciting stuff in the pipeline for fans of BFC and we've got our club back. COYR (Happy clappy enough ? )
Sorry I meant thereev, re. the trolling, not hemmsy. I understand why hemmsy got banned. Unfortunate, but unavoidable. He went too far.
I can't really remember him posting much I disagreed with Orsen. He never said anything remotely serious that was worth taking issue with. He just posted an endless stream of silly comments. Humour is subjective but his left nothing more with me than a sense of mild irritation. I'm a firm believer that comedy should be left to the professionals. I did once work with a guy at Yorkshire Traction who could, without fail, walk into the office and have everybody in stitches for as long as he was in there. He's virtually a one off though and the one man "comedy" act that was the reev left me, and I think most on here, with a sense of watching tumbleweed roll through the place.
I'll hold my hands up. I gave him some right stick on here early in his tenure. Perhaps some of that should have been directed elsewhere at the time. He's gone a long way towards winning me over and I'm confident we're going in the right direction even though we are dependent on the continuing good will of the Board.
His main attempt at humour was "pour coke on it" which got tedious when he did it in every thread. However it was no more tedious than the "McGeehan 3 match ban" comments we keep being subjected to
Hemsworth was tedious. It's always after a few months of quiet that there are a few clamouring for him to come back. I don't want more 15 page threads where he's suggested that we should get [insert name of 17 year old Chelsea trainee here] on loan instead of [insert name of 24 year old League Two player here] on a permanent transfer and then 20 people on here, including me, are calling him out on it. The bin juice of the BBS.
But for me, that's just a football discussion on a football forum. I've no issues with that. I didn't often agree with him, but I'd duck out of the conversation if I felt there was no point continuing. But I think he believed what he was saying, I didn't think he was intentionally trolling there. There was a few occasions where he went too far, and became personal, and I called him out on that too. But at least with him, his criticisms of say James Norwood, were in a thread about James Norwood. He didn't dip into a thread about car leasing to slag off James Norwood for attention for example.
@Gally, are you privvy to what the big announcement is? I appreciate it's for the club to announce, but just wondering if you know
I think it will be worth the wait and will be genuinley exciting news for the club and our fans. We might not be waiting for too much longer (hopefully).
I've heard a whisper, and if its true, it could certainly be an exciting time for the club and the town.
Every home match he attends and does some unique kind of stunt like trying to jump the West stand bogs on a Vespa...
Got to be about the lease on the ground and improvements like making West fully available ( long term need skittling) and the North, that said won’t be many big away followings next season only Derby jumps out.
