Owners - player sales ...... and the THREE RED LINES

Although your post sounds supportive - in reality it isn’t.
I have nothing against the club - at all !!!
And neither have I got any grievance against anyone at the club.
As anyone will vouch that knows me - I want the absolute BEST for my club.
Sorry BramptonTyke ...... your views about the new owners are NOT mine.

 

All fair points, Nudger, but I think 2) could be replaced with "don't sell players to our promotion/relegation rivals" I couldn't really give a rat's arse if players go to Leeds or Sheffield, as long as we're not in any sort of competition with them.

 

That depends where you live.
It’s a real proper sickener for Barnsley fans around here when players are sold to Leeds and the Sheffield clubs.

 

If anyone thinks Patrick was taking money out of the club they should bother to actually scan the last 12 years of accounts. £5m of written off loans, £1.2m of donations, he personally underwrote £2m of bank finance and, at the time of the takeover, a further £6.3m of loans to the club.

The optimism I shared with many on this board was that the days of having to sell players to keep the club going, either on the cheap or to rivals, was behind us.

Unlike many of the previous sales Potts had a long term contract in place but yet the club needed to sell to be sustainable, their words not mine.

Here's hoping we have replacements lined up and, come the end of the window, we are all a happy bunch.

 

Preston Manager Alex Neil has said they were tracking Potts for some time.
Lets hope that the only reason we let him go, is that we've got somebody better
to bring in.

https://www.skysports.com/football/...n-north-end-from-barnsley-for-undisclosed-fee

 

............. ‘Unlike many of the previous sales Potts had a long term contract in place but yet the club needed to sell to be sustainable, their words not mine’

If the club owners have to rely on gate receipts and player sales then Barnsley Football Club is going nowhere.

There’s an old saying that the owners should take heed of ......
Priming The Pump

 

The problem with this is that if we did that then they wouldn't sell to us. Wednesday have sold us tons of players down the years. Wilson wouldn't have come here if your policy had been in force then. Leeds sold us Clarke. There's two players who changed the course of our history who we would never have got if your idea had been implemented in the past.

 

During the take over press conference the new regime said one aim was to keep our better player for longer so we could realise their value in terms of on field success, before being moved on for profit. Brad Potts' sale seems to go against this completely, being half way through a contract and with the club in a serious promotion push. There is no way this will not weaken us and another season in this division will have its own financial consequences. The cash difference in what we got for Potts and what we would get in the summer is a drop in the ocean given the wealth of the owners. I'm a bit worried if they thought it was worth shedding points in the league at a critical time - which I suspect will happen.

 

That’s because they do not perceive Barnsley as competitors in any shape or form.’
They look down on Barnsley Football Club and it’s supporters.

Every time a Barnsley player or manager moves to one of these clubs there is a chorus from them that they have left Barnsley and gone to better things to make their live better.

After Hecky left to go to Leeds you only have to listen to the presenters on Radio Sheffield’s Football Heaven to realise what Sheffield thinks about Barnsley i.e. Hecky has left Barnsley to better himself.
When in fact, months later, according to Hecky that isn’t what actually happened.

Until there is a level playing field between Barnsley and these 3 rival clubs then Barnsley will continue to lose thousands of potential supporters within the Barnsley District to these 3 clubs.

Believe me what I’m saying here as most of my family and friends are either Leeds United, Sheffield United or Sheffield Wednesday supporters.
Very few are Barnsley supporters.

 

Here's one for you then Nudger. Name one Barnsley player sold to Leeds.
Can't think of one myself but I'm sure you have all the info. A lot of our success is owed to Leeds - Clarke then Hunter put us on the map so I've no animosity with them whatsoever. They let us have Mowett who arguably is our best player this season. They're a big city club and will always be bigger than us no matter what anyone thinks. As for going on to better things there's probably only David Hirst and Maybe Chris Morgan I can think of who actually went on to better things after joining a Sheffield club.
In terms of money, Winnall did but he's hardly been a success as he? That one seems to have caused all the animosity mainly because he came back and celebrated a gaffe made by Davies like he'd just won the World Cup. Can't think of many more off hand but again Peter Springett and Byan Joicey came from Wednesday and helped us out of the 4th Division so I think we do better on these exchanges.
We live in the shadow of big city clubs all around us including Man United so we just have to crack on with that. You're never going to stop kids following success and Barnsley FC isn't riddled with it with only the odd promotion and one winners trophy to show over the past 60 years. I'm just pleased that I don't follow Donny or Rotherham who have to put up with us lot being a bigger and better supported club.

 

It’s not a tragedy in selling our players for profit to help the team and clubs future sustainability. After all that’s exactly the model we have had past few years. The new owners reiterated that will continue. Patrick used this model as he could see we wouldn’t get much funding from anywhere other than self generated to keep the club solvent and operational.

What is a tragedy is if we don’t bring in or attempt to bring in players to replace the ones who leave. We aim to strengthen the team a la Woodrow.

For me both go together as part of the cycle.

Expecting owners to completely fund higher wages, increased transfer fees from their own pocket and share their inner thoughts and plans fully with the fan base is an expectation I would say is raised above reality.

 

Key line in your post ........ ‘you’re never going to stop kids following success ‘.

And that’s my point.

People from the Barnsley District follow these 3 clubs because there is a perception that there is a much bigger chance of success.
All of which is based on the history of the club.
Until Barnsley achieve and maintain a level of success then there is unlikely to be a level playing field between us and these 3 clubs.

What I’m describing here is vital - that football supporters within Barnsley should naturally support Barnsley - and by doing so that added support improves the long term fortunes of the club.

As for clubs like Manchester and Liverpool - their impact is felt throughout Britain.
So it’s not really a Barnsley issue.

 

We’ve been here before
Villages such as Thurnscoe,Goldthorpe, Elsecar etc and even Wombwell to an extent had no affiliation to Barnsley whatsoever and there wasn’t even a South Yorkshire it was the west riding . People from these places and others supported the top teams in a region they could attend ie Leeds Sheff u Sheff we’d and some to manure . Trains were aplenty to these grounds coupled with football specials . It’s had nothing to do with supporting your own town from these such places as they were just as familiar with the top clubs as they were to Roth,Donny or us. Sheffield we’d supporters whom I worked with from some of these villages did so because their dads took them and likewise others in the Bremner Days or Tony Currie days whatever.
Barnsley was another town to these outlying areas .
This is why I don’t buy in to your constant hatred of wendy fans which happen to be currently in the borough but not when they picked their team.

 

The best we can aim for is to be like a Burnley. Leeds and Sheffield are two big cities with bigger opportunities to generate revenue from tickets and shirt sales. It isn't rocket science- the bigger the population of a city, the more opportunities for attracting people through the turnstiles. Whether you like it or not, they also have a better footballing history than us- especially Leeds.

Whilst I agree we need to grow the club, I do not feel you are being realistic and you will never stop people from anywhere supporting other clubs. Always has and always will happen as you've noted. People support other clubs for a variety of reasons, success being just one. It's nothing to be ashamed of being a smaller club than others- this seems to upset you a great deal. All 92 league clubs aren't going to be of the same stature it's impossible.

So whilst I feel much of your points are valid, it is the repetition of it that irritates people. You have brought this up several times since I joined up less than a year ago, for example. We know what you think about it, so why repeat it ad infinitum? Why not discuss something different other than Barnsley being a small club, GG and communication, GG and Hecky, and so on? I find your repeated targeting of a BFC employee especially out of order, especially when you do not have any facts (i.e. something that would stand up in court, not the views of a past employee who has past form for making contradictory statements) to support your views.

If you do that, people will cut you some slack and not automatically think you are trolling. If you truly aren't trolling, I apologise.

 

On Potts, a lot of people seem to just accept the line of ‘we’ve made a substantial profit’ & think fair enough.

But to me it’s ‘at what cost’?

So we’ve allegedly paid what? 700k for him & got say £2m for him? I realise these figures could be more or less either way but from what I’ve read it’s not too far away. So on paper that’s a £1.3m profit.

But then you’ve got to think about a replacement, so if we sign someone permanent that’s a signing on fee & agent fees as well as a transfer fee.

If we sign someone on loan until the summer & then sign a replacement permanently then that’ll be two lots of agents fees & we’ll be putting up the loanee for the next 5 months in accommodation.

Also the damage it does on the pitch. If we don’t sign a replacement until the end of the month that’s 3 weeks missing a key first team player, how long does it take him to get up to speed? Could be a month like Woodrow could be over a season like most of the young players we signed.

If the team suffers on the pitch that could mean no promotion at a cost of around £6m.

For a one off game like the Burnley one, if we’d had a fit & in form Potts instead of non-match fit Hedges we may well have nicked it or got a replay.

If we win that’s around £500k at least for a tie away at Man City on ticket sales alone.

A replay with Burnley at home would probably have a crowd of around 10k at a guess. 100k revenue maybe?

If either get picked for TV that’s another couple hundred thousand in the bank.

All of a sudden £1.3m doesn’t seem that much.

A lot of ‘if’s & maybe’s’ but nothing unrealistic in what I’ve put above. I stand by the view that we shouldn’t be selling key players mid-season.

 

Or we sign a player from abroad with Potts money and he gets us automatic promotion and Barnsley fc start to turn down bids next January for 5 6 7 million. All IFs and BUTS let's see what happens.

 

Anyone would think we have sold Messi here. Potts was a bang average player for us, certainly not a key player. He had no more potential to offer us. Overall We have made a good profit on a average league 1 player.

 

Definitely not Messi, but he is now a Championship player. Football is about opinions yours is different to Preston's view of Potts but they clearly think he has potential. If we thought he had no more potential why keep a financial interest in his future which means we gave some value up on the deal in the hope of further development?

 

Remember when Ray McHale dropped down the footballing ladder when he left us for Sheffield Utd. Never forget the massive outcry at Bramhall Lane when in the same day Benfica took Brian Deane and a certain Jan Arge Fjortoft left to play for a nearby Premiership Club.

 

Just a minute.
I’ve mentioned the Leeds / Sheffield issues in the initial post as part of the Three Red Lines.
The main issue was item 3) in relation to the Potts deal.
But because people are discussing the Leeds / Sheffield issue then ive answered what they have said.
I would have been quite happy not to have mentioned that topic in the rest of this thread.
Do you believe I should ignore the other posters views ???