Well, not really, but I do have other things to do you know. Thanks again to everybody who offered advice as to What's unmissable at Oakwell these days. A few thoughts: I only saw a hand dryer, singular, for which I decided not to queue and so of course walked out and bumped, hands still dripping, straight into @Turvey Tyke. At least, that's the story I gave him. I'd visited some friends for lunch on the way in so decided to eschew the Madri and flatbreads on this occasion. Maybe next time, if there is a next time. Were they in action? Did I miss them? The concourse TVs seemed to be on the fritz as they were reporting Ipswich losing at home to Maidstone. Hopefully they'll get them fixed soon. I was pleased to find the car park much easier to navigate on foot than I remembered, although there were still a few vehicles dotted around here and there. I'm sure the club will deal with those accordingly in due course. I took a couple of snaps of Nudger's Bridge, which I thought was quite impressive. It's going to be a great addition once they build the other half. Does anyone know when it's due to be finished? On a more serious note, I thought the town centre was looking really smart. It felt clean and spacious and although I only wandered around The Glassworks and surrounding area, my first impressions were very positive. I sent some pics to a friend from Sheffield who lives in France but has family in Barnsley and she replied "I think it might be better than Sheff CC!". Praise indeed. Thoughts on the football to follow...
White spherical object to be treated with the same caution as a Cobra or Tasmanian Devil. Anyone within its vicinity should get out of its way. Russell and Shepherd performed the task admirably.
I see that most of what I observed has already been commented on, but a few points / questions, in roughly chronological order: The first half was, as seems to have been almost universally acknowledged, truly awful. Comically, tragically, bad. Just before half time I said to the guy next to me, also apparently a lapsed regular but to a lesser degree, "They ought to do an offer for us lapsed supporters whereby if they lose we get a free ticket for the next game and so on until they win." He laughed, and then there were a few seconds of silence while we both thought about it, before he said "Do you want to come to the next game?" We clearly have a problem with players who run at/through/around us with pace - the Chelsea loanee Rankine and particularly the young lad Harper they got from Eastleigh were running us ragged at times - so why do we water the pitch at half time? Is it something to do with its recovery time, or are we really tailoring conditions to our own weaknesses? I understand that Luca Connell is coming back from a serious illness, but how ill would he have to be to not be a step up compared to what we have on the pitch without him? Honestly, I reckon we could have him lie down in the centre circle and point and he'd improve the side. It was like watching a different team when he came on and started controlling the game - suddenly we had someone who seemed to know how football should be played; who could get the ball, look up quickly and play a forward pass that created space, even for forward players who had hitherto looked totally unable or unwilling to create it for themselves. Even when there was some space we didn't seem to know how to exploit it. At one point Russell's marker left him to try to close down the ball, which seemed the only way Russell looked likely to lose him, and rather than playing a short ball in the centre circle we responded by booting it all the way across the field and into touch. All that seemed to change when Connell came on. We actually looked worth watching, because I'm afraid that first half performance wouldn't be enough to entice me up the M1. That's all I've got, or at least all I can remember right now. I enjoyed my day out, and hope to get to a few more games now I've found my way back to Oakwell, but it'll probably be to tie in with other things I'm doing rather than as a day out in its own right (my folks still live in Yorkshire).
Unfortunately, we appear to only have the fire cannons every other home game. I did Google it, and it is £10k to hire 5. We had 6 at the last game, so I guess we're in some sort of loyalty scheme.
