Amateurish running of a professional club

Thanks very much!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

3. I agree we've not invested in community sport but we have had an Olympic gold since Dorothy Hyman. I give you Ed Clancy.

 

We have indeed, and I am very happy to stand corrected.

 

the club was taken over by a fan who did not want his beloved club to go under which is the way the club was headed if he hadn't.
he did not want to be owner or invest his money into the club and lose his childrens inheritance he just wanted the club safe and to hand over to an investor who had ambition but also the well being of the club at heart.
the fact that not only have we survived but flourished with a promotion and a championship status lasting 8 years whilst more reckless clubs or ones with bigger budgets or both have failed.
the fact that no one has come forward to take on barnsley fc tells me just how lucky we are that someone like patrick did come forward at the time and unravelled the mess from the last couple of administrations and that i am gratefull to have a professional football club to watch whichever the division.
however this does not excuse certain players to not earn the money they agreed with the club to actually
fekin earn it

 

I was thinking along similar lines to this the other day - although it was a thought of "What would I do if I had dropped the £110million Euromillion Jackpot and bought the club"...

1). All players to live within the borough of Barnsley while permanently employed by BFC.
2). All players to take an active role in the community outside of their footballing commitments. Either by helping out at local teams, or by involvement with local charities (supporting or fund raising) or local schools.
3). All teams, from U-8s to first team to play similar formations and style of play to allow players to easily step up to higher levels.
4). Oakwell to become a centre of the community, using the facilities to help local sporting clubs and health initiatives. Links with other sports clubs and local schools are to be encouraged.
5). All recruitment to actively target younger players, with the view to giving them game time and experience rather than paying vast amounts of money. (like Crewe under Dario Grady did). Loan players only to be taken out in exception circumstances.
6). Player personal and professional development to be encouraged, starting from academy scholars. With the eventual aim that players are able to pursue a career outside football if they cannot continue playing.

 

Love it Scoff, I don't think we need £110 million to do it and i don't think we should be afraid of the drop while it happens. We just need people with the vision to make it happen. Do the people in charge read any of these threads?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Ed Clancy's allegiances are across the border in Huddersfield. No painted postbox in the Barnsley Borough as he asked for one to be painted gold in Huddersfield.

 

I understand that the club is not telling you what the strategy is and the club is at fault for that. However, it does not tell fans what the plan is because it knows that the plan would not be popular with the fans. In fact it knows that the strategy would be downright unpopular with the fans. Therefore it is necessary to look at the actions of its management rather than hope for a statement.

For example:

When Hill/Flicker were appointed we know the following. We know that Mark Robbins had been told that his budget would be cut. We can assume that the sale of Jason Shackell shortly after Shackell left was linked to the reduction in budget. The club approached Rochdale in order to speak to Hill/Flicker, a management team used to managing small budgets, selling players to augment those budgets and being successful on the field in spite of this policy. The club recruited Hill / Flicker because they wanted to adopt this strategy. My argument has always been that the failure of Keith Hill, and later of Flicker was a failure of the policy, and not a failure of Hill or Flitcroft. But more than that, it was a failure of a weak board who were not prepared to stand behind the team managers tasked with operating that policy once the league position weakened and the fans turned against them. I think that those who had agreed on the policy should have gone before the managers if that policy was in fact wrong. But I do not think that the policy was in fact wrong, because that is in fact the only way in which a club like Barnsley can survive.

If that policy is the right one, how can the fans be persuaded to support it, when it means that they will have to be patient and they will have to take the downs as well as the ups.

 

Good post, I also agree that the lack of support is an issue and always has been. Dorothy Hyman only got Olympic silver by the way, and bronze in the relay.

 

If I were looking to invest say £100m in order to provide the seed capital to do as you suggest, would I invest said cash in a small town club which is incapable of attracting a fan base that will give me any chance of seeing any of my money again.

 

The only way that Barnsley can survive is if it remains close to the hearts of its supporters and secret, hidden agendas will not achieve that. Any thought that the public can be fooled into thinking that all is well as the ship is secretly sinking is naive and patronising. The only lasting way for the club to survive at any level and in any division is by its being embraced and nurtured by the community and the only way for that to happen is for it to become a community club with simple achievable aims and objectives.
Please bear with me on this, I'm not saying you are wrong, I am sure the board have embraced an attitude and mistaken that for a strategy. If there is a strategy, what are its objectives? If it is the mere survival of the club, by consistently looking down, then you are right, that will not be popular with the fans. Managing public relations should not be an exercise in applying wool to the publics eyes, we need to see a way forward and preferably one that doesn't look like it is taking us back to the 60s.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

The fact is that any other strategy requires capital, and lots of it. The money available in the Premier League has unbalanced the second tier. Many clubs are risking everything to reach the promised land of the Premiership, but we do not have a benefactor with the money or the desire to fund that aim in our club. He is probably correct that Barnsley cannot compete at that level, that it does not have the potential support to compete at that level. Perhaps it makes sense that we retire from the fight for a few years, or at least until the silly spending is put to an end by a spate of bankruptcies.

As for taking the club back to the 60s, I do not particularly support the idea of a return to the lower divisions, but Barnsley has always been a selling club, and always will be. I do not particularly like that, but if we had wanted to support a club with another M.O. then we would be making the 40 mile trip to Manchester every other week-end wouldn't we.

 

I wrote in another thread last week that I think that there are three categories of club that can survive in this league and any club that doesn't comply will be down sooner rather than later.
Category 1 - have a rich benefactor committed to the well being of the club. Bolton, Wigan, QPR
Category 2 - have parachute payments from a fairly recent premiership bonanza. Burnley, Blackpool, soon Swansea and Cardiff
Category 3 - have a chancing and often carpet bagging chairman, who doesn't mind taking risks with the clubs family silver, because when it all collapses, they wont be there. Portsmouth, Leeds, Leicester
FFP was supposed to level this playing field, but it won't, because the greed motive is too great and our chairman will act for the resistance.
When I started this thread yesterday, I was floating a few ideas and beliefs, but the more I think about it the more I'm convinced that clubs need to return to the community for their well being and sustenance and that means that you stop looking for a rich, or pretend rich backer and win your support from the community you represent.
I want to make it clear that the last line is in no way a dig at Patrick, who us a hero in my eyes and my belief is that he would support the initiative. Patrick always said that the club should be self funding.




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Obviously, I can't speak for Patrick Cryne any more than you, so my opinion holds no more weight, but I don't believe he would support a move for Barnsley FC to become a community club. That's not a dig at him either, I'm 99% certain without Mr Cryne we wouldn't have a club, I just don't think he has the same beliefs. He's an entrepreneur and a business man, not a committeeman. He's a conservative not a socialist. It seems to me he believes in the single vision of a head honcho not rule by democracy.

Barnsley FC has never been a community club as such, but in the past it has always been run by a fairly large board of local men, always men, with moderate businesses, all of whom were Barnsley supporters. They got involved because they were Barnsley supporters. The share holders were, by and large, Barnsley supporters. We ran a scheme of one member one vote.

Under the stewardship or Patrick Cryne, the one member one vote system was abolished. Indeed, no other Barnsley supporters hold shares any more, Mr Cryne has 100%. No local businessmen, other than Barry Taylor, hold a position on the board. The board was actually reduced to the bare bones to the point where it wasn't really a board of directors any more, just Don Rowing and Barry Taylor. Now I guess it's Ben Mansford, Maurice Watkins and Barry Taylor. In Maurice Watkins we have, I believe, for the first time in our history, a chairman who is not a Barnsley supporter. We have a CEO who is not a Barnsley supporter.

At no time during Mr Cryne's reign has a fans representative been invited on to the board. There doesn't seem to have been an initiative to get local businessmen on to the board. That's not the way Mr Cryne does business. If he is to sell the club, I can only see it going to another rich businessman, someone who can prove he has the capital to take the club forward. I don't know for certain, but I'd be very surprised indeed if the club was sold to a fans' collective. It appears to me we're further away from that than we've ever been because I don't think our owner believes that can be a successful business model.

 

Well Jay, we are trading beliefs here about the views of someone we don't know. I was brought up not far from Patrick and knew him well in our youth, but I don't know him since he became rich. I am making the judgement on statements made by the man that the club has to be self sustaining and that it's future has to be secure. It is also well known that he would sell, but only to the right buyer.
This however is a side issue, the point is, regardless of what a small number of rich individuals want, what is good for football and in particular, Barnsley FC. Nobody said that a community club couldn't have an owner, neither does it need to be an absolute democracy, leaders have to lead, but the engagement of the community is absolutely essential to the clubs survival. If the town doesn't want the club, won't support it, can't see its relevance to them, or their lives, then it is already dead and buried.
My point is that BFC has not done enough to engage the community and inspire the next generation of fans, because it is not at the centre of the community. The players we have don't want to be here badly enough, because they don't realise what a fantastic club it is. Working in the community should be part of the players job description.
I saw a programme the week before last about the strike, where the community fought for their way of life with the pits at their centre. Well that's gone now and been replaced by what? Putting sport at the centre is as good a way as any for building pride not only in the club, but in the town.
One of the things that struck me about our trip to Huddersfield last year was that, even though the clubs were on a par on the pitch, their club was more energised and they were clearly on the way up.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

You don't have to convince me mate. I think a community club is the right way forward. I just don't see it happening.

 

I'm afraid that I am considerably more cynical about the community of Barnsley than you are. You see, when I was about 13 years of age bankruptcy threatened the club for the first time. The club was in the old fourth division, gates were down to only 2,000, the club was bottom of the league and looked like going out of business. The club appealed for funds through a share issue. It urgently needed about £40,000 or else it was said that it would go to the wall. The same fate had already killed off Accrington Stanley who had failed to fulfill their fixtures one season and who's ground now stood empty and rotting. The threat was real.

I would like to say that the town rallied round and that the money was raised by a community who valued their club and wanted to keep a league club playing in the town, but that is not what happened. The town never came together. The word "WE" was never used. The club would have failed but for the foresight of Ernest Dennis (father of John) and Geoff Buckle who together found the money from their own pockets to save the club for the first time.

You see community assets are a fine concept, a noble concept, an idealistic concept born from a belief that everyone has the same altruistic view of the community and the way that it can come together for the good of us all as you do. However, in practice, every member of the community has their own opinion, and it is those opinions that divide the community rather than bring it together. In practice, nothing divides a community faster than being asked to fund a project like Barnsley FC. A football club is a community project that would be funded by a group of individuals who are generally finding life difficult in the current economic environment, and would be dominated by a few high earning, but under-performing individuals on the field. I'm sorry, but I do not think that it works.

 

Fair enough. I remember that just after that time there were people in cars going round the clubs and pubs selling lottery tickets for Barnsley, Clarkey coming in and promotions coming. That was community action.
Understand your misgivings, mobilising a community to action is not easy. It is also difficult to maintain, but does that mean that you don't do it?

 

imho the success of community action would very much depend on the community's view of the club - is it viewed as 'our' club ? Or is it viewed as Mr Cryne's club with special consideration given to BFCST and everyone else doesn't matter ?

Not saying that is the case, just articulating an opinion that I hear from the people I sit with, the boozer etc.