I'm not so sure he has the backing of the majority of fans,yes theres been no Hill out shouts but most of the fans that I know are at best indifferent to him,theres a lets see how he goes at the beginning of the season attitude from most people I talk to. As for being most peoples favourites to go down at the beginning of the season,the person banging that drum the loudest was Keith himself. Maybe not a time to change the Manager but definitely a change in attitude from him is needed. If we get Blackburn or Bolton on the opening day of the season and Hill gushes over their players and how much money they've got and we haven't, and how we need to overachieve to come 4th from bottom by default, the club can stick their iPlayer subscription somewhere unpleasant.
From what I've heard Hill has been told to tone that down. I have no doubt that Hill is fiercely ambitious and believes he will be successful. I think after the first couple of games he couldn't believe the stick he was getting and though (rightly or wrongly) that if he could get fans to put things in perspective then they would be less critical of the team, buy-in to what was happeneing and the club would benefit in the long term. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this went on too long and became perceived as negativity. Ultimately I think its a two way street. Fans need some healthy realism and the club needs start to run itself like a prfoessional outfit. i think to some extent Hill is caught in the middle of that and was very unhappy about what happened in January but couldn't say so. But it is a constant balancing act between expectating and realism - this year we bordered too much on the former. Bizarrely I'm actually pretty optimistic about next season. We've had a year in advance of everyone breaking even, we'll have a much better balanced wage bill now the under-achieving high earners have gone, we should have some money to spend from Vaz Te and Butterfield, Hill and the players have had a season to bed-in at this level, and the young players will be a year older. But if we do finish 21st I'll be satisfied but I'm quietly optimistic we will finish higher
It's more that we aren't doing anything to make money more available. Whenever The Don is asked he says people aren't knocking the door down to invest in us. But shouldn't a professional business be more pro active in going out there and searching for possible investment themselves? Doesn't Barry Taylor have lots of contacts in the game that could be asked? Would anything be lost by inviting Adam Pearson down to the club? Have they asked that Barnsley man in USA with oil on his land if he wants to get involved? Have we advertised the club in places like Financial Times? No as Rowing hints at we just sit about doing what we can with what we have hoping one day a knight in shiny harmour might turn up unannounced.
In the main I agree. I don't think the club is run as professionally as it could be. The only thing I would say is that under the new Financial Fair Play rules investment needs to be in the form of revenue generation. People will still be able to invest but they won't be making profit from that investment. Therefore the Jack Walker's of this world who love their club will still be involved in the game but the Venkys won't be. So if a Barnsley fan wins the lottery, bring it on, but I think the club will ultimately generate more through creative marketing and shared investment models. I'm not sure the current board are capable of that. http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/8544/38/
Re: What shares should we fill our boots with today ? ? bought more today , I am already 9% up for the day its easy if you know how , stop being jealous
I'm completley the opposite. I expect relegation so anything else will be a bonus. A lot depends on the quality of teh recruitment too. And I mean actual quality not just perceived quality because of where a player might be coming from. Just a note re breaking even - we aren't infront at all as no-one has to break even next season nor will they have to all under the rules just approved. It is true that the the losses cannot carry on but to say we are infront is misleading at best. I'll also be looking forward to the accounts that show much more than beak even given we generated at least £1.5 million in transfer fees, excluding anything we might still get for Butterfield, unless we are saying we will only break-even or make a profit by sellling players?
Agree on recruitment. My biggest concern is replacing Butterfield because he's arguably the hardest kind of player to find. I think we have the basis of a decent team but the key players need to be slotted in. What I meant, which may prove to be rubbish, is that by breaking even in advance of other teams we will already have a squad who comply with the rules and have played together and bedded in at this level. I think that will give us an adavantage over teams that suddenly have to shed the core of their team to meet the rules, and i also think there will be clubs who have to do this in advacne of the new rules as they can't continue to massively overspend. And to be honest, that is the root cause of our fans unrest. We are struggling to compete because other clubs are spending stupid money they can't afford. Its alright to say we only stayed up because Portsmouth went in to admin, but if the lad from Bournmouth had come to us instead of Portsmouth (becuase they offered money they didn't have) our season may have been much better
People are too bothered about what we haven't got rather than what we have got. In my book we have championship status, a brilliant setup, a manager who can put a decent team together as proven in first half of the season and a fan base which considering the size of the town is reasonable. When i go to a game these days i see a ground thats half full, not half empty. We play against teams costing millions, bigger fan base and rich owners and my head says we realy shouldn't be in the championship with what we have, but my heart says we should. Thats because we have the passion to sweep some of the bigger clubs to one side regardless of status. Hence i have now changed my profile status to "Half Full". how do others feel?
Correct it may well have been. The thing that irriates me is that as a club we don't try and maximise revenue. Take the quite pathetic response to the FA Cup win for a perfect example....
Middlesborough have seen an increase in attendance of 8% - from a very similar (geographical) area to ourselves. If they can do it there is no reason why we can't.
This pretty much sums me up, apart from I've never been vocal about not going. It seems to me that if you don't accept that we are poor and take it with good grace then you're negative or not behind the club. I give the club my financial backing but I'm critical because we are underperforming in every area and we could so much better.