Classic King Keith..

No I didnt, wrong manager mate.
I just detested everything he said and did.
I did not go during the Flitcroft managership. No drama . just a principle, something that a lot of people on this board have never had., Not you, but some others.

 

I support em thru thick n thin
Otherwise we would never go !

 

Barnsley Fc managers who have seen their best players sold: All of them, throughout our entire history. And it will always be that way. It's pretty much the same for every club in the country unless you support Man Utd and even they sold Ronaldo.

Barnsley FC managers that have worked under a limited budget: All of them, throughout our entire history. And most had a hell of a lot smaller budget than Keith Hill.

Keith paid money, proper money, hundreds of thousands of pounds of money for Scott Wiseman and Matt Done. God knows how many other permanent and loan signings he made, I haven't got enough fingers and toes to count them. We paid more in agents fees during the 2011-12 season than many of our managers have enjoyed for their transfer budget. In Danny Wilson's first year in charge he spent zilch. Not a single penny. The only player to play in the 94-95 season that hadn't played in the 93-94 season was the 38 year old Malcom Shotton who had been brought in as a coach. He wasn't saving brass thinking that the squad was good enough, he didn't have a bean. We finished 6th in Danny's first season with 72 points. We finished 21st in Keith's with 48.

Get ready to hear that Danny inherited a better squad. Well, we finished 18th in 93-94, one place and one point behind where we finished the year before Keith took charge. They took over the club in a similar position. Apart from Keith had a 23,000 capacity all seater stadium, training facilities that rival the best in the country and money to pay for an entire team worth of new players. Danny had one stand, a ploughed field to train on and barely enough players to pick three subs.

Keith brought in a bit of money from the players he signed, the Vaz Te signing was a stroke of genius, but the majority of money he is credited with bringing in to the club was from the sale of players who came up through our youth ranks.

If you want to see what real money a manager brings to a club can do, then look back at the last few sentences. The ground and training facilities that Keith enjoyed, the academy that produced John Stones and Jacob Butterfield, what Danny Wilson did paid for that.

Every manager we've ever had has had to work under the same restrictions as Keith Hill, many far worse. I have no idea why such excuses are only wheeled out for Keith. His record at Barnsley is the worst in our history. His continued popularity astounds me. Particularly as our god awful squad who are currently sleepwalking their way to relegation still has a number of players he signed. The majority being who most people believe are our worst.

 

Never stopped loving the team, just not the manager, someone that I will never ever like and who I think is an awful man, a man that is as two faced as they come.

 

You aren't comparing like with like though Jay. Take agents fees (for example) there was only one club in the championship with lower agent fees during in Hill's tenure and that was Blackpool who had a far lower number of signings. Of course Danny Wilson had lower agent fees. They were less prevalent and money was far lower in the game.

Keith was a big-headed ****. The style of play divided opinion. But his budget was reduced by £1.5m from Robins' reign. It was the lowest in the league in season one and bottom three in season two. In season one we were pissing hundreds of thousands up the wall on players paid far more than any of our current squad and they were ***** as well. Given all the studies that show league position almost always correlates to wage bill we were looking for a miracle worker, not a manager.

To have a go at him for bringing in the players he did is like giving someone 3 quid to go to the shop and then getting on at the for only coming back with a 4 pack of Fosters.

Admittedly Keith would have called you a w@nker whilst doing so

Oh and you won't hear a bad word from me about Danny

 

No, it's because he didn't sign anyone. Nobody. Not even a loan signing in that first season. I didn't say the agent fees in Keith Hill's time were higher than those in Danny's time at the club, or any of a dozen other Barnsley managers you care to mention. I said the agents fees that were paid when Keith Hill was in charge were higher than many of the previous manager's entire transfer budgets. Keith Hill had bags of money compared to what many Barnsley managers had at their disposal. Yet, for some reason, it's only ever Keith who had to work with a limited budget. Keith Hill came to this football club and was given money to spend. It was there waiting for him thanks to the sale of Shackell, brought to the club by Robins (Yes Shackell was sold after Keith signed, but he had nothing to do with it). Most managers I remember had to sell players in order to sign others and they certainly didn't get all the money from player sales. Keith Hill was given a transfer budget before he'd done a thing.

It's excuses, constant excuses that simply do not add up and if we're going to move on it's got to stop. Keith Hill had a limited budget at Barnsley, yeah well, so did every other manager we've ever had but we don't get thread after thread making excuses for them.

Keith Hill came to Barnsley and worked under more or less the same conditions as every man before him. Some got a bit more, some got a bit less, but all had a pretty small budget compared to their rivals. Keith's record is worse than any of them. Hodges who was appointed during administration and couldn't sign anyone, Thordarsson who could only sign players on month to month contracts, Spackman the devil incarnate, Parkin who got us relegated, Iley Out, useless Viv Anderson all have a better points per game record than Keith.

Every manager in every business in every field in the entire world is limited by their budget. Little businesses have to compete against bigger ones all the time. I'm in my 42nd year and I've never heard as many excuses for the failure of one man as I've heard for Keith Hill.

He wasn't good enough. It's not that he wasn't good enough because of the circumstances, he just plain old wasn't good enough.

 

One thing you are forgetting too Keith when he first took over said the budget wasn't a problem because he was going to wheel & deal to create saleable assets which he did in Vaz Te (and perhaps Scott Goldbourne) - but thats it. Then 6 months down the line all he did was bleat about it at any given opportunity whilst turning in some of the most horrible set of results i can ever recall.

 

Aye what I've never understood is why folks took any notice of his bleating or excuses. Anyone would think that we used to give managers an unlimited pot of money and Keef'y a tenner. The budget was greater than many managers you mentioned particularly Hodges and Thordarrson. There aren't thread after thread talking about how great they were.

 

But the excuses are in response to the crticism. I appreciate thread was started about him in a positive light, but after Saturday's game there were numerous threads started having a go at Hill, blaming him for our current position for signing players from league one.

I don't think that is a valid criticism. Theres so many reasons to have a go at Hill, but signing lower league players should nt be one. Any manager with his budget would have had to do the same during that period. Added to which this was the strategy on which the board appointed him. Surely the book stops there? Maybe I should just let those posts pass as I've made my point.

 

I'm going to save this and just paste it every time whitey posts some more Lancashire related *****.

 

Like Jay says, at some point we have to move on and considering my other hero is now in charge then I won't mention him again.

But do know this - I will forever hold him dear to my heart the daft f.cker.

 

This is the whole point ark mate. From where do you think Barnsley have always signed their players? The argument that you and Whitey and Dyson and others put forward, you'd think that Barnsley have always signed current Premier League stars until Keith Hill came along and suddenly he had to get players from the lower leagues.

Barnsley have always signed players from the lower leagues. Our players have come from either the lower leagues or from the reserves of Championship and Premier League teams. Or they're old and considered past it by their clubs (Hendrie and Wilkinson) or have fallen out with their managers (Redfearn) or they're in all sorts of bother (Glavin and Hignett). We have never, ever signed players from our level or above who have been playing out of their skins and we've gone in and made an offer their club can't refuse. Never.

The difference is mate, managers in the past scouted their players and signed good ones from the various areas, Keith Hill just signed players he'd worked with before. Most of 'em *****.

At the end of Danny's first season in charge Taggart was sold. Danny couldn't find a decent replacement straight away, so he brought in the experienced Shirtliff on a free transfer as a stop gap, and to ultimately become part of the coaching staff. He didn't just ***** his money up the wall on the likes of Matt Done, he waited to get the right man and brought in Arajan De Zeeuw. And that was it, a couple of loan players who were quickly sent back aside, that's all he brought in. Then he sold Rammell and Payton and Archdeacon and O'Connell and used that money to buy players he wanted. He wasn't given money, he generated money.

Alan Clarke did the same. Sold players and used the funds to buy others, not established players from established clubs, from the lower leagues and the reserves.

Machin did it too. Sold David Currie to finance the purchase of players like Taggart and Flemming (not getting a game at their club), Rammel from Man Utd reserves without a football league appearance to his name and Steve Davies and Charlie Bishop from lower league teams.

Every manager we've ever had has had to do what Keith Hill did. It's just he was no damn good at it. The circumstances aren't different, the ability is.

 

In a more general point though, at one time our comparative standing financially to others in our league (championship level) was much more equal than it is now. Where we once competed with Grimsby, Southend, Shrewsbury, Bradford etc, we now compete with recent Premier League teams with their parachute payments - so in the absence of all other factors they must surely get first dibs at 'better' players, where at one time I'd suggest we had at least as equal a chance as most teams at our level of attracting experienced top flight players at the end of their careers (Hendrie, Wilkinson etc) - now, I'd venture that we quite simply cannot compete with the wages most teams in our league can pay.

Thus money/budgets are a mitigating factor for Barnsley managers these days.

Not particularly bigging Hill up there because he lost the plot, but football at this level is vastly different to even 10 years ago.

 

Well leaving aside the fact that in the summer most people were praising the squad of players Hill had assembled, I don't have an issue with people saying players are *****. The posts I argue against are the ones that say we shouldn't have signed lower league players. As your post also argues.

 

One of the biggest failures of Keith Hill and David Flitcroft was the signings of too many players of below average quality.

I don't mind signing lower league players, we've had some Legends at BFC who have grown out of lower league football. The problem that I have, is that the Hillcroft partnership acquired too many poor players, either loans or permanent. They had the money and did not do their homework, in terms of finding quality, hence we end up with a high quantity of dross on our playing staff.

Their recruitment policy, on balance, was terrible.

 

Another good point well made. As were the many made by Jay and Ark once I'd retired to bed. A really good debate, which I enjoy. Although to be fair, I wasn't expecting a debate when creating this thread. I got home from Teeside on Saturday evening and once logged on to the BBS had to wade through some right ***** before finding any decent reports on the latest BFC embarrassment. We had just lost to Coventry, and there was thread after thread firing abuse at - in the main - Keith Hill and his 'lower league' players. I found it ridiculous. A bloke who hasn't been in charge since 2012 still getting the majority of blame in 2014. And the players he was once lauded for recruiting were now (as is the case whenever we're losing) stealing a living and ought to '**** off back to Rochdale'.
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Very few references to Flitcroft, practically no criticism aimed at the board. Hell, there were more threads turning on Wilson! As I'd predicted just a week earlier, we were even treated to our first collection of 'Judas' posts.
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The same evening, Rochdale massacred Leeds. This was mentioned by someone and the response from the usual culprits bordered on frightening. You'd be forgiven for thinking Keith relegated us twice in his spell here, and put us into administration, such is the level of fury aimed at the bloke.
And then I came across a thread discussing me and my whereabouts. Apparently, because I had told someone on my personal twitter account that I was at Middlesbrough, this was a crime and had to be brought up on the BBS for the furious to get angrymad about as well.
So, being the type of bloke that I am, after yesterday stumbling across that Keith quote, I thought I'd pillock the pillocks and share it on here. It was as blatant a piss take as you'll see, but I knew full well that the usual culprits would be falling over each other to call him a lovely person. We are now 4 pages further on, and in my opinion it's not me with the obsession. Seriously.
I know for a fact Keith failed. I too thought he was a lovely person quite often. I wanted him gone after Wednesday robbed us that night. But I refuse to join in on painting him as the worst manager and worst man to ever set foot into Barnsley. And yes, I have mates in Rochdale, football mates, and have and will again attend one of their games. Erm, and that's that.
I am on my phone, so apologies for the huge wad of text.
You reds etc.

 

Now that is exactly my viewpoint. Nice work EN

 

I'd love to have overheard the Hill/Flitcroft discussions about players.

'"Hey oop Flicker ars abart that lad at Stevanage"
"Hey had a reight game against Morecambe in the Johnstones Paint when we had him at Dale"
"Shall we send the scout out"
"Nah no need if he is good enough to come on as a sub for Dale he can make the step up".

 

Been said before, but its the predictability of these threads that amuses. What is it about Hill that gets fans so obsessed long after hes gone? He used to get the same from some on our board whenever you lot lost. It's obviously a personality thing, but many involved in football rub fans up the wrong way, Hill has the X Factor.

Fact remains, he knows a good player. Even the ones you might think are awful now were once given praise. Even TK last season when he was playing a back three.

And by Christ, how many times do you have to watch that Henderson goal until it gets boring?

 

Jeez. Is this thread STILL going on?