I know they're renowned for it, but I wish we could create something like that. Oakwell would be a hard place to come if we had that.
I thought that. A lot of empty seats but still that good, shows you that the ground doesn't have to be full to have a good atmosphere, people just need to join in.
It's very hard to really judge the atmosphere at a football match from watching TV where the show's producers turn microphones in front of the stands up and down to suit their agenda. You can occasionally tell that they're turning the mics up because an individual person shouts something and it is heard loud and clear on the TV which suddenly makes the apparently 20,000 people singing suddenly sound very quiet. I'll never forget watching a liverpool match on ITV where the commentators said the kop was in fine voice and you could hear them singing and it was really impressive. Until the camera panned to the kop which was sat motionless yet the singing was still happening. Must be a lot of ventriloquists in Liverpool.
Our FA Cup tie at the old Stoke ground was a fantastic atmosphere, with the Stokies all waving inflatable pink panthers behind the goal. It was a tremendous match and we should have won it. David Currie was our top marksman at the time and they had the Blackpool donkey Dave Bamber at centre forward. Peter Beagrie scored a brilliant equaliser at the end to take the score to 3-3 and that was a huge disappointment, except for the fact that it set up a great night of FA Cup replay glory for the Reds the following week. This was the night of the famous Currie back heel in the area to Steve Cooper. Coops crashed the ball in for the winning goal and then did a fantastic double somersault to celebrate the goal. We had never seen that before from a Barnsley player. Another sad loss of course as he died tragically young.
We used to, and it used to be. Even 9-10,000 in when it was standing and the atmosphere was extremely intimidating. No surprise that even when we had some pretty average sides we rarely lost at home.
That was a tremendous set of matches. As well as the famous goal in the replay there was also Currie's goal at their place, played over his shoulder and banged in as if it was the easiest thing in the world. Great times.
We missed all our goals, relying on people with radios outside, they opened the gates at half time and in we surged, couldve been a mini Hillsborough, before Hillsborough.
Even when we were in league 1 and we were unbeaten at home for ages, the atmosphere was much better even back then. When it gets going at Oakwell it can be an intimidating place to come. Just wish it was more often.