I've posted a few tongue in cheek posts recently in the hope that the management may get some perspective on our dire situation. If we always do what we've always done so far, we can only expect to get what we've always got so far! Something needs to change. It may be the players, it may be the tactics, it may be the manager, it may even be the owner, but if it doesn't change we are going down and we are looking at gates below 4000 next season. If that happens, any money we get from the sale of Stones will just go to cover the cost of the list fans. These are serious questions then: Is there such a thing as a football brain? And if there is can it be learned? I am talking about having the capacity to read a game and see what others don't see. The ability to look at a situation and change it so that you pit your strength against the opposition's weakness. I remember a game during the Glavin years whe we were playing at Hillsborough. Big Jack was their manager and Norman Hunter was ours (legends). Charlton wrote after the game "I'd committed all my substitutes and Glavin was on the bench and I knew that if Norman brought him on we'd lose." Needless to say Norman brought him on and Barnsley won, because both of these brilliant footballers had a football brain. We now put our faith in coaching badges and PowerPoint presentation and little coloured button on magnetic boards and we seem to have lost the brilliance of reading the actual game when it's taking place. Just because someone doesn't appear to be doing something wrong (LJs plan for instance), it doesn't mean that they're doing it right (accumulating points and rising up the table). If there is such a thing as a football brain then LJ does not, on the evidence, appear to have it. I like the bloke a lot and I'm sure that there are plenty of jobs in football that he could do, but he must seriously ask himself whether he is in the right job. To be clear, the job is to win games, climb the table, attract fans and add value to the club. It appears to be Lee's decision, I hope he makes the right one.
I think you are absolutely right, e-red. There are a lot of things to do with football (and in other areas of life) which call for a certain amount of instinct. The thing is, the instinctive response is often not just pure gut instinct - it is an instinctive response based on experience. One of the best examples of this is in regard to strikers. Kayode Odejayi was one of the most natural athletes I've seen us play up front. But when he got in front of goal he had to stop and think. A Kevin Phillips does it naturally and instinctively. It applies to many other aspects of football, as you indicate. Lee has studied for all the coaching badges under the sun, by all accounts. But he turns out a team who play with no passion, and who often look dazzled in the headlights. I saw a similar phenomenon working in the public sector, where the "competence" and NVQ mentality slowly took hold - eagerly promoted by the civil service. People were so belaboured with policies and protocols that they ceased to be able to think and to manage. There's nothing wrong with taking on board new ideas, but like much in life they should be a servant, not a master.
Committed all my substitutes? In those days we only had one! I was there that day by the way and guess who scored the goal? I loved the Hunter teams, they played with such determination. However, even his "Football Brain" deserted him when we lost many of our best players, replacing them with inferior ones and in the end Norman kept picking his favourites who clearly weren't performing instead of letting other members of the squad have a chance.
Interesting post. Being a good manager presumably means having a certain talent for it. Just like you need talent to be a footballer. All the study in the world will supply information on the job. It still won't guarantee that you're going to be good at it. David Platt springs to mind - did he not go all round the world studying this and that, but when it came to it could he not cut the mustard? Spackman was articulate but hopeless. It may well be that even if allowances are made for any dodgy recruitment conditions there are, LJ will never have that "footballing brain". Ideas, plans, strategies, formations, tactics - call em what you like - they're only any good if they work.
Can't say I do remember it but I remember wondering why Glavin didn't start, I don't think he was injured. I certainly remember Ronnie slotting it in shortly after he came on - excellent goal from the best player we've had at Oakwell in my time (just beats Redfearn for me). That team should have got promoted to Division 1, I think we were 4 points off 3rd place and we dropped some unlikely points like 0-1 at home to Blackburn in february. Of course nowadays we'd have made the playoffs and might have won them; if memory serves, we took 13 points from the last 6 games including a 1-1 draw at Luton (who finished top, which we should have won). Great team.
The victory over Sheffield Wednesday was on Easter Monday 1983. We finished 1981/82 four points from promotion. Had we beaten Norwich City at home, rather than losing, we and not they would have finished third.
Yes I knew the 1-0 win at Swillsbro was the following season. I think the defeat you're talking about was Leicester (0-2) which was the only defeat in the last 6 games which included a win at Crystal Palace (2-1) and the draw at Luton, both of which I went to. The other 3 games were Charlton (h) 1-0, Derby (a) 1-0 and QPR (h) 3-0.
Brilliant post and something I'm in full agreement with. We've been fortunate to have had a lot of players with a football brain over the years I've watched Barnsley - players whose anticipation /speed-of-thought often made up for a lack of athletic speed. Not often we had several in the same team though. And it's not always the "star players" who fall into thus category. We'll all have different lists but here's mine for starters - Glavin, Futcher, Gray, Sheridan, Appleby, De Zeeuw, Davis, Thompson, Redfearn, Barnard, Hendrie, Hignett, Ward, Eaden, Howard, Butterfield, Hallfredsson. Just footballers who made the game look so easy.
No, old mate. The Norwich game I was talking about was at Oakwell round the January/February time and we lost 1-0. Ray McHale got some real grief that night with obscene chanting aimed at him by some in the Ponty End. Had the score been reversed that night, it would've been us finishing in third place, not Norwich. If I remember correctly, I managed to get to all the games that season. The QPR game was only a couple of weeks before they played Spurs in the FA Cup Final. Even with the likes of Tony Currie, Mike Flanagan & Clive Allen in the team, we ripped them apart and in the end QPR were flattered by the 3-0 scoreline.
