if this take over is real, how long do you think it will take

nope

 

So Cavare was supposed to be signing for Huddersfield for 1.8m do you honestly think the current regime were willing to stump up that amount to get him here.

Thiam again over a million quid spent, the current regime would not be spending their own cash knowing that a takeover was imminent which I think is why Hecky was so frustrated.

 

Yes patrick was fourtunate to have the finances to save us but they are other wealthy bfc fans who never came forward. And is Peter Doyle even a supporter? That's like me saying I would have bailed us out but Im not a millionaire sorry it's one thing saying it it's another to put your money where your mouth Is.
Patrick not only saved us he has given us some great times over the years 2016 was one of my favourite years watching the reds. I'm not saying he hasn't made mistakes along the way he would also admit that I'm sure. But like I said a bfc legend in my opinion.

 

Can't remember the details but in 2003 didn't Councillor Doyle try to sell to an Icelandic consortium that's
why Gudjon Thordarrson arrived at the Club. ? Seem to recall David Moyes's brother walking round the perimeter
of the pitch before a game but it transpired he didn't have a pot to pi*s in and Peter Risdale and Patrick Cryne then got involved.? Was Kenny Moyles part of the Icelandic proposal. Whatever happened they failed the FA's due diligence checks.
Can anyone remember what exactly happened at that time.? I know it was a very worrying period and fans were concerned
at the prospects of Councillor Doyle taking us over.

 

Kenny Moyes was the broker for the US consortium led by Sean Lewis, promised all sorts but didn't have a pot to piss in

 

If it does happen does that mean that for once instead of selling players in the January window, we'll actually be buying?

 

I think you are spot on, I would go one further by saying the new CEO GG was set on as part of the upcoming buy out deal.

 

Totally agree

 

I don't think these sort of people are going to lose much sleep about one transfer deadline. They think longer term than that.

 

I think you could well be close to the truth.

 

As kektyke says Kenny Moyes was involved with bringing Sean Lewis in.

Lewis was a California based businessman (though I don't think they ever explained what business that was) who was originally from Kent.

From memory what happened in order was something like this.

Dennis placed the club in administration and ram Robson rhodes were appointed administrators, specifically Mathew Durham.
He did a piss poor job of trying to save us and just a few days before we were told we would be closed down the mayor Peter Doyle appeared out of nowhere and bought the club for a quid.

Doyle didn't actually have any money though and so he had to mortgage the land with a company called the sterling consortium which had ridiculous interest attached but at least in the short term the club had been saved. He wasn't trusted though and people suspected he had dodgy motives to sell ofF the land or something even though he never attempted to do that or applied for any planning permission etc.

While Doyle was in charge 'somebody' set up AFC Barnsley. A group of fans led by shefftyke who used to post on here who claimed he was finding it with a lottery win but after a brief of cross examination a different fan and relation to a bfc player at the time claimed that HE was finding the club (can't remember f he claimed that in public or just privately to me in a pm) and somewhere along the lines yet another random fan claimed he was funding it. A lot of fans at the time suspected the really backer was a wealthy businessman who shall remain nameless.

Peter Doyle announced that a group led by Sean Lewis would be taking over and when they took over running of the club they sacked Hodges and brought in thordarson, fazackerly and Ronnie glavin. Lewis announced a lot of ideas to help the club make money in future including erecting a large video screen scoreboard, installing TVs in the concourses, adding variety to the refreshment stands in the form of a McDonald's that could be used to make money on none matchdays as well as during games and also building a cinema and ice rink on some of the club's spare land. All sound ideas really and as you will have noticed some of them have actually been adopted later. The problem was that he was an ideas man who thought he could make the club self sufficient in the long run but didn't have any money to clear the debts in the short term and so while he was running the club the fa never cleared the takeover legally.

Out of nowhere just a month or so after Lewis was announced Peter Doyle sold the club from under his feet to Peter ridsdale and Patrick cryne which he legally could do as the fa hadn't ratified the sale.

Peter ridsdale took over the running of the club and appointed his friend who's name I can't remember as second in command and paid both of them quite a handsome wage. Patrick cryne at this time stayed out of the way and wasnt really in the public eye at all. Very much just a rich man who had helped Ridsdale out as far as many were concerned.

It was at this point that the ground was separated from the club and the council and Patrick cryne jointly bought that with ridsdale owning the assetless football club.

While this arrangement was in place the club exited administration as the mortgage had been paid off by the sale of the land to Patrick and the council.

Around a year later ridsdale was panicking and launched a bond scheme where you paid £300 and got £50 off your season ticket for a few years plus a bonus if we got to the premiership. Shortly after that he was forced out of the club by the rest of the board (presumably Patrick cryne mainly) when it became apparent that he had spent the entire seasons budget in a matter of months.

A new company oakwell holdings was set up and the club's ownership was transferred to that where Gordon shepherd was named as sole shareholder holding shares in trust for Patrick cryne I believe. I don't remember the exact wording of how that works but essentially Patrick cryne was owner but shepherd was holding his share.
Gordon shepherd took up position as chairman and cryne stayed out of the way.

Somewhere between cryne and the council buying the land and around this point AFC Barnsley who were still a rival club at this time bizarrely built a new stand. Not at their own pitch but on Barnsley fc's academy. That's right, Barnsley FC allowed a rival club to build a stand on their land. The scandal became known as 'afc stand on bfc land' and no real explanation was ever given as to why this had been allowed although a lot of speculation as to who had truly funded AFC Barnsley took place.

Around a year after Ridsdale was booted out and while things were going well for the club under Patrick's ownership AFC Barnsley abruptly withdrew from the league during the season saying that they were no longer needed.

Shepherd remained chairman until 2008 when he retired and Don rowing took over as chairman.

I've probably got a lot of that wrong

 

Very impressive, old mate.
The only bit of erroneous info is you've got Derek Fazackerley & Noel Blake mixed up (Fazackereley was coach under Nigel Spackman). No worries, as they could easily pass as identical twins.

 

Bugger i knew something wasn't right about that when I'd basically got glavin and fazackerley doing the same job at the same time. Did they ever actually say why glavin left?

 

I would completely agree with this also.

 

By all accounts he was only brought in in order to appease supporters. God & Gudjon had never worked together before Lewis put the management team in place. After a few months, God was moved on & Noel Blake became the Number 2.

 

Ta. I seem to recall rumours of a sacking and things untowards happening but wasn't sure if they were just the usual rumour or if the club had actually suggested as such.

What was the name of your fake player that we were linked to back then?

 

Jason Barker, goal scoring midfielder from Notts County.

 

He will go down in history as the one that got away

 

Gordon Shepherd joked with me at the time that if anyone asked why we didn't sign Barker, I was to say the agent was demanding too much money!

 

Reading all of that brings all those worrying memories come flooding back. Until Risdale and Patrick Cryne
took us over, I was always fearful we might not have a Club to support. Thanks for everyone's input.
Amazing how you forget so much of what happened back then.

Always remember when we learned that Risdale had departed. Just before kick off one week, the Stadium
announcer made the statement that he'd left over the tannoy.

I was on the back row in the East Stand upper tier that day and for the first twenty minutes of the game we didn't watch the match as we were all busy speculating why it might have happened. We've been really lucky that Patrick Cryne has steadied the ship and put those horrible times pre - 2003 to the back of our minds.

We are now readying ourselves for the introduction of a brand new regime. Let's hope the new owners have the best interests
of the Club at heart and we can quickly get to grips with the changes and get back to what we do best, supporting the team.