I knew we were looking at signing Freddie Ljungberg, but I didn't know we looked at signing Johann Mjallby aswell. I also didn't know that Martin O'Neill applied for the job.
1990 then, that will be just before O'Neill went to Wycombe wouldnt it? Mel Machin was a top manager at Oakwell in my opinion, if the board had kept hold of the better players and backed him a bit more we could have been one of the founding premiership clubs.
The biggest mistake made was giving Hendrie the job. Had we got a proven manager in at the time I am convinced we'd have made the play offs at least. I wasn't inspired by the appointment of Hendrie, it just felt all wrong, and it turned out to be poor judgement by JD.
hendrie got the job to appease the fans after judas did what 90% of the fans knew he was going to do half way through the prem season ( after selling his natural and fans choice for manager)
at least Hendrie brought in Hignett. facts from book Arjan de Zeeuw first £100k per year Barnsley Player Club were about to offer Martin O'Niel job but Machin became available
i'm not having a pop at hendrie an absolute brilliant player for barnsley and a lovely man to talk to, but he wasnt up to the job, you cant go from dressingroom clown to boss, he just wasnt cut out to be a manager
I felt Hendrie was a tad unlucky with injuries though, not saying it would have worked out any different but the injury list that season was longer than my arm!!
Backed him a bit more?,'kin ell!,in 91 he had one the biggest transfer budgets of any manager in our history(prem'apart),we sold tiler for £1.4 million and aggie for £750 grand and mad mel was given most of it to turn us from play off hopefulls to genuine promotion contenders and he blew the lot, going for quantity over quality,we were crying out for a quality goalscorer so mel *****s nearly two hundred grand on fookin' turkey neck john pearson,leeds must've been laughing thier c*cks off.mad mel decent first 12 months,fookin' cuckoo after.
I know Dave jones was interviewed at the same time as spackman - both sneaked into the ground during a match - and spoken to in the board room