Last 20 Years Most Successful in Clubs History - Time to Stop Moaning?

Another thread posted last night made me think it's probably time for fans who have been around over the last 20 years to stop moaning given that during that period we have known in our terms unparalleled success.

In that period:

1. been promoted to the Premiershit and enjoyed the only season in the top flight in our history.
2. Played in an FA Cup Semi Final and two FA Cup quarter finals
3. Been promoted from Division 3
4. Been play off winners
5. Been play off losers
6. Narrowly missed play offs when finishing 6th under Danny
7. Had a great collection of home grown talents - Eaden, Liddell, Watson, Moses, Butterfield, Morgan (before he became the devil), Stones, Jones, through to Holgate and Bree now
8. Seen some of BFC's greatest ever players in Redfearn, Hignett, Ward, de Zeeuw, Watson, Eaden, Stones (though briefly)
9. Appeared at Wembley twice and the Millennium Stadium once
10. Had some of the best goalkeepers in the clubs History in Watson, Muller and Steele
11. Recruited top level foreign players at a level never seen before such as Fjortoft, De Zeeuw, Muller, Anderson Da Silva, Marcelle

Of course we have had our failures in that time. Some real down times. The Administrations, some relegations and lots of dull poor seasons scrabbling at the bottom of the championship but do we really have owt to whinge about if you put this in the context of the history of our club?

 

I was thinking about this. As a long term fan it's an interesting question.

So from 1982-ish to 1997-ish I had watched mostly second tier football. The only fluctuations were "amazing times" under Hunter, dark times when the strike happened and crowds dropped, but mostly it was what it was - 2nd tier football.

If you were a genie, and asked me the following questions after the West Brom match at the start of the promotion season, hindsight tells me it would have been difficult to answer ! !

1) "Over the next 18 years you will have a season in the Prem, you will have a couple of trips to the play-offs at Wembley and Cardiff, you will have some great cup runes and beat some top, top clubs. You will see Craig Hignett. However, crowds will drop, you will hit administration and also slip down a couple of divisions with no quick fix"

2) "Over the next 18 years you will stay in the second tier. Crowds will go up, crowds will go down. Managers will change. You will play good football, you will play some dire football. You will have a couple of star signings, you will sign some dross. You will flirt with promotion, you will flirt with relegation. However as a genie, I guarantee your 2nd tier status will remain unchanged"

What would you have chosen ?

 

I'd have gone for the first option probably because I'd already gone through 15 seasons of the second option and spent the latter part of those years harking back to the Clarke/Hunter years when we tasted success. I guess some of the younger chaps might see it differently not having sat through Machin's legendary 8-1-1 formation (and I say that as a big fan of Mel)

 

Agree like, but my worry is that we've wasted the last 9/10 years apparently fire fighting relegation from The Championship without any conceivable plan to build a sustainable squad.

Only now does that seem apparent, but on the back of another relegation back to Div 3 it asks for a lot of understanding and patience from the fan base.

 

When we beat Swansea in the play offs, I never understood people saying "we went up too soon". But look at the difference now ! !

 

Swansea had a plan and stuck to it we just stagnated and went backwards so I guess they were right in saying we went up too soon. Bugger I hate being wrong.

 

Swansea went up with a plan. And fair play to them, it has worked thus far.

We went up and thought "Now what ?". And so it went on.

But although times are hard, I do see light at the end of the tunnel and think we should build on a team of youngsters.

 

We've been in a semi final and three quarter finals as well haven't we?

 

As I said last night Jimmy, the last fifteen years have been bang average to downright poor.

What you're doing is trying to make it sound better by tacking the best five years on to the beginning.

Two clear eras for me - 1981/2 to 2000 and 2000/1 to date. Hugely contrasting fortunes in those eras and that is clear as crystal to me.

 

Why are they the 'clear eras' though? Bit arbitrary. I think it's 1978 to 1995 and 1996 to date. It's crystal clear.

 

You missed Paddy

 

After Promotion in Swansea, we have endured 8 seasons of poor fare with a few glimmers of hope and not to forget an incredible run in the cup.

Just shows that despite what we have had to endure we have some very devoted fans.

New League, new season, lets just see how it pans out, a crap ninth or the start of a new dawn for the reds.

Any youngster that's bought a season ticket and has put up with the last 8 years and still goes wants a medal.

I had been going a couple of seasons in the owd fourth before I saw a promotion. How long had you lot been going before we had any success?

 

Good point, had 3 years of Jim Iley selling Ron Wigg and not wanting to go up before Clarkey arrived.

Looking back, what a gamble that was.

 

Started going in 1968/69 (had a season ticket since 1969/70) and didn't see any success until we won promotion from the Fourth Division under Allan Clarke in 1978/79. Only three seasons had a promotion push before Clarke's success, 1969/70 in the Third Division, 1976/77 & 1977/78 in the Fourth. The team fell away badly at the end of all three. We were relegated from the Third Division in 1971/72.
After reaching the 3rd Round of the FA Cup in both 1968/69 & 1969/70, we never reached that stage again until the 1980/81 season. We never progressed beyond the 2nd Round of the League Cup until the 1980/81 season, again.

 

20 years dovetails both the Wilson eras perfectly so seems a reasonable time frame for that reason alone.

From conan's example in terms of success you have to whittle it down to a 3/4 year cycle up unless you ignore the post Hunter declination of our club due to economic factors.

 

Comprehensive reply there Inspector.

 

The only thing you can take from it, though, is that I'm old!

 

Went a few times in the mid 70s. I honestly thought our manager was called Ileyout for about 6 months. By a quirk of fate didn't see us score or win a game for the first couple of seasons. Starting going regularly in the last Iley season. So I only had to wait until Clarke turned up a year later to have my first taste of success. I guess I'm one of Barnsley's few glory hunting Barnsley fans. Then a year of consolidation before the great Hunter team clicked into gear and tore out of the division. Stagnation then miners strike depression. Mel Machin started dragging us out of the cycle signing some great players like Taggart and Fleming and we flirted with the play offs before Anderson and then Danny took over.

Certainly if you take the last 8 years in isolation it's been fairly mundane. But a vast improvement on early 70s BFC up to Clarkey turning up and transforming the club.

 

Take, Shirley you meant deduce didn`t you Insp.