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

Yup. Studying & posting on the BBS doesn't work particularly well for me.

 

Have we though ?

 

Great post. Sums up the qualities of John Dennis too. What the club did under his stewardship with no outside investment was nothing short of a miracle.

 

Aye it aint the first time we`ve had a bad spell. McSeveney jeez.

 

It strikes me as about time we made some effort to recognise John Dennis part in our achievements which can't be overstated. Fantastic guy who as Matt says performed something akin to witchcraft.

 

That will never happen though, as many still hold him solely responsible for the poor decisions that led us into administration, the main mistake being to make the decision re Cryne's offer at board level and not taking it to the wider shareholders. If they had taken it to the wider shareholders and the implications had been explained, the vote would most likely have been to accept Cryne's offer and we'd have never gone into administration. Unfortunately the board were all major shareholders and appeared reluctant to give up their shares for nothing, which was basically what Cryne's offer involved. The irony being, of course, that this is ultimately what happened anyway, with these poor decisions preventing Cryne from taking over for a couple of years, by which time the debt had spiralled out of control, meaning that a massive chunk of money that would have been invested in the club and the playing squad had to firstly be used to pay off the new debt.

Those solely blaming Dennis don't take into account that it was a board vote/decision and that Dennis was only one member of the board. In fact, one of the other board members at the time wasted a lot of time trying to get a consortium together himself, before that collapsed. Who knows which way each board member swayed on this decision?

 

If you read the Administrator's report of the time, it outlines the details of a bid/offer to help from a 3rd party (doesn't say if it is Cryne or not). Worth reading to give some context.

 

Hopefully at some stage the financial stuff will be left behind and his achievements as chairman will be considered and acknowledged. I'm not holding my breath and can't see it happening in the medium term but seems right to me.

 

Point of me putting that was that it appears the offer of financial help wasn't as straightforward as has been suggested.

Wonder what would have been the upshot if Wilson hadn't persuaded JD to give him the job ? Wonder how the old se up would have faired in the current money-led football world ?

 

I wrote JD's book with him and was fascinated to spend so much time with such a knowledgable football figure.

The shareholder situation is a complicated one, and cannot be explained in a few paragraphs.

Dennis also would never claim to be completely innocent. He admits he made mistakes and got things wrong. But the achievements far outweigh the lows, in my view.

Under his tenure we reached the Premier League, got to Wembley, converted Oakwell into a good, modern stadium and built an academy, a disabled stand and an indoor training facility. And we signed Craig Hignett. That's all with money generated internally and with zero financial input from the board or any outside investment. The man's a BFC legend.

 

errm these cup "Runes" who got us those

was it Gandallf ????