Managed decline

The signs are there. Look back 4/5 years ago and compare. There are highs and lows and the highs sometimes compensate for the lows but overall, the club is getting weaker and weaker. We nearly got to the premier league 3 years ago. Last year we nearly got to the championship. Its poor management and an inability to look beyond a 12/18 month selling cycle and a desperate hope that sales of several good players (at the given level we're at) can somehow be compensated for by punts on lower league, cheap replacements. Its poor club management. The club is yet again having to rebuild and reorganise during the season. The coach is new and whether good or not is having to stamp his own ideas on the squad. The team, again, is in flux, regardless of what one may say about injuries. The whole set up smacks of lack of decent long-term planning and more of hopeful punting. Its not working.
Might get lucky this year of course but that's the point- we are hoping we get lucky and make a few quid on sales rather than planning over the longer term.

 

Longer term planning in English football isn't really possible. Everything essentially depends on the wealth of the owners. Barnsley don't have any money and therefore the extent of the ambition is bottom 6 of the Championship. Their main aim is to remain solvent. They're on a treadmill, running frantically just to stay still. The club is a vehicle for young players and inexperienced coaches to further their careers. It's the only way the club can survive in such a basket case of an industry.

 

And yet we still keep trudging down there. But, given 57 years of doing so, if there was a cure I’d presumably have found it years ago.

 

Absolutely spot on & the reason why I got a refund on my season ticket. Until the club start planning for the long term & start showing ambition, I won’t be returning .

 

What does ambition and long term planning look like? Not selling your best players? Keeping a coach who wants to manage at a higher level? That's the road to insolvency. Just surviving in English football costs millions. Ticket sales and sponsorship don't bring enough money in. They have to sell their best players just to survive at League One level. There are always one or two exceptions each season but usually your financial clout dictates your position in the pyramid. Barnsley are top half League One.

 

Ok Ill phrase it differently then. Why are Barnsley slowly declining relative to other clubs, many of which have weaker support and poorer financial bases from which they're starting from? I put it to you that it is a poor management structure and focus that is weakening Barnsley and not financial issues per se.

 

Agreed Luton are testament to this, 9 seasons from non league to prem on lower crowds and turnover, building slowly and progressing sometimes 1 step back and 2 forwards, but rarely 1 step forward and 2 back.
Just look at the free agents out there, and we're crying out for leaders and experience, but we won't even look twice at them because they don't fit the model.
We've got a one track approach to recruitment, its resale value, one track approach to how we play, that's why we can't change a game and haven't come from behind to win in donkeys.
Plan A or Plan A on and off the pitch.
We feel like some experiment most of the time

 

Because we're not up to our ballacks in debt like many clubs are.

 

Really? £6m of equity last season to keep us afloat.
First team ever to go from championship playoffs to L1 with a set of shareholders that have practically destroyed every club they've got involved in.
If that's not decline then **** knows

 

Luton are definitely the club bucking the trend right now. As I said, there are always a few exceptions. We're in a division with Peterborough, Charlton, Portsmouth etc who are at a similar level financially I think. Clearly Derby are below where they should be due to poor management. I agree that with some better recruitment and possibly better management of the football side we could be in the Championship. Rotherham are at a similar level to Barnsley I guess. The Ismael season was a bit of a freak I think, with no fans in stadiums, 5 subs introduced and exploited by a tactically astute coach. Generally however I think we struggle at that level. The last 15-20 seasons have proved that. I agree that poor decisions could easily see the club fall further down the pyramid, but I don't see a managed decline. For now we're top half of League One and that's within our financial parameters.

 

If as you say we're financially similar to posh, charlton and pompey and you'd consider them promotion rivals, why are they signing Experienced and proven players at this level whilst we sell our better players and coaches and replace them with a nucleus of non league unproven players?
We are regressing year on year unfortunately

 

We’re a badly run football club, but we’ve been a badly run club for some time now. I think the increasing frustration is twofold. Mainly - every time the opportunity comes to build on the goodwill or feel good factor among the fans - we piss all over their back. Two, the ‘fan experience’ of following Barnsley at Oakwell is so grim these days’. So much seems designed to make it unpleasant. If things are going ok on the pitch, you tend not to notice or put up with it, but when they are not - it just becomes grim. Incidentally my opinions on how well the Club are run apply whether we win 7-0, lose 7-0 or draw 7-7. It’s just shoddy and unprofessional. Critically it does feel like a bit of a general downward spiral.

 

I don't believe it's a managed decline but agree it does feel like we're in decline. I really hope to be proved wrong in the remainder of the window and to see some activity that suggest differently.

 

But keep sticking rigidly to only a certain type of coach and player within a certain parameter whilst the reset point of every season gets lower in quality from a board who set those parameters e.g we believe this is the style of play and system we want, in a way gives them full autonomy and responsibility.
Now they are either just poor at running things or stubbornly stupid to see that financially the model isn't working and we're going backwards.

 

Our business model seems to have morphed from steadily growing the playing squad and achieving Championship stability to aiming merely for financial survival and becoming a doormat for any player or coach who demonstrates talent. The club requires proper investment and vision, and at present it is showing signs of neither.

 

Their main objective is to not put any money in. They are not fans but speculators. As soon as we allow ourselves to drop out the championship it becomes impossible when losing the 8 million sky money. Hence the sales and cheaper signings. We hope to get lucky but the reality is a downward spiral.

PS.. recruitment is key that's why at this level it's vital to have someone at the club who knows what they're doing.. a Barry Fry, Mick Hartford type.

 

Its worrying isn't it' i'm all for finding young diamonds in the lower leagues but you need the experience aswell' there were plenty of free agents available but we chose not to go down that route and i agree that the current board are only thinking short term and whenever they sign a young player they are thinking of the potential sell on fee before the inks dried its just a business to them and they really don't care what division we're in.

 

Some really good posts on here, the club does appear to be in decline and there can be no mistaking the correlation between finances and on field success.

When the international consortium took over the club were in a great financial place. Over £5m on balance sheet, predominantly from the sell on of John Stones and debt free. Roll forward 5 years the cash has gone and there has been need for cash from the owners to keep the club afloat. The focus, certainly under Conway, appeared to be a scatter gun approach to recruitment with results secondary. The current board are firefighting a precarious financial position attempting to reset the cost base.

Ipswich Town were last years success story, owned by a US public employees pension fund who have put in £20m over the last two years to cover losses. The Championship has at least 6 clubs with parachute money and another group being bank rolled for success from owner’s pockets. Even Luton , seen as the sustainable club, lost £8m over the last two years.

Unless BFC can either unearth the next John Stones or get significant outside investment the harsh reality is that we are a league one club with the odd foray in to the Championship.

 

Well it worked with Norwood last season and we even managed to make a profit on him.
Being saying it for a while now, we're just a player development vehicle.
The aim is to make profit on buying and selling players and it doesn't really matter what league we're in.

 

I don't get why these owners are mincing about in League 1 to be honest when they have great individual wealth. What good is 500k here and 300k there to Neerav? I want the Crynes off the board as I feel they're the poor relations holding us back. Bare in mind every time investment is needed as share holders they have to put their hands in their pockets too and haven't got the wealth to do it.