Supporting BFC-A painful chore or pleasureable experience?

It's been very disheartening and depressing this season, right from....

driving down Pontefract Road from Lundwood end..... no traffic queues at all, lots of parking spaces by the side of the road down Hoyle Mill where once you really struggled to find anywhere at all, the empty road right up to the Grove Street junction, not many people walking along Pontefract Road from Hoyle Mill to the ground, the miserable faces in the East Stand concourse before the game, no buzz, no noise, no excitement in anticipation, a sense of gloom about the forthcoming game.
It has become a chore, a duty that the look on peoples faces wish they hadn't bothered.
Then ten home defeats later, 5pm, Pontefract Road is packed with early leavers. Same every week it now seems.

 

Re: It's been very disheartening and depressing this season, right from....

tbf it can be like that sometimes even on a decent run look at first half of promotion season after initial 5 opening season wins crowd weren't that enthusistic.
coming out with same age old drivel "they don,t want to go up they just kidding to get crowds in then they'll start losing"
sad but true.the saying, not bfc intentions

 

I f.cking love it.

I couldn't support a good team, I enjoy being miserable too much.

 

2 choices

Get behind em or **** off.....

The root cause of our troubles are off the pitch, unless and until that is addressed then we won't progress. The connection is lost between the club and most of its supporters. That's been developing over a few years now.

 

Re: 2 choices

We are Championsheep say we are Championsheep.

 

Re: 2 choices

What's the definition of "getting behind 'em"?

 

Can't wait for game tonight, hopefully we'll nick a point.

 

I always look forward to going

In spite of current form or the opposition. It's what makes a saturday afternoon for me. It doesn't matter how bad we've been playing, I have renewed optimism every saturday morning. Enjoy it even more now that I miss games through work, it makes it more of a pleasure to go. Yes at the moment, it's not the best to watch, but i'm looking forward to the new season now, we ALWAYS have a poor finish to the season, it's become part and parcel to being a reds fan. The one time we'll have a good 2nd half to the season, is the year we'll get into the play-offs. We just aren't quite ready yet, although I think this management team could achieve that given another few years or so.

 

My god there's some miserable sods on here, you can tell not many of you were around for the splendour that was 4th Division Barnsley playing under Jim Iley!

Altogether now - "Mickey Butler sh*gs alsations..."

 

Taking mi Grandad terneet. Dunno if that's a good thing or not.

Bring on the dustbin.

 

You might have to put up with some gloating...

 

Re: 2 choices

******* them up the arse.

 

It's definitely a mixture of pain and pleasure - but it always has been - that's what I like.

I genuinely think that if we were a bit more hard nosed as a business then we'd start to get that buzz back. e.g. If we didn't sell Vaz Te in January we'd all be saying how ambitious the club were being and that it was good we stuck up to a big club. Unfortunately, we took the low risk business decision that has once again ended our season prematurely. We might have also got closer to £1m for him that we could have looked forward to reinvesting in other exciting players. Hill has eluded to the same thing himself, it's hard to recruit in January so if we sell a player for anything less than decent money we aren't going to be able to replace them until the summer.

I like watching Barnsley, but win, lose or draw it doesn't ruin my weekend. I constantly remind myself that it's only a game and I know where my loyalty lies. I'll be there in 40 years time still being a miserable optimist.

 

there's something in this. on saturday i missed the cardiff match as i was watching my 'other' team, cas tigers, lose to a bunch of part timers

i'm that used to defeat these days i'm not sure how i'd react to supporting a successful team. there's a certain humour derived from how relentlessly dull it's been being a reds fan over the past few years (cup run and odd leeds game excepted)

 

Seemed to lose the buzz a while ago. It seems more of a chore these days when we have a home game (particularly midweek - I hate those!), and unlike many we don't normally have a pub session tied in with the game.....god knows how we do it, but we still have a good laugh at the games, and maybe wouldn't see 1 or 2 lads if it wasn't for going to matches. A couple of us have joked that maybe we should just have a pub crawl every other week instead.
And yet, with all this, I've renewed again! There is the initial optimism each season, and the first half of this season was pretty decent. It's definitely a habit, and if I was not to renew my season ticket I think I'd soon lose the habit and not go at all.

 

More than happy with that as long as he puts up with staying til the final whistle.

 

Its not an age thing mate

I'm 56 and I still get a buzz. Mind you I probably don't go as often as you because I live 70 miles away.

 

Even though this calendar year has been extremely poor

Results and performance wise, I still get a buzz when I go to Oakwell. I feel down & depressed with the current situation, but I'll be back to my optimistic, rose tinted specs best come August.

 

On Good Friday I was at Oakwell watching us get spanked before leaving 10 minutes early to get to Wakey to watch you b@stards beat us. Cracking day that.

Add in that Yorkshire have set off like an elephant with spina bifida then all in all I'm having a reight laugh.

 

Re: Its not an age thing mate

Interesting. I've put my 'lack of buzz' down to age. I can still remember the excitement I felt when I first started supporting the club in October 1966. We were bottom of the fourth division, and I vividly recall Bob Parker standing on our goal line waiting for a corner to be delivered and blowing snot down one of his nostrils. I'd never seen that done before. Funny what you remember from your childhood! The following 13 years were a mixture of mild mediocrity and total mediocrity but I would do anything to avoid missing a home match. And I probably attended more away games over those years than I've done in all the years since. In 1972 I hitchhiked to Port Vale with two mates; it took us 6 hours and we arrived there drenched to the skin. We needed a point to avoid relegation and, of course, we lost. The only good bit was that we managed to get a lift back to Barnsley with a bloke one of my mates knew.

Then, in June 1978, along came Sniffer. The excitement I felt over the following 5 years or so, King Ronnie, Aylott, Parker etc has never been equalled in the intervening 30 years except, of course, for 26th April 1997 when I witnessed something I thought I'd never see. Been to Wembley a couple of times since and the Millennium Stadium but it's never seemed the same. This season, I'm sorry to say, has finally brought me to the realisation that whilst I'll always love the club and cherish the memories and friends it has given me, I don't particularly enjoy watching football any more. I go mainly because my two sons and grandson do and it's time we share together. But the football usually spoils it. I have appreciated watching Jacob Butterfield this season but I honestly believe that he is a once in every 20 years talent (I know many of you would disagree), and we all know we've seen the last of him in a Barnsley shirt. I'm therefore left with the prospect of watching honest toilers who fit the DNA. Whatever that means.

So I'm undecided as to what the future holds. I am determined not to renew my ST if we go down if only to express my contempt at the way the club let it happen (if it does). If we stay up I'll probably renew but will increasingly give my ticket away to whoever wants it (as has happened several times this season). But the season after....