In the end he got giddy and had a rush of blood with the cheque book that proved fatal to the club as we knew it but for years the way the club was run was prudence and sense personified. They pissed us off every now and then, but i would go back to the John Dennis era in a flash.
Dennis for me but unfortunately football has moved on and it's not possible to run a club like that anywhere outside League 2 like that anymore.
It was his fault we've an all seater stadium, that the football club owned the land so looked better to potential buyers, we have a decent academy, we were a solid championship side always away from relegation battles, had our best season ever etc etc etc. The number 1 man in the history of our club for me.
Did it though ? We had been relegated so would we have qualified for the second tier rate of £3m or the third tier rate of £300k ? Where's Red Rain when you need him ?
I'm sure Dennis mentioned that he had budgeted for this income which obviously never came. Happy to be proved wrong like but wasn't it that same season. Obviously slept since but thought this was part of it
Probably the Dennis era, but then that was a time when football was less money orientated and clubs like ours could achieve more by being diffferent or prudent. Clearly the late 90's were a happy period anyway, but I felt the club was more professional back then and depsite the later horrors of administration, things seemed more stable and happy. I was happy enough with the set up in our 2005-06 promotion season too though. BFC appeared to be a happy enough camp during that season, only to be steadily ruined through the following Championship struggles.
Small time local businessmen. Not much money (relatively) who could run a club prudently and well. The Premiershit and it's knock on effects have ruined it.
We have one of the highest fan generated incomes in league 1 so surely there's no need for an owner to put extra in
We also have one of the highest owner inputs and can barely field a team with anyone who has hit puberty in it. Cryne bought Winnall and Hourihane without it it would have been freebies all the way.
Which says that the club is being run very very badly. One of the highest owner inputs plus one of the highest fan generated income and yet we still can't afford good players. Where is all that income going?
All clubs are living beyond their means to compete we are too. It's as simple as that. My brother has through a mutual friend spent a lot of time in JDs company and he thinks those days are gone too. If that counts for owt
Last summer. I got caught up in it all and thought that Barnsley was becoming a club that I could really relate to, run in the right way and with a strong future ahead of it. All gone now, like, but if they'd seen it through then that would have been the football club for me.
If we lived in our means we'd not have to listen all the time to how much Cryne puts in to fund us. Any club that lives within it's means doesn't need an owner to put in out of their own pocket as clubs would then only spend what they earn.