Who wants these owners to spend their own money on BFC

That's word for word what I would have written, if I could have been arsed. Thank you for saving me the time. 55 years enthusiasm has turned into abject apathy.

 

I have also been attending games at Oakwell for more than 55 years. In my second season, the team was bottom of the old 4th division after 10 games and looked as though it was headed for oblivion. Things are no where near as bad now as they were then.

There can be no doubt that the new owners took over the club in order to make money by eventually selling it at a profit. I see nothing wrong in that because it would mean that they had run the club efficiently and well. The basic business plan is to make good the losses that they make in normal trading by selling players. In order to do that, they have to keep the main cost (wages) under control, and buy young and sell the players for a profit. The plan is no different to the plan that Patrick Cryne used in the latter years of his tenure. It is no different to to plan that the club has used throughout the time that I have been watching. The difference is that the Championship has changed, and the owners of many of the clubs who used to compete fairly, are now prepared to push the Financial Fair Play Rules to their limits in order to gain an advantage on the field. Their players are better than ours because they pay more for them and they are prepared to pay higher wages. It has made it hard for a club like ours to compete fairly, but that is not the fault of our owners. It is the fault of the Premier League, which has dangled the prize of riches beyond imagination before greedy owners, and many of those owners are to cheat in order to win a place in the Premier League. It is the fault of the EFL, and of the clubs themselves who agreed the rules that govern the Championship.

Having watched Barnsley for as many years as I have, you will know that it is not always easy. I have watched us go down before, and to be honest, I have not enjoyed it. But we did not pick Barnsley as our team because we expected success, dis we?. We picked Barnsley because it is our club, and it represents our town. I will be watching the team next season, probably in League 1, but I will be there. I urge you to reconsider your decision. I believe that you, like me, are in this for life.... through better, but mainly through worse.

 

Well said RR. There needs to be major changes re the Prem and the EFL in order to level the playing field but I doubt I will see it any time soon. Sorry to say it, but it may take the death of a couple of big clubs to see the relevant changes.

 

Like Red Rain said a few of us have seen far worse than the present situation.Have I ever thought of calling it a day? no never.it's in the blood,it's my team and my support is unconditional.

 

While I understand some people will forever go and watch BFC and it be unconditional, there are others who will take and are taking a different view.

The sad reality and inescapable truth is that supporting the club is supporting an ownership. Paying money to see the team play and encourage the players and be part of a community also puts money into the club that the owners can use for personal want and misdirect, mismanage and waste as they wish.

It's also an undeniable truth that withdrawing support to hurt the owners, also hurts the club. The good staff who put fans first and players who are trying their best.

For some people the weight of hurting the club will outweigh supporting the owners. For others, the weight of aiding the owners will outweigh hurting the club.

It's an impossible bind and it should enrage everyone, irrespective of what actions you will individually take or not take, that long standing fans are all being put through this very same quandary.

 

It would be interesting to know the stats on how many clubs that have thrown money at it have been successful and failed as I suspect it wouldn’t be a very high success rate.

 

This is where I disagree. The trading model is perhaps the same, but it has never been prioritised ahead of competitiveness on the field as the over-arching priority under any previous regime.

This transfer window, and the appointment of the current head coach are good examples of this. No urgency in the processes whatsoever, when time-critical decisions perhaps could have made a difference in saving this season, and the argument about no funds being available for recruitment has a £750k hole in it, thanks to the ownership (not a huge sum in recruitment terms, perhaps, but of the scale that we've typically done incoming transfer business in recent seasons).

Supporter apathy is primarily a consequence of anger and frustration with the current ownership, but it undoubtedly grows when they're displaying total apathy with regard to fixing the mess that they've generated.

 

I have no argument about the withdrawal of £750k. It was wrong, it is illegal and in the upcoming legal battle I believe the court will rule against the 80% owners.

The argument about how well / badly run we believe the club is will always be an argument that cannot be won. If you were looking at last season, if you look at our final league position, if you look at our Financial Statements (out at the end of February) and compare them to the other clubs in the Championship, then we were outstandingly well run. If you do the same this season, then less so. Although the people making the day to day decisions have changed, our owners are the same people. Our owners do not make the day to day decisions, but they set policy and they set the overall business plan. How can they go from outstandingly good, to outstandingly bad in such a short time. The answer is they cannot. Last season, they had a lot of good fortune. This season, our luck has been all bad. In order to say they are bad owners, you must have a different business plan. Unless you find a billionaire with money to throw away, the business plan of the majority of clubs in the Championship is out of reach. In that case, I see no alternative. Patrick Cryne worked out that he did not have enough money to compete financially, which proves to me that there is no half-way house.

 

So can we ask for ours back.

 

There are things I agree with and those I disagree with you about regarding the above. Firstly, I agree that the club has always sold players. The first sale I can remember being upset about was Eddie Loyden (the day after he'd scored a hat-trick in a County Cup game against Sheffield United). But, in my angst, I never thought that a sale was transacted for the personal gain of the people running the club (actually I can only think of one occasion that might contradict this, when a probably malicious rumour circulated that a much-admired manager had benefitted more financially from the sale of a certain very gifted young forward, to a local club, than BFC itself). The worst I would have accused them of, when selling a player I admired, was that the club lacked ambition.

Secondly, your statement that what is happening now is simply an extension of Patrick Cryne's plan in his latter years does not, for me, bear scrutiny. Yes, he certainly sold players (the infamous January 2017 transfer window being the nadir) but I'm not aware that he employed what I would term the 'casino-management' approach of the current ownership. By this I mean that the club has taken such a scattergun approach to recruitment (but within strict age criteria) they give the impression that they believe if they spin the wheel often enough they are bound to guess the right number every now and again. Witness how many players we currently have out on loan (in the case of Aitchison, as far as I know he's never actually spent a day at the club since he signed a couple of years ago), and the likes of Christie-Davies, who we sign and immediately commit to obscurity. Then there is this notion that they have done some really progressive thing by offering longer contracts than Patrick Cryne did. In my eyes what they have actually done is load more risk onto the football club whilst hoping to maximise the return when/if they do guess the right number. Oh, and why don't we spin the wheel for Head Coaches while we are at it?

I strongly suspect that the stake money is now in short supply and any sort of 'win' is needed (bit like the team eh?).

I agree with your views about the malign effects of the Premier League by the way, but I certainly do not agree that the situation we now find ourselves in is inevitably the consequence.

 

I think the quote about being competitive and profit got taken well out of context, maybe because it wasn't well put across to the fanbase. I don't think any board member wants us to be uncompetitive, quite the opposite really. But if you think about the over arching philosophy of the club in terms of developing young hungry talent and yes selling them on for a profit. That is the way way to keep the club sustainable because our season ticket sales etc alone wouldn't financially support us in this modern era at championship level.

All that needs to happen is as we develop players, the churn rate should slow down the more competitive we become. So the two go firmly hand in hand together. If we get the balance right, which we haven't done yet, we end up either consistently finishing top half / close of the play offs in with a shout. That way these developed players decide to take the gamble of giving it another year or 2 with us rather than jumping ship for a better opportunity eg West Brom this season. Unfortunately I reckon because we didn't tweak the plan/spreadsheet to up the basic requirements for a transfer recruit we are still buying too many league 1 standard players. Once we were promoted to the championship, our aspirations should have increased but for whatever reason we haven't got that part right.

When we first started this type of model under Cryne, we basically skimmed the talent in the likes of the lower football league with players like Craig Davies, Winnall, Hourihane, Roberts, Pinnock, Mawson whilst bringing through people like Holgate, Stones, Brown. At the same time we slowly released the deadwood and those that didn't quite make the grade. I think we got a bit stuck when we realised we had for the time unearthed the gems from those leagues and started looking outside the UK more. Always more of a gamble for the type of player we are looking for. I think now is the time to be looking at league 1 and 2 again, cherry picking the gems, it has had time to see a new wave of players come through.

Then if we are relegated, we ensure that this time we learn from the past and if we are promoted, we tweak the minimum requirements for a player to come in. We won't be in a position to stop a star player walking away at the first sniff of extra money but slow progression should eventually slow that churn down along with some strong will of the board.

That's why in terms of the footballing side, I don't vent so much anger at the owners because I think the model just needs tweaking rather than scrapping.

Yes, there are gripes about their tenure on communications & engagement. In terms of financials until court action if any even happens to determine the real facts, I'm not close enough the club finances to state fact about what has or hasn't happened. I don't think anybody on this bbs is either. It's all assumptions at this stage. Did that question get asked by the way? Is the legal action even still in motion?

 

The Consortium have said time and time again they will not put any of there own money into the club.
The problem is.
What happens if the money runs out and player trading is not successful over one or two transfer windows ,which on the surface seems to be happening now.

What would you advise them to do in these circumstances ?
Not personally as a Barnsley Fan in a professional sense.
if they came to you and said Red Rain help us !!.

What would you advise them to do ?

 

I replied to your post because your record of support matches my own. Because of that I wanted to put my arm around your shoulder (metaphorically of course) and ask your to reconsider, and I listed a few thoughts in order to help you to do that. However, the decision is yours and yours alone. I wish you well whatever you decide to do.

 

This poll has turned out the same as the voting for Brexit.

 

In the event that we are relegated, then the main costs will have to be cut. The main cost is wages. Part of the deficit will also be made good through player sales. I am sorry, because this is probably not what you want to hear, but if our owners continue to insist on the club being self-sufficient, it is the only way.

 

When we were heading for division 4 under Johnson, Patrick Cryne brought in Hammill, Long, Fletcher and Brownhill and turned things around. Sometimes if your 'product' is unsuccessful you have to put a modicum of owner's investment in in the short-term to improve the product and protect longer term business value.

 

Would you advise to let players under contract go for nothing who potentially could be worth small or even large transfers fees
just to get rid of there wages off the books ?

Not having a go at you by the way
just interested in your thoughts how you would address the situation
Archerfield and Sheriff also

 

You have three choices given owner loans/capitalisation are ruled out.

A credit line, while trying to keep as many players as possible. It increases indebtedness and reduces operating profits given the cost of interest.

Sell players at the peak of their value (which would be now) and benefit from reduced outgoing wages now.

Sell players post relegation, likely at a lesser level given their lower league status, reduced contractual length and likely agitation to leave.

Of course we could stay up, but that’s not looking the likeliest outcome just yet.

I’d go with option 2.

 

You too.

 

My reply has to be speculation because I do not know any of the contract details, the players rated by the coach or the departmental costs for any of the departments classed as non-essential.

An assessment would be made on a case by case basis. The key information would be

1. How much is he costing us?
2. Is there any chance of us being able to sell him?
3. Does the coach rate him?
4. Does the coach think that he will improve given longer?
5. Can we get someone in who is cheaper, or has better prospects?
6. What is the proposed pay budget for next season in view of our reduced income. How close are we to meeting that budget given the savings we have made to date.
7. If the savings to date are enough, then stop there, if not, start again at 1.

Sorry that I cannot be specific, but these things are not easy or without a good deal of pain.