Inspired By Someone Writing Into The Local Paper

I often on a Friday pick up the Barnsley Chronicle as I like to hear my local team managers view on things at the club. Recently, my home town club has come under lots of stick, mostly unwarranted. What annoys me further, apart from the Chronicle now going up in price is that they pick idiot letters from fans to go into the paper. Today, my view slightly changed on this after reading a letter written by Brian Sheridan who resides in Sheffield.

His letter in a nutshell calls some fans a muppet (in my words) because of the ingratitude some fans have given Patrick Cryne, our owner and some vital times and how we have got by within the clubs history. And to be honest, I totally agree with just about everything he has said.

This is the same Patrick Cryne who saved this club from being none existent. This is the same guy who has put us on even footing. If I was a businessman, I wouldn’t put a penny into the club. Football is so hard to make profit so I can only salute Cryne for everything he has done. Same with John Dennis. I know people hate the guy and he got branded the guy that took us almost out of business. But this is the same guy who built us a North stand, a car park and also took us to the premier league and not only that, almost making a swift return. I too would like to see the North Stand become the “John Dennis Stand”.

I remember Cryne saying once he would like a Barnsley team with Barnsley players. As much as this would be a fantastic vision, it’s not going to happen whilst we are in this league.

Fans at Barnsley football club seem to be too concerned at this moment in time about our managers remarks and thinking they are the manager of the club. Let me make this clear.

1. What Keith Hill is saying is the reality. Wake up to it. The sooner you embrace it, the easier it will be.
2. If you want to be a manager, start off in the lower leagues and do it yourself. If you don’t want to do that, stick to your simulation games and shut up!
3. This league has changed on an epic level from 10 years ago. 1 million plus is now the norm for players in this division where as 10 years ago it was the top end transfer fees. Wake up, we are now a small fish in a big pond with really big fish there!.

Fans at this club also don’t seem to understand some facts behind ticketing.

1. Still one of the cheapest about
2. We are surrounded by 3 cities, 2 of which (Leeds and Sheffield) have 3 major clubs between them. We also have nearby Doncaster, Rotherham and Huddersfield. The catchment area is very different and harder
3. Players are on higher wages and as such, the club needs to compensate for it.
4. We can’t expect Cryne to keep pumping money in…Would you?..unless you have billions, you won’t. It’s that simple.

Whilst I don’t like the £30 ticket price, instead of spitting dummies out about it, there’s ways to go about it which would have more effect.It also appears that everyone at this club seems to guess what is what when it comes to finance. If a fan with half a brain cell looked at financial records, which are openly available so look at via Company House, you can see that we need to because self sufficient and quick.

Yes this is a rant, but it needed it!…Some fans are really stupid, face palms don’t even make up for it!.