Some Harsh Truths That Some May Not Like

I've had this going around in my head for some time but held back mainly because I didn't want to be accused of negativity after the run of poor results we had last month .

We've just won 3 on the bounce and my opinion hasn't changed so now seems a good time to post my thoughts .

I may even post my thoughts in two or three parts because there's quite a bit to get through .

It's my considered opinion the club is dying on its feet , however let me say that it's dying not just due to the poor decisions it's taken over the last 18 months or so but also due to factors outside of its control and the way the games gone in the modern era .

The club as I say see is just strutting along and unsure of what it is anymore , it lacks both an identity and a business plan , it doesn't know what it's aspirations are and it needs to be firstly honest with itself and secondly it needs to be honest with its support .

The club is desperate for a new stadium , it's present one is way too big for its capabilities , it's old and tired , lacks atmosphere and facilities that modern football stadiums require today .

The last time the stadium was full to capacity was in 2008 , that's 14 years ago .

A 12k capacity stadium is more than enough the majority of the time , the majority of the time is the key phrase .

It doesn't have to be yet another soulless bowl that are ten a penny today , it can be anything you want it to be but it's design should be to create an atmosphere first and foremost .

Sell all the land on the present site and along with Barnsley Council who are already involved plus attracting private enterprise the club need to locate to a purpose built Community Stadium at a feasible site .

Along with improvements to atmosphere the stadium needs to have facilities that can be used 7 days a week , health club , conference facilities and have the capability to host concerts , music festivals etc etc .

A social club needs to be built with a terrace facility that can be used during the best of the weather instead of a Phoenix Nights fan zone .

This needs to happen to cement its place in the town as a community club and take it forward in the modern era with facilities fit for the modern era .

Part Two tomorrow .

Interesting thoughts. I agree Oakwell in its current form is far from ideal. I know you mention soulless bowl football grounds which i hate too (boro, derby, bolton) to name a few on industrial estates or out of town shopping sites but i think the location for oakwell is ideal, right near the town centre. Many away fans love oakwell for its character and i think the board could keep the ground on the current site and improve it. A new west stand could have conferencing facilities built in including gym, social club, etc so it is in use 7 days a week.
i am not a fan of new grounds. i can even use the argument of salford rugby club. Their willows ground was slap bang in the community and now they have a shiny new ground with conferencing facilities etc but its out of town by the motorway and crowds have dropped because of it even though the team still holds its own in the super league and the road links are good.
I doubt this board have the money to do either (stay and improve oakwell or build a new ground elsewhere). A few changes to oakwell with a new west stand, fill in the corners of north stand and a rethink of where the away fans go would be a good start.

Football today isn't going to come towards us , the championship isn't going to change and in many respects it's probably going to get even harder .

The facts are that the club can't compete at the level it's enjoyed for more seasons than any other club .

Any more than Nottingham Forest can hope to win back to back European cups or Derby County becoming champions of England again two years out of four like they did in the 70's .

It's highly unlikely that anyone will bankroll the club just to enjoy championship football .

Why would they ? , there's relatively very little money on offer , our tv exposure even at the best of times is limited .

Why would anyone want to pump millions in to the club just to hang around in the championship ?

I'm not saying the club can't ever get promoted back to the championship but a sustained number of seasons is I feel beyond us now .

What the club must do in my opinion is to make the club more than just the results it's capable of achieving .

By that I mean a new stadium with an excellent match day experience and in use 7 days a week throughout the year .

A club that has a real community feel to it , has links to local charities , foodbanks and hospices way more than it does today .

It needs a non league culture in an EFL environment .

Most of all it needs to concentrate on what it can do and what it financially cannot .

A total re- brand when even if the results aren't too great other factors kick in with the community work it does and the enjoyment of the fan experience in a fit for purpose stadium .

The club as I see it is just drifting along with no real idea of what it is or what it's doing and believes it's only value is the collection of league points when in fact it needs to be so much more .

I post this because I need a reason to come back , the results aren't going to do it with me personally per se .

It's not enough , it's 2022 not the 80's where you didn't know any better inside football grounds .

The club needs to wake up before it's too late and build itself a future within the EFL for the many many years to come because if it doesn't and just drifts along more in hope than anything else it could be too late .

All the above need to happen within the next five years .

Excellent posts Animal 👍
I don’t agree with a large part of your conclusions but nevertheless it’s clear that much thought has been given to the subject.
We need more posts like that on here.

I’m just wondering how much of the content is born out of the ugliness of last season ???
Many supporters are still struggling to get over last season - including myself.
The football being dished out at the moment is relatively poor - but again that’s a consequence of the after shocks from last season.
In saying that I believe we have a good future in-front of us with the present leadership.
But it won’t happen overnight.

As for Oakwell.
Because of it’s slightly out of town location I’m not sure how it can be made attractive to customers 7 days per week.
But as a football stadium it’s perfectly placed on the edge of the town centre.

And as a football stadium - I would like to see the North Stand redesigned or totally rebuilt so it joins onto the East Stand at the same height.
Also the West Stand needs rebuilding and joining onto the Ponty at the same height.

Filling in the gaps between the stands with either seats or similar structures to the disability stand will keep the weather out - and keep the atmosphere (sound) in.

As for attendance capacity - IMO it needs to be around 30,000.
Given a prolonged period of success - with home and away supporters we would fill it.
As mentioned in previous threads - no one yet knows the potential of Barnsley Football Club.
We were once a similar size to Burnley, Bolton and Blackburn.
Those clubs have moved forward because they have had prolonged Premier League success.
I wouldn’t want us to be just another Chesterfield, Rotherham or Doncaster.

No real point in doing any of the above ? Unless some ambition is shown (unlikely) the product on show is poor "team" , until that's resolved less and less fan's will attend , if the onfield product improves ? Crowd's may return ? A lot of damage has been done regarding connection with the fanbase ,any trust there was has sadly been lost by major error's from the owner's/consortium's lack of knowledge in both football and business , Chicken and Egg situation ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Romared

No real point in doing any of the above ? Unless some ambition is shown (unlikely) the product on show is poor "team" , until that's resolved less and less fan's will attend , if the onfield product improves ? Crowd's may return ? A lot of damage has been done regarding connection with the fanbase ,any trust there was has sadly been lost by major error's from the owner's/consortium's lack of knowledge in both football and business , Chicken and Egg situation ?

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To be honest Roma I do not think we have lost much attendance wise, over the years crowds often vary because of other reasons than what we are getting on the pitch , currently the country is enduring rapid inflation , energy prices going through the roof etc etc & these will effect people"s leisure budgets but think back to the season we got promoted to the premier league , we were an established division two/championship club who started the season in fantastic form playing great football but the crowds were lower than they are now & after a relegation season with shocking football & half the side sold you would have thought we would struggle to get half the crowds we got in 1996/7 but it is the opposite , it really is strange . Football & crowds go through cycles & the most intriguing era was the eighties where Ist & second division crowds were unbelievably low compared to today but I think the point I am trying to make is that it is not always the product on the pitch that determines the clinking of the turnstiles although common sense tells you it should be .

It's a wide topic Animal and we are not starting with a blank sheet of paper.

I agree the club seems to be without a vision at the moment. I've heard the argument which goes---if the present owners are not spending a penny from their own pockets then surely any old individual or group could run it.

---A supporter run club. !0,000 fans would need to put in £100 each just to raise a million and then multiples of that. Fine in theory but a non starter

--A publically owned club based on community ownership by the Council financed by income generation and the Council Tax. It was tried at Halifax Town but it ended in tears

--A wealthy individual or group willing to underwrite the club to cover any losses. The "wealth" is of course gathered in from ordinary Joes as "profits". This has most chance of working when the owner has some local connection either as a fan or through business.

For the foreseeable we have to rely on this last option led by the son of a wealthy Indian family, the wife of a New York hedge fund manager and the widow of the ex owner. They are overseeing a club with no reserves and losing around a million a month. They show no vision to create a community club used seven days a week by the community with social and leisure facilities beyond the football club.

I would build a new 20,000 ground on present training pitches near the top end of the away car park and link it with enhanced social/ leisure facilities at the Metrodome, financed by the sale of the present stadium and nearby land for a supermarket and affordable housing on the lower part of the site. New access routes via Harborough Hill for the new Oakwell and onto Ponte Road for the supermarket.

Personally I'd rather concentrate on the footballing side of things rather than the stadium or relocating. That's our bread and butter when all said and done, always has been. If the club has ambition combined with success then the crowds will average 15k imo. It's just a shyte show how the club has been run in the last 6 years going back to the infamous January 2017 transfer window when we lost some big players fo peanuts and a very good team was decimated.

Apart from the Ismael season we've been pretty much up and down between the Championship and league 1. Any decent player we've had has been sold along with any decent manager. How can the club establish any credibility and trust with the supporters when their sole ambition is to sell anything that is good? To have success you need continuity not only in terms of the playing squad but also the manager. We've had neither. Pile of shyte for me.

This stupid 'moneyball' plan has completely undone the club financially when it was supposed to be the making of us. The truth is that arseoyles like Conway or whoever else is involved
in running things haven't got the first idea about football. I've always said that the footballing side should be left to the professionals rather than profit seeking business people.

The fans have completely had the pyss ripped out of them and as I say, how can tha gain any enthusiasm knowing that we are simply a stepping stone for any player or head coach that has relative success here? Tha knows they'll be on their bike- that's the only certainty any supporters of BFC have.

I agree that a massive rethink is in order. I'm not talking about unrealistic empty promises, but instead a solid plan where the club is open and honest with its supporters as to where their ambitions lie and carry it out.

Just to put things in perspective whilst acknowledging the contributions made to this thread .

Our ALL TIME average attendance is 9,254 .

So any new stadiums capacity is actually just short of 3k above that .

Our stadium is twice as big as it needs to be , without any real facilities , it's in poor condition and is acoustically terrible .

There are always obstacles to overcome when looking to move to a new stadium but over 30 English clubs have successfully managed it including local rivals Rotherham United and Doncaster Rovers who both had severe ownership problems and didn't have a pot to pyss in .

I think it’s worth pointing out at this point that the club has not progressed in about 20 years.

We all admire Patrick for saving the club - but there was nothing built on or off the field during his leadership.
Every high on the football field was followed by an inevitable dip.
Basically because he didn’t have enough money to maintain success.

We have had a very similar situation with Chien Lee.
A season of success (21/22) followed by a season of demise.
The extremely annoying thing about that is that the ownership had money to keep the success going - but the leadership at that time chose greed over success.

We have had 20 years of treading water.
Some supporters will not remember a time when things were built at Oakwell as a direct result of successes on the field.
Is there any wonder that apathy amongst supporters has set in.