An article in The Athletic (I can't do links) seems to have provoked 136 posts to date on our fellow message board BBS.
It involves Jean Cryne and now departed ex Club Secretary Eleanor Dobson initially but then goes on to other issues.
Never a dull moment down at Grove Street.
Thank you Arbs.
You could write a best seller on the goings on darn theear in recent years.
It’s brilliant this.
Honestly - LOL funny.
Barnsley Football Club - the Coronation Street of English football.
Who would want to follow anyone else 😄
Never boring is it ?
I can’t read this article it keeps covering it over with a subscription message. Has anyone else had this problem and bypassed it somehow?
yes, I'm getting the same about halfway through.
Yes I've got the same problem Ethel on phone and laptop. It won't let me copy the text to post on here either. I'll let you know if I find a way round it although it does seem Nudge can read it!
On my laptop I've gone into print and then 'print a pdf' . Seems I can read it like that. I'll try and copy it onto here but just in a meeting now.
Kicked out of the FA Cup and facing a fresh English Football League investigation into allegations of backdated paperwork, Barnsley’s season
has been anything but boring.
The South Yorkshire side are pushing for promotion but the overall impression is one of a club distracted and divided by the break-up of the
ownership group that took control in 2017 — a situation exacerbated by a dispute between two women at the club last summer.
Co-owner and director Jean Cryne, the 70-year-old widow of former owner Patrick Cryne, allegedly told fellow staff that she thought thenclub secretary Eleanor Dobson, 28, flirted with the players and wore inappropriate clothes. Cryne did not deny this when Dobson, who had
recently gotten married, later challenged her about them.
FAC
FT, Feb. 6
PLY 1
LEE 4
FT, Feb. 6
SOU 3
WAT 0
7:45pm
NFO
BRC
8:00pm
AVL
CHE
SP
7:45pm
STM LWLLW
DUN DLWDL
7:45pm
KIL WDLDD
LIV LLLDL
7:45
The Munich air disaster: the crash When a manager like Klopp says he’s leaving, the noise starts How Pochettino's project is taking its toll
Live News Premier League Champions League Europa League La Liga • • • Log In Subscribe for £2
This led Dobson, who joined the club in 2022, to make a formal complaint to the then-chief executive Khaled El-Ahmad and their human
resources manager, with club chairman Neerav Parekh also informed.
In an attempt to resolve the matter, El-Ahmad arranged a video conference call in early August between the two women during which it is
said Dobson accepted an apology from Cryne.
But within weeks of that virtual meeting, the row flared up again when Dobson discovered that her complaint, which was meant to be private,
had become widely known within the club. And, to make matters worse, she heard that Cryne was said to have told several people she did not
know what she had apologised for and had made further discriminatory remarks about her.
Dobson went on sick leave in early November and left the club permanently at the end of December.
If that was the end of it, though, this story would just be another example of the sort of thing only too common for women who work in
football, albeit with the unusual twist that this involved another woman.
But, shortly after Dobson went on leave, Barnsley used an ineligible player, Aiden Marsh, in the replay of their FA Cup first-round match
against non-League Horsham — an error that led to Barnsley becoming the first team to be booted out of the competition for 17 years.
The striker had gone on a one-month loan to York City in September, with the National League side asking Barnsley if they could extend the
loan a month later and use Marsh in the FA Cup.
Dobson, who received the request in her role as club secretary, emailed El-Ahmad, academy boss Bobby Hassell and first-team manager Neil
Collins to ask if there were any objections, reminding them Marsh would be ineligible to play in the cup for Barnsley. She was told to give
York City permission to use Marsh.