If you owned a company would you hire Khaled El-Ahmed based on his performance at Oakwell?

This bit really confuses me. What is the relevance of this in relation to the west stand? We were threatened with points deduction if we didnt close the west stand?

 

It is utter booshite. The closure of the West Stand was a business decision. They got it wrong. They have got a lot of things wrong, as we are just a number of investments. They did finally listen, as all long distanced investors do. Not sure who would stump up the cash to buy us though.

 

This is the thing though. Even with your understanding it's still extremely wishy washy and nothing at all there suggests anything to do with the west stand specifically. The only thing there that relates is that it seems we didn't have enough stewards to open 4 stands and comply with the safety ratings so closed the west in order to open the away end. If that's the case then I firmly believe that the excuses about the west stand structure were all lies.

The wall has turnstiles for the ponty end in it and they remained open so the wall cannot have been a factor in its closure.
The lower tier has no void (we all watched it being built) so that wasn't a factor in its closure.
The lower tier has no roof so that wasn't a factor in its closure.
The refreshment stands have no disabled counter in the east stand (and the west stand refreshment stand still doesn't) so that can't have been a factor in its closure.
The west stand is the only stand that has direct access to the concourse from the turnstiles without stairs so that wasn't a factor in its closure.

All of the reasons they gave made absolutely no sense at all except the stewarding one but Andrew Clark flat out denied that was the case and Khaled didn't correct him.

You have to understand why people think they're lying because none of it makes sense even now. The safety and threat of closure seems to me to be a deliberately vague and deliberately ominous claim used to justify the unjustifiable.

 

How much do you need to pay stewards, as opposed to a fat piece of meat like Obbi? Just asking? Priorities at the club are all wrong.

 

There was a stewarding shortage in general in the summer with a few clubs struggling so on one hand that's kind of understandable. On the other hand it makes no sense as a reason as we suddenly managed to start upping the away end allocation when we closed the west stand

 

I would hire someone on the basis of the role they would do and their history would be a reflection on this but not always relevant for how they would perform in the new role. You can have the best person surrounded by a rubbish team and have a boss themselves that does support then is it fair to measure the person in isolation. So its hard to say yes or no without knowing the context and understanding more. On face value it would be no, but so would 90-100% of people on the BBS who I wouldn't hire purely on what I see here too.

 

But I still don't understand. Why exactly did closing the west stand allow the rest of the stadium to open? At any of the meetings did anyone say why or did they must make an extremely vague statement of it just did and accept it? By the way that's a genuine question as I really don't understand what the specific issues were threatening the whole stadium that were solved by closing one stand

 

It's sad and a poor state of affairs that the club had to do a lot of things first part of the season to keep Oakwell open. The club simply wasn't prepared for the start of the season off the field as well as on it.

 

The thing is though what have they actually done? All I have seen is closures left right and centre. Closure of west stand, closure of beevor court, closure of fan zone, closure of half the roads in Barnsley etc. It seems the default things is to close more and more and it seems nonsensical

 

We don’t actually know whether any of the chief exec’s have done a good job or not. Ultimately their job is carrying out the boards demands.

Fans just tend to think if they’re doing well on the pitch or that most of the signings have been good that the chief exec’s done a good job but that’s not necessarily the case.

People who are perceived to have done a good job for example could’ve paid over the odds for new signings or not got market value for departing players.

I’d be more inclined to blame the board for this season. Losing so many staff in one window & the late signings of players like Oulare, Leya Iseka, Gomes & Vita who weren’t fit to play until well into the season (or never in Oulare’s case) were the biggest factors in my opinion.

 

Which is why I won't renew this season. I don't feel these owners are progressing the club and in fact it will naturally go backwards without the proper drive. Some of these closures aren't decisions of the club. They are consequences of the lack of action from owners. Someone said in another thread that maybe the objective is to stay afloat year on year. If that's what we plan for then we have to be at our best to survive and any deviation below our best means we fold. We don't have any ambition and our plans are reliant on luck and hope. We simply don't plan to compete at a higher level in this division nor do we plan to take the infrastructure and game day experience forward.

 

100% this it was all about getting 4000 blunts in and larger crowds from Hudds/Derby at the expense of a few 100 loyal supporters

 

The West Stand debacle lies squarely with the club.

Best case scenario is that they had 18 months to improve/ maintain the ground while the ground was closed and chose not to do so. They could have spent that time improving the ground. Sorting out logistical matters. Maybe sending the counter staff on a basic customer service course. Even a paint job. They did none of those things some of which are not high cost items.

Worst case and probably much more likely it was just part of a flex to t to be council that went horribly wrong. Perhaps not a great idea to lie / mislead about safety certs. At the same time they were having issues with stewarding so this helped a short term problem.

Either way the disregard for long term fans and the PR around it was calamitous

 

Still hasn't been answered?

Have I missed something?

Anyone know?

 

Hopefully we can get a clear answer from our transparent CEO on Monday!

 

I wonder if anything would’ve been done if Dane Murphy had an extra year on his contract.

Not only did he see the iceberg, he knew it was there before the ship set off and still sent it that way. While the board heard there was an iceberg and just thought it was a bit of lettuce that they could sell.