The Ownership

Remember how excited we all were when we were taken over by the "Billionaire's Club" members that are Chien and Conway way back in 2017? Boy, were we the gullible ones or what, thinking it was the start of our march to greatness!

 

Were we?

 

I never for one moment thought we were on our march to greatness as we’re already there in my thoughts .
Going on what they said in the interview there was never any indication of spending our way up the leagues ,
What they said about sustainability and living within our means etc gave me some peace of mind that they wouldn’t pile debt on the club then abandon it if it failed like so many clubs before .
Lots of these clubs survive such as Leicester , Dee Dars etc but we’d be one of the clubs that didn’t such as Bury , Darlington etc .

 

This.

 

I've got to admit it was exciting reading the abusive messages from Man City and Man Utd fans on the BBC message board saying we wouldn't be buying the Premier League title.

 

I was excited thinking that they'd put at least a tiny bit of their apparent vast wealth in. Yet here we are 4 years later, and our record signing fee is still Mike Sheron at £1.5m back in 1999.

 

The titles of this thread is wrong to be called owners first the 80% Mob would have had to pay for the club in full

 

Hiristov in 1997 isn't it?

 

I had low expectations and they have failed to match those.

 

Thinking back, I was suspicious. The sound bites were good, and there was trust that if Patrick had hand-picked the new owners, then they were good enough for me.
But summat didn't sit right. Billy Beane and his 'billionaire' buddies wanting to buy my club purely to run it on an even footing?? Nah, sorry.

Still a lot of distrust, now bordering on hatred, from my side; purely based on the snidy way they do business and communicate. If they prove me wrong I will be happy to hold my hands up.

 

I think this is Conways evil threat to get hold of total ownership of the ground ,which would certainly increase the value of the club as a whole.
My only hope is James coming up with a consortium to take control.
I would chuck my share into the fans share.
Pretty reluctant to give this crew another penny.
I don't trust them even less than Risdale which is going some.

 

I can't especially recall my initial reaction. Likely one of hope but caution.

I don't think I was especially impressed with the opening presentation, and the ownership chart that never seemed to get displayed.

The situation at Nice though set real alarm bells off and I was surprised it didn't seem to resonate with much of the fan base. Then we had the Times Square stunt. Which didn't really scream billionaires. And we had information that multiple other clubs had knocked them back. And the delay in buying us which went on for months and months.

And then the firesale upon getting back into the championship. The Cryne plan amped up on steroids. The lack of any significant sponsorship or advertising deals emerging. And lots of lots of other things manifesting over time. Some seemingly innocent and small (like Conway telling the Danish fans that at Barnsley, all the players had called our season ticket holders to thank them for renewing for another season.... though I recall plenty said they never did), and some pretty huge like the £750k, the Cryne court case and the West Stand debacle.

The bizarre thing in between that is that its been eventful on the pitch. A relegation, a promotion, a relegation escape, a play off finish... if you stopped there, and didn't look at whats behind it, or even looked from afar, you could easily suggest there was progress being made.

But the thing I find most dispiriting is that everything is for sale, permanently. And encouraged to be so. So when you add on everything else thats gone on, it's all pretty dispiriting, regardless of on field performance.

 

For my first 30-odd years supporting the club it was run by Barnsley business-men who were all genuine supporters, but didn't personally have the funds to do much in terms of financial input (although Ernest Dennis and Geoff Buckle certainly helped enormously in 1966). Then we had Patrick Cryne who, again, was a genuine fan, and bailed us out as best he could (or I'm sure we may well have gone under). I'm deliberately ignoring the traumatic period between John Dennis and Patrick Cryne!!

Now we are run by people who are not fans of the club, have no connection to the town, and are reputedly unwilling to put any money in. I guess that must be progress of some sort....

 

Try this. Leaves a nasty taste in the mouth though.

https://www.krispykreme.co.uk/billionaires-cheesecake.html

 

Fried sugar..... *voms*

 

The ones who got giddy over our owners billions, didn't bother watching their first press conference.

 

Two transfers which, if anything, justify why the board are right with their current recruitment strategy.

 

And are the ones crowing that we've not spent £100 million since.

 

i didn't have a problem with their first press conference and still don't. A plan to organically grow the club, trade at a profit and improve as we bought incrementally better players all while running within budget sounded ideal.
However, I couldn't understand what was in it for them and that always made me very wary.
They've done some things right since then and some others very, very wrong. I still don't understand their endgame and, quite frankly, I wish they were gone though who would replace them is equally worrying.