HECKY AND PATRICK ARE TWO OF OUR OWN!
AS A Barnsley fan, I enjoyed the piece on Paul Heckingbottom in last week’s edition. You mentioned that he was a Reds fan and his grandad took him along as a kid. However, you probably didn’t know he was once the Barnsley mascot. I have attached a photo of the relevant page in the 1986-87 programme against Millwall.
We Reds fans sing ‘he’s one of our own’, but I bet there aren’t many who have been fan, mascot, player, captain, coach, double trophy-winning caretaker manager and manager at the same club!
Indeed, after his achievements as a caretaker last season, it was great to see every single Barnsley fan getting behind the same candidate for permanent manager for the first and probably the last time ever when he was appointed in the summer!
Incidentally, our owner, Patrick Cryne, is also one of our own. He’s a lifelong Reds fan who has spent a lot of his own money trying to make the club self-sufficient. Our recruitment policy is now the envy of many a club, with the first team made up of many players recruited from Non-League or lower league clubs. John Stones, Mason Holgate and Alfie Mawson are the first three examples of this development and, with players like Conor Hourihane, Marc Roberts and Andy Yiadom doing so well, they won’t be the last. Lee Johnson can also be thankful for Patrick’s approach, as there aren’t many managers who would survive taking a club to the bottom of the table after an eight-match losing streak, getting us knocked out of the FA Cup at Altrincham in the process. He wouldn’t be managing Bristol City right now had Patrick shown the patience most other owners have.
It’s been announced that Patrick has cancer and is stepping away from his duties at the club to undergo his treatment. Hopefully you will join us in wishing him well. The choruses of ‘he’s one of our own’ will be sang to honour Patrick at our next match, as well as for Hecky.