BARNSLEY owner Patrick Cryne has declared last season a success story for the club.
Despite finishing 18th in the Championship, the campaign was compensated by a run to the FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley.
Said Cryne: "I think it was a good season overall. If you look at the cup run that was exceptional. It was important to the club because of the revenue and interest it generated.
"We wanted to do better in the league, I tend to think and I think the manager shares this view, if we had not had the distraction of the cup, however welcome it was in financial terms, then we would have been further up the table."
And Cryne revealed that the cup run helped persuade him to drop season ticket prices this year, offer free football to under-11s while freezing prices at the Oakwell turnstiles.
He explained: "What we're really recognising is that 34,000 people came to see us at Wembley and 11,000-12,000 come to see us at Oakwell.
"So there must be a barrier that stops those people from coming.
"I know that there is an attraction in going to Wembley but what it also means is that people actually care about Barnsley. They went as an expression of town pride and what we want to do is create a link between the town and its football club."
The new pricing policy was aimed at helping fans experiencing financial hard times.
"The credit crunch is going to hit areas like Barnsley more than it will hit more affluent areas," Cryne added. "If you're struggling already, the credit crunch is not going to make your life easier.
"It seems to us to be incompatible for us to push up the prices. To expect that to result in greater revenue and more people coming is not going to happen. We thought we will reflect the position the towns- folk are in - under pressure financially - and build on the affinity that exists between t Barnsley people and the club."
What do you think? Post your comments below. READ MORECapacity for more: Wednesday and South Yorkshire rivals looking to lure more fans to half-empty groundsTime to change play-offs: READ JAMES SHIELD'S VIEWS ON FOOTBALL'S 'LOTTERY' Football headlines.More Blades.More Owls.More Spireites.More Rovers.More Reds.More Millers.More Ice Hockey.More rugby.More boxing.Sports columnists.All sport categories. The full article contains 426 words and appears in Sheffield Star newspaper.
