BPAS PODCAST: 17th May '21 Episode 35: Barry Owen

[Monty Burns]

2 hours ago, Lee Sinnott2 said:

It's all going to come to an almighty head some point soon, isn't it...?

Hopefully, yeah..

[al_bro]

8 hours ago, Pidge said:

What worries me is the point that the club needed to borrow the “strings attached” loans from the EFL, as well as AL has adopting a cut your losses approach to the season tickets ( starting early at a reduced rate).

 

It all smacks of a grab on whatever funds he can get then put the club into receivership. It doesn’t suggest AL still wants to support the club with his own money.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head there. He may have put up to £5m in, paying off loans and stupid wages to players like Menig. But if that's the asking price he needs to give his head a wobble. If the club goes into admin. he loses the lot and Blitz loses his £6m loan. Maybe Blitz should call in his £6 and put the club into admin. Then take over himself in order to find a buyer for the whole stadium and the club for his £6m. There would then be no debts to take over. Or am I being a bit simplistic? 

 

I've not been in the bar, so I don't know how many places there are to access the stadium, but I'm guessing there is only one. If that the fire door, which could be opened from inside the bar, why can't the club or the OEC put a security guard on it to stop people using it unless there is an emergency. If it's not a fire door and one that is used to access the stadium, then , same again, have a security guard there checking tickets.

 

Very good interview Matt and Andy with great preparation allowing you to pin Barry down on what he had said in the past. He got very defensive at times.

[Ritchierich]

Well I think the good news is we won’t be staying in League 2 much longer......but the bad news is we won’t be in League 1 either

 

I thought Barry came across in a perfectly honest and straightforward manner, the problem is things really are that depressing and potentially terminal. he has been a key figure on the inside for a very long time and all he can tell us at the end is it wasn’t his fault and everything really is as fecked up as we think and our future is very, very bleak

 

Of-course we can easily solve it by finding £11m to buy out that asset stripping cnut Blitz and our resident charlatans ALMO

[League one forever]

5 hours ago, al_bro said:

I think you may have hit the nail on the head there. He may have put up to £5m in, paying off loans and stupid wages to players like Menig. But if that's the asking price he needs to give his head a wobble. If the club goes into admin. he loses the lot and Blitz loses his £6m loan. Maybe Blitz should call in his £6 and put the club into admin. Then take over himself in order to find a buyer for the whole stadium and the club for his £6m. There would then be no debts to take over. Or am I being a bit simplistic? 

 

I've not been in the bar, so I don't know how many places there are to access the stadium, but I'm guessing there is only one. If that the fire door, which could be opened from inside the bar, why can't the club or the OEC put a security guard on it to stop people using it unless there is an emergency. If it's not a fire door and one that is used to access the stadium, then , same again, have a security guard there checking tickets.

 

Very good interview Matt and Andy with great preparation allowing you to pin Barry down on what he had said in the past. He got very defensive at times.

That’s how I see it ALbro. 
 

I’m not worried about ALMO. The money will run out, they own nothing and so the 5 million AL wants might as well be 60 million because it’s a fantasy. 
 

Admin WILL happen sooner or later, and I wouldn’t put it past Blitz to bridge us while a buyer is found. (Like he said he would when he threatened the club with admin when AL wouldn’t pay the debunture) 

 

The key will be this- what is he willing to take for the footprint of the ground off any potential buyer. If he holds out for 6mill that’s a massive worry. I can’t see anyone paying that- and then pumping circa 3-4 million a year for running costs. 
 

 

[Guest Stanley30]

Really enjoyable and interesting podcast that had me glued. Great work guys. 

I thought Barry came across pretty good tbh and I guess from my POV I didn't full realise how effed the club is until listening to that. 

Really shocking!! 

 

Have it saved on Spotify now so am gonna work through the back catalogue

[Matt]

On 5/17/2021 at 9:30 AM, Frankly Mr Shankly said:

15 minutes in. What an insufferable man he honestly is. It's not going to get any better, is it?

I don't think it'll turn into Frost/Muhammad Ali 1974 somehow, no.

[BPAS]

1 hour ago, Stanley30 said:

Really enjoyable and interesting podcast that had me glued. Great work guys. 

I thought Barry came across pretty good tbh and I guess from my POV I didn't full realise how effed the club is until listening to that. 

Really shocking!! 

 

Have it saved on Spotify now so am gonna work through the back catalogue

 

Thanks Stanley, if it helps, we might advise making sure you start with episodes 34, 32, 28, 26, 22, 20 & 18. Enjoy.

[Lee Sinnott2]

I always bring this up but I'd just like to once again remind everyone that Natalie Atkinson denied that Barry had a role with the FA during the fans Q&A of January 2020. 

 

As for the interview, well done Andy and Matt. I still can't quite get my head around the fact that Barry sat on the board whilst the club was being run into the ground with bad decision after bad decision for 10 years or so, yet one of the straws that broke the camel's back was the sacking of Kewell. We are obviously staring into the abyss and, after hearing Barry speak, I am more convinced than ever that administration is looming. As a side note, 5m for the club and 6m for the land is living in an absolute dream world. The quicker messrs Lemsagam and Blitz get away from this football club the better... 

[singe]

2 hours ago, Stanley30 said:

Really enjoyable and interesting podcast that had me glued. Great work guys. 

I thought Barry came across pretty good tbh and I guess from my POV I didn't full realise how effed the club is until listening to that. 

Really shocking!! 

 

Have it saved on Spotify now so am gonna work through the back catalogue

I'm amazed it took Barry to explain how bad things are, I mean there was nothing new in what he said.

[LightDN123]

57 minutes ago, singe said:

I'm amazed it took Barry to explain how bad things are, I mean there was nothing new in what he said.

True. But he’s fed us delusional bollocks, and kept the truth away from us for years. To now be open and to be transparent on the clubs position, people will listen. (10 years to late bazza) 
 

In all honesty, sounds like he’s had a few words with Karl, and walked, taking the sponsors with him. I wish they would all go, including Karl, get them all gone and keep Barry away from the club when we recover. 
 

If we, the fans, ever get in to a position of control. Please can we all confirm that Barry will not be involved in any capacity, even working behind the food stall. I have no doubts he will try and get involved, using his fa and director experience as leverage. 

[PeteG]

1 hour ago, Lee Sinnott2 said:

I always bring this up but I'd just like to once again remind everyone that Natalie Atkinson denied that Barry had a role with the FA during the fans Q&A of January 2020. 

 

As for the interview, well done Andy and Matt. I still can't quite get my head around the fact that Barry sat on the board whilst the club was being run into the ground with bad decision after bad decision for 10 years or so, yet one of the straws that broke the camel's back was the sacking of Kewell. We are obviously staring into the abyss and, after hearing Barry speak, I am more convinced than ever that administration is looming. As a side note, 5m for the club and 6m for the land is living in an absolute dream world. The quicker messrs Lemsagam and Blitz get away from this football club the better... 

Morning Paddy, I was in that same meeting as you and Natalie didn't deny Barry had a job with the FA, she said she didn't know about it, that is 2 completely different things. I still don't get you fascination with his job at the FA, the 2 roles are completely unrelated as he said on this podcast and he says he is still carrying work out for the FA which is related to his previous job rather than any Directorship with us. As a side note, you said i was scaremongering when I said that I thought admin was a distinct possibility, are you scaremongering or have you realised it might actually be the case?

[Monty Burns]

On 5/17/2021 at 3:34 PM, tGWB said:

Really good Podcast

 

Interesting that supporters hang on every word that explayers and exmanagers have said about the club owners but automatically dispel anything Barry Owen said 

 

Needs fully digesting but there are some gold nuggets in those 2hours

l don't think anybody is dismissing what he says. Quite the opposite in fact.

[the_mighty_bosh]

There's a lot of serious, worrying things to discuss.  But I have to draw attention to this nugget:

 

Barry:  "The football club is bigger than any one man..."

Matt:  "We agree wholeheartedly."

Andy:  "Or woman."

[oafcmetty]

1 hour ago, LightDN123 said:

If we, the fans, ever get in to a position of control. Please can we all confirm that Barry will not be involved in any capacity, even working behind the food stall. I have no doubts he will try and get involved, using his fa and director experience as leverage. 

There are a few on "the list"...

[GlossopLatic]

You know I think being a Director of a business can be a very hard gig and being one of Oldham athletic or any football club is very difficult, you are running organisations that don't make a profit, you can be taken out of context sometimes the bit about Barry saying we can't afford to go up was taken out of context.

 

However when someone is front of centre of failure after failure and being pretty unrepentant about it you just can't sympathise with them. Alright Ched Evans was entitled to earn a living but Oldham Athletic didn't owe him a job, we'll leave that one there.

 

As for the North Stand It is not owned by Oldham Athletic and Barry knows this, and so far we have no concrete proof that anything illegal happened his excuses for this are limp at best and they also counter what Karl Evans said about Abdallah not knowing he didn't own the stand. 

 

I hope anyone who is interested in buying the club doesn't let him be part of any future hierachy as I feel he's going to try and wriggle his way back in.

[yarddog73]

After listening to that I can only view the interview in one way and worryingly it appears to me that Shitpeas is that delusional he thinks he is the man to pull all the splinter groups together as some sort of saviour of the club, he even intermated that someone had suggested this to him but he didn't know if he had the energy for it, really.

 

What I also take from it is that him walking away had more to do with him seeing his arse over Karl Evans than anything else and I can bet you a pound to a penny he wasn't happy about the appointment because it affected his role at the club on a day to day basis where he probably saw himself as the self appointed CEO in the absence of the Lemsagam brothers, does he really think that Karl's appointment should of been run by him? On what basis? I suspect Abdallah is paying the mans wages and he owns the football club so it really is his prerogative who he employs to oversee proceedings when he is not there, I've never met Karl personally but I get a feeling he doesn't suffer fools and there is no bigger one in Oldham.

 

One thing I really take issue on though is how all of a sudden his moral compass has realigned itself to suit his own agenda, he very cleverly picks and chooses when to play dumb arse denying all knowledge of a multitude of incidences that have occurred, this bloke has been the one constant at the football club through a succession of incapable owners who have been assisted by this man who calls himself a fan, he is no fan of the club his only interest has been to feather his nest and work towards some ludicrous twisted pipe dream that he would one day be calling the shots on a day to day basis, he probably still thinks he could be the saviour of our club to this day.

 

Finally I have no doubt at all that the shit is about to hit the fan as the first sign of a sinking ship where the captain has gone AWOL are the rats trying to escape, for me it looks like he is trying to distance himself to try and save any credibility that he has left but the fans (even those who its took years to convince) can see him for the man he is, in my opinion all he is trying to do is engineer himself in to a position for when the inevitable happens in the not too distant future and that worries me greatly.

[Lee Sinnott2]

2 hours ago, PeteG said:

Morning Paddy, I was in that same meeting as you and Natalie didn't deny Barry had a job with the FA, she said she didn't know about it, that is 2 completely different things. I still don't get you fascination with his job at the FA, the 2 roles are completely unrelated as he said on this podcast and he says he is still carrying work out for the FA which is related to his previous job rather than any Directorship with us. As a side note, you said i was scaremongering when I said that I thought admin was a distinct possibility, are you scaremongering or have you realised it might actually be the case?

You put such a good case forward, Gladders, that I have come round to your theory...

[singe]

13 minutes ago, GlossopLatic said:

You know I think being a Director of a business can be a very hard gig and being one of Oldham athletic or any football club is very difficult, you are running organisations that don't make a profit, you can be taken out of context sometimes the bit about Barry saying we can't afford to go up was taken out of context.

 

However when someone is front of centre of failure after failure and being pretty unrepentant about it you just can't sympathise with them. Alright Ched Evans was entitled to earn a living but Oldham Athletic didn't owe him a job, we'll leave that one there.

 

As for the North Stand It is not owned by Oldham Athletic and Barry knows this, and so far we have no concrete proof that anything illegal happened his excuses for this are limp at best and they also counter what Karl Evans said about Abdallah not knowing he didn't own the stand. 

 

I hope anyone who is interested in buying the club doesn't let him be part of any future hierachy as I feel he's going to try and wriggle his way back in.

This is the key point for me. There is plenty of evidence, from the minutes at the time and subsequent statements that shows the North Stand was a fairly basic transaction and com[ensation. Subsequent involvement of the Council, the police etc has not unearthed any evidence to the contrary. The only person claiming it is legitiametly the club's is Barry. He's provided no factual evidence or proof. In 4 years. Time to publish or be danmed.

[kowenicki]

On 5/17/2021 at 3:46 PM, mick26 said:

Not really a fair comparison against Wigan's £3M tag as they also sold players for £7.5M as well as the training ground and chippy plus administration costs.

£6M for the ground isn't too unrealistic but AL is in cloud cuckoo land not Dubai if he thinks he'll get anywhere near £5M.

 

You what!?

 

It is totally unrealistic. Half of that at best and then only if bundled with a purchase of the club for next to nothing.

 

[Frankly Mr Shankly]

46 minutes ago, yarddog73 said:

Finally I have no doubt at all that the shit is about to hit the fan as the first sign of a sinking ship where the captain has gone AWOL are the rats trying to escape, for me it looks like he is trying to distance himself to try and save any credibility that he has left but the fans (even those who its took years to convince) can see him for the man he is, in my opinion all he is trying to do is engineer himself in to a position for when the inevitable happens in the not too distant future and that worries me greatly.

 

It's exactly this and the podcast basically proved it. He had months and even years to connect with fans via the mediums like the podcast but neglected to do so and his resignation forced his hand. He craves the power that a position like he had offers and now it's gone he's desperate to claw it back. The way he came across was all very much pathetic, filled with non-information and carried a "Look, I'm doing LOADS of work!" message. When really, he had no evidence to prove this. He's a fucking parasite, nothing less.

 

I just hope when we're inevitably picking up the pieces and united as one, then most of us can see what he really is and leave him where he belongs; in the cold.

[C.O.JONES]

49 minutes ago, kowenicki said:

 

You what!?

 

It is totally unrealistic. Half of that at best and then only if bundled with a purchase of the club for next to nothing.

 

Spot on, the club is practically worthless, in fact you'd probably have to pay someone to take it off your hands, apart from a few assets the ground it stands on is the only thing of any value.

[mick26]

1 hour ago, kowenicki said:

 

You what!?

 

It is totally unrealistic. Half of that at best and then only if bundled with a purchase of the club for next to nothing.

 

You're right there - the club is worth almost nothing.

The ground does have value and Blitz will get nearer to his valuation than AL will to his!

[Roger Ritchie]

Barry strikes me as a bloke that is very stuck in his ways and adapts to changes very slowly if at all. The way he refuses to believe he is divisive blows my mind. Being divisive isn't necessarily a bad thing. Every decent politician/businessman has been divisive as they make decisions that they believe to be the best for their outcome. 

 

The way he says he resigned but three times uses the phrase 'played a part in my demise'. 

 

The way he cannot accept that signing a convicted rapist may upset a few people.

 

Part of me does feel sorry for the bloke as I am sure he isn't being malicious when being involved with the club. He just strikes me as a  bit of a dinosaur. Stuck in his ways as football, business and the world evolves and leaves us behind. 

 

The personal beef between the FLG and Barry needs more exploration though. It will be more entertaining than anything we see on the pitch. 

 

Good Podcast lads enjoying it. Hopefully the truth lies somewhere in the middle of what all your guests say. 

[Roger Ritchie]

1 hour ago, Frankly Mr Shankly said:

He craves the power that a position like he had offers

 

I believe there to be some truth in this. He used to have a senior position at Oldham Rugby Union club. Where everyone said he knew nothing about the sport and he would lean on the people who were involved in the club were almost all volunteers to the point they wouldn't see the value in giving up their time for something they didn't enjoy. 

[Dickie Down]

I know someone who grew up with him and his view was that Barry would always gravitate to those with most money or power.

 

He was a good rugby union player who went into coaching after finishing playing. In a daring move Saddleworth Rangers persuaded him to switch codes and go up there to coach. Within three months the players went to the chairman and said get rid or we are off. Exit Barry.