If people want to know about the car park protest I have absolutely no qualms in admitting that it was me whose idea it was and I was instrumental in getting it going.
I was furious when we found out we was getting Danny Wilson for 3 reasons. The first one was that I didn't want the club to appoint a Sheffield Wednesday legend, and secondly I didn't think his track record was all that great especially in recent years and thirdly I believed there was better candidates to go for such as Mark Robins and Keith Hill. You also need to consider that at the time emotions were running high as we had just endured our worst season in years and got relegated with a series of mercenary loan players and uninspiring free transfers turning in a succession of spineless and abject performances.
What started out as an half arsed idea on Facebook and thread on here, quickly got picked up on and due to the power of the internet in the space of a few hours had a lot of people interested and also the press had picked up on it. During the space of that time I had also realised that I had maybe gone a bit over the top and wished I had not bothered doing it. I had also began to get a lot of media requests for interviews the next day which I declined as I didn't want anything I said taken out of context.
I went down the next day to see the protest but stood back and watched from a distance. I would have said there was a hardcore of 20-30 with the banners and making all the noise and probably a couple of hundred onlookers. I spent most of the protest sat in my car listening to Radio Sheffield.
After that day I decided that Danny Wilson was here and here to stay, and there was nothing to be gained from wishing ill fortune on him or the club. I went to the forums, listened to what he had to say and decided that he deserved to be given a fair shot.
Subsequently we began to play well under Danny Wilson although I thought it did take longer than normal for him to become accepted at the Lane, and I began to feel guilty about my part in the car park protest, so I decided to sit down and write him an email explaining my actions and why I had felt the way I did, expressing the fullest of apologies and wishing him well for the rest of his time at the Lane. A few days later I received an email from him in return thanking me for being a big enough man to write in and apologise and explaining my actions.
In the end I was desperately disappointed that we didn't get promotion under Danny Wilson, probably more disappointed for him than I had been for any other manager we have had at Bramall Lane, as I felt he was under rated as a manager and as a person he was a really honest, likeable and genuine bloke, and he is one of those very few people who I would consider to genuinely liked and respected by both sides of this city, and I really do hope Barnsley stay up and do well under Danny Wilson as I think he is an absolutely cracking bloke and really does deserve some success out of the game.
