Barnsley

Barnsley were established in 1887 as Barnsley St Peter's by Reverend Tiverton Preedy, and they played in the Sheffield and District League from 1890 and in the Midland League from 1895. In 1897, the club dropped the St Peter's part of its name to become simply Barnsley. They joined the Football League in 1898, and struggled in the Second Division for the first decade, due in part to ongoing financial difficulties. In 1910, the club reached the FA Cup final, where they were defeated by Newcastle United. In 1912, they reached the FA Cup final again, and defeated West Bromwich Albion 1–0 to win the trophy for the first time in their history. When league football restarted after the First World War, the 1919–20 season brought some significant changes to the league. The main difference was that the First Division would now have 22 teams, rather than 20. The bottom team from the previous season was Tottenham Hotspur and they were relegated. The first extra place in the First Division went to Chelsea, who retained their place despite finishing second bottom and therefore in the relegation places. Derby County and Preston North End were promoted from the Second Division which left one place to be filled.

Having finished the previous season's Second Division in third place, Barnsley expected to achieve First Division status for the first time, but the Football League instead chose to call a ballot of the clubs. The League voted to promote sixth-placed Arsenal, for reasons of history over merit. Sir Henry Norris, the then Arsenal chairman, argued that Arsenal be promoted for their "long service to league football", having been the first League club from the South of England. It has been alleged that this was due to backroom deals and even outright bribery by Sir Henry Norris, colluding with his friend John McKenna, the chairman of Liverpool and the Football League, who recommended Arsenal's promotion at the AGM. No conclusive proof of wrongdoing has come to light, though other aspects of Norris's financial dealings unrelated to the promotion controversy have fuelled speculation on the matter. Norris resigned as chairman and left the club in 1929, having been found guilty by the Football Association of financial irregularities; he was found to have misused his expenses account, and to have pocketed the proceeds of the sale of the Arsenal team bus.

The club came close to reaching the First Division in their early years. In the 1921–22 season, they missed out on promotion by goal difference. During the 1930s and 1940s years, the club found themselves sliding between the Second and Third Division. In 1949, the club signed Danny Blanchflower from Glentoran, and he impressed at Oakwell that two years later he was signed by First Division side Aston Villa, later signing for Tottenham Hotspur and being voted FWA Player of the Year twice, as well as being the captain of the 20th century's first league and cup double winning team in 1960–61. Around the time of Blanchflower's departure, a young centre-forward called Tommy Taylor broke into the Barnsley team, scoring 26 goals in 44 games. In April 1953, he became one of the most expensive players in English football at the time when Sir Matt Busby signed him for Manchester United for a fee of £29,999. Taylor went on to be a prolific goalscorer at the highest level over the next five years, winning two league titles and scoring 16 goals in 19 appearances for the England national football team, before losing his life in the Munich air disaster on 6 February 1958.

When the Northern and Southern sections of the Third Division were replaced by national Third and Fourth Divisions for the 1958–59 season, Barnsley were still in the Second Division, but went down to the Third Division at the end of the season. In 1965, Barnsley were relegated to the Football League Fourth Division for the first time, winning promotion three years later. They went down to the Fourth Division again in 1972, and this time stayed down for seven seasons, finally returning to the Third Division in 1979. Two years later, they went up again and quickly established themselves as a decent Second Division side throughout the 1980s, although they still failed to clinch that elusive First Division place, despite the introduction of the play-offs in the second half of the decade, which gave teams finishing as low as fifth and eventually sixth the chance of winning promotion.

For the 1994–95 season, Barnsley turned to midfielder Danny Wilson to manage the club. His first season brought a sixth-place finish in the First Division, which would normally have meant a play-off place, but a restructuring of the league meant that they missed out. They finished 10th a year later before finally emerging as serious promotion contenders in the 1996–97 season, finally clinching runners-up spot and automatic promotion and gaining the top flight place that they had spent 99 years trying to win. Barnsley lasted just one season in the Premier League but they did reach the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, defeating Manchester United in the fifth round. They also made their record signing that season with Georgi Hristov for £2 million. Wilson then departed to take over at Sheffield Wednesday, being succeeded as Barnsley manager by striker John Hendrie, who had been a key player in the promotion-winning team. Barnsley were the only team from outside the Premier League to reach the quarter-finals of the FA Cup in the 1998–99 season, but only finished 13th in the league. Hendrie was then replaced as manager by Dave Bassett, who rejuvenated the team and took them to fourth place in 1999–2000. The team lost in the play-off final to Ipswich Town, the last play-off final at Wembley before the stadium was closed for redevelopment.

The team were relegated to the Second Division in 2002; administration threatened the existence of the club as Barnsley suffered greatly due to the ITV Digital crisis. A late purchase by Barnsley's then mayor, Peter Doyle, saved the club from folding. In 2006, the side won in the play-off final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, where they beat Swansea City 4–3 on penalties to earn promotion to the Championship. The manager at this time was Andy Ritchie, who was in his first season in charge after replacing Paul Hart. The team struggled in their first season back in the Championship. In November 2006, with Barnsley in the relegation zone, Ritchie was sacked in favour of Simon Davey, who managed to steer the team away from relegation in the second half of the season, and they eventually finished 20th. The following season, Barnsley reached the semi-final of the FA Cup, beating Premier League side Liverpool 2–1 at Anfield and defending champions Chelsea 1–0; the team lost 1–0 against fellow Championship side Cardiff City at Wembley in the semi-final. In October 2008, the club fielded the youngest player in the Football League's history when Reuben Noble-Lazarus came on against Ipswich Town aged 15 years and 45 days.

Barnsley ended the 2011–12 season as one of only two football clubs to turn a profit in the Championship; they stayed up only because Portsmouth were given a 10-point deduction for going into administration. In 2016, Barnsley won the Football League Trophy after a 3–2 win against Oxford United. They gained promotion to the Championship following a 3–1 win over Millwall in the play-off final later that season. In September 2016, Barnsley were caught up in an ongoing scandal in English football, with assistant manager Tommy Wright alleged to have accepted "bungs" in exchange for working as an ambassador for a third-party player ownership consortium. Wright was initially suspended before being sacked by Barnsley.

In December 2017, Patrick Cryne and his family sold an 80% stake in the club to NewCity Capital's Chien Lee and Pacific Media Group's Paul Conway; they were joined by Indian investor Neerav Parekh and executive vice president of baseball operations and minority owner of the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball, Billy Beane (famous from the Moneyball film), as part of the international investor consortium. Barnsley were relegated to the third tier in 2017–18; afterwards. the new owners used a data approach to identify talents, focusing on young players and team rebuilding. The club appointed Daniel Stendel as head coach, who played high pressing football; Barnsley were promoted back to the Championship the following season. In the 2019–20 season, under new coach Gerhard Struber, Barnsley avoided relegation from the Championship. In 2020–21, under the management of Valérien Ismaël, Barnsley finished in fifth place and made it to the EFL Championship Play-offs for the first time in 24 years, with the youngest squad and one of the smallest budgets in the league. The Wall Street Journal called Barnsley a "Moneyball experiment".

Prior to the 2021–22 season, Markus Schopp was revealed as the new head coach. In November 2021, Schopp was sacked after a run of seven straight defeats. Three weeks later Poya Asbaghi was appointed as the new head coach. Fortunes improved little as Barnsley were relegated from the 2021–22 EFL Championship following a 2–1 defeat against Huddersfield Town. Asbaghi left the club by mutual consent shortly afterwards. On 15 June 2022, Michael Duff was appointed head coach of Barnsley on a three-year deal.

In May 2022, it was revealed that Pacific Media Group did not actually own all the shares they claimed to own, and were simply a nominee for a group of 4 investors who owned 20% of the club. Following this revelation, Neerav Parekh purchased the shares of 2 of the investors, while Matt Edmonds purchased the shares of the 4th investor. Following the purchases and further equity raises, the new ownership of the club is now understood to be split between Neerav Parekh (61.14%), the Cryne family (21.30%), Julie Anne Quay and Matt Edmonds (11%), Chien Lee (4.60%),and Conway's company Pacific Media Group (1.96%). With this reconstituted shareholding and a loss of majority control, Paul Conway, Chien Lee, Grace Hung and Dickson Lee were voted off the board of Barnsley Football Club, and were replaced by Jean Cryne and Julie Anne Quay in May 2022. In July 2023, the EFL charged Barnsley with 5 breaches of the EFL Regulations related to the ownership of the club under Conway and Lee's tenure, whilst also charging Conway and Lee individually with causing these breaches in regulations.