THIS weekend Conor Hourihane will lead Barnsley Football Club into our home fixture against Cambridge United as interim head coach, and I know the town will be behind him.

Conor had to step up at short notice last week after the club parted ways with Darrell Clarke.

Everyone connected to the club wishes Darrell every success for the future.

While sadly everything did not go to plan on the pitch, he conducted himself around Oakwell with kindness and dignity and we thank him for that.

Conor has not had a great deal of sleep in the last week, his work ethic has been impressive as it would be at any club he represented.

But this isn’t any club to Conor, it’s home. I’m sure it will be an emotional day for him on Saturday and hopefully we can get back on track.

We launched season tickets this week. I’m pleased to confirm that we have frozen prices again this year.

The club has experienced significant rises in running costs this year with National Insurance, national minimum wage and utility bills all contributing to it costing us an extra £500,000 per year compared to last year.

But we know that you are all also experiencing soaring prices and felt that a freeze was the right thing to do.

We fully appreciate that the matchday experience must improve if we are to continue to ask you to invest your time and money in us. I’m pleased to confirm that we will be introducing safe standing at Oakwell shortly with work beginning in a section of the Norman Rimmington South Stand in early April which will be completed ahead of our home game with Bolton Wanderers.

Some of you may also have seen that our new fanzone is now at the planning permission phase and, should we pass that point of the project as expected, we are fully confident in having this in place over the summer and in full swing for the start of the 25/26 campaign. We are working with the leader of Barnsley Council, Sir Steve Houghton, and his team to try and deliver even more improvements around Oakwell and I’d like to personally thank all of them for their efforts.

Thanks again to fans of the club and the wider community for getting behind the team.

I am hoping that the season ticket price freeze and progress on improving Oakwell goes a small way to helping us show you how much we value you.