Kicked out of the FA Cup and facing a fresh English Football League investigation into allegations of backdated paperwork, Barnsley’s season has been anything but boring.

The South Yorkshire side are pushing for promotion but the overall impression is one of a club distracted and divided by the break-up of the ownership group that took control in 2017 — a situation exacerbated by a dispute between two women at the club last summer.

Co-owner and director Jean Cryne, the 70-year-old widow of former owner Patrick Cryne, allegedly told fellow staff that she thought then-club secretary Eleanor Dobson, 28, flirted with the players and wore inappropriate clothes. Cryne did not deny this when Dobson, who had recently gotten married, later challenged her about them.

This led Dobson, who joined the club in 2022, to make a formal complaint to the then-chief executive Khaled El-Ahmad and their human resources manager, with club chairman Neerav Parekh also informed.

In an attempt to resolve the matter, El-Ahmad arranged a video conference call in early August between the two women during which it is said Dobson accepted an apology from Cryne.

But within weeks of that virtual meeting, the row flared up again when Dobson discovered that her complaint, which was meant to be private, had…

As Barnsley secured their place in this weekend’s League One play-off final last Friday, beating visitors Bolton Wanderers 1-0 at Oakwell to complete a 2-1 aggregate win, two women in the directors’ box shared an emotional moment.

God bless you, Jean pic.twitter.com/TAFwZWdKRj

— Barnsley FC (@BarnsleyFC) May 20, 2023

Jean Cryne (on the left in the tweet above) is a familiar face at the South Yorkshire club. The wife of Barnsley’s former owner Patrick Cryne, who sadly passed away in 2018 at age 66, she shares an emotional bond with the club her husband had followed all his life and stepped in to save when they were on the brink of folding in 2003.

The woman whose arm is placed warmly around her shoulders, in contrast, is newer to Barnsley fans.

Julie Anne Quay is an Australian-born businesswoman who moved to New York more than 20 years ago. Quay is a leading name in the fashion world, having founded the global pop culture, fashion and music brand VFILES. And since last May, Quay has been able to include the role of ‘Director of Barnsley Football Club’ on her impressive CV.

Initially, it seems like an incongruous fit but, more and more, we are seeing an intertwined relationship between fashion and football. David Beckham and more recently Jack Grealish and Leah…