Barnsley bus fire: Neill Collins discusses the damage the fire caused
Barnsley manager Neill Collins has expressed his relief that nobody was hurt in the fire that destroyed the League One side’s team bus.
A blaze destroyed the coach on the M5 in Gloucestershire as they returned from a win at Exeter on 7 October.
Players and staff lost kit and personal items as the fire engulfed the bus after players noticed flames.
“First and foremost, we’re very fortunate that everyone’s fine – everyone’s good,” said Collins.
“From our point of view, when you look back at these things, they say that things can always be worse, and it’s definitely true in this case.
“No one foresees anything like that happening, but thankfully everyone was able to stay calm and get off the bus.”
League One rivals Cheltenham allowed the Tykes to use their bus in order to get home after a dramatic end to their day.
“The boys at the back said the bus was on fire and the engine lights were coming on, so the bus driver did an excellent job of getting pulled over as quickly as possible enabling us to get off the bus as quickly as possible,” Collins told the club website.
“It all happened, I’d say, within a minute. There was a problem, we pulled over and got everyone off the bus and got everyone to safety, and before you know it the bus was on fire – it was as quick as that.”
‘Some players lost three or four pairs of boots’
While everyone on board was safe, the damage the fire caused has had an effect on the club – who do not play until 21 October after their game with Bolton was called off because of international call-ups.
“You start with the most basic things like football boots – I think some players lost three or four pairs of boots and anyone who buys them know they’re very expensive,” added Collins.
“There’s the fitness side of it and their equipment, the coaching staff and media staff have lost laptops, I’ve lost my phone that’s got everything on it, my hard drive with all my work. There’s some painful lessons.
“In hindsight, you can say you wish you’d grabbed this or that, but I think everyone did a really good job.
“It was certainly not the way we expected to spend our Saturday night.”
Neil Collins’s message regarding Barnsley FC striker Sam Cosgrove after his low-key start at Oakwell
But the Reds head coach remains confident that they will do a bit further down the line in the Reds’ League One season.
The target man, who joined the club from Birmingham City at the end of the summer window on an initial two-year deal with the option of a further year, is still awaiting his first goal for Barnsley, with his match minutes having been managed thus far by Collins.
The Scot has been mindful of not overloading the East Yorkshireman, who has been playing ‘catch-up’ on the fitness front after a disrupted pre-season in the Midlands.
Cosgrove has made just one start at league level – in the victory at Northampton Town on September 23 – with his five other league appearances all coming from the bench.
Collins is confident that patience will be a virtue with the big forward and is not worried in the slightest by his low-key opening to his Oakwell career.
He said: “With someone like Sam, we all want him to come in and just be ‘all-singing and all-dancing’ and flying. But he has not had the pre-season that some of the other players have had.
“He’s settling into a new environment and we’ve also got competition.
“He’s shown in some of the games that he’s got a lot to offer. But equally, he’ll admit that we need to get him fitter and with more game time.
“We’ll work on doing that so that as we head (more) into the season, he becomes a really important player for us.”
Barnsley return to action in seven days time when they make the trip to Leyton Orient.
The South Yorkshire outfit are chasing a sixth successive away league victory.
