Ian Evatt at Barrow has been touted as a possible. This is Gregor Robertson’s take on the club from this morning’s Times. Sorry it is long but can’t link to this site.
It is 1pm on Saturday at Holker Street, home of Barrow AFC, — but it feels more like 5.30pm. The long hike to reach Barrow-in-Furness, the windswept Cumbrian peninsula dangling into the Irish Sea, can have that effect and then there are those vast, leaden, wintery skies.
Inside Barrow’s newly refurbished Crossbar — which, erm, overlooks the crossbar — it is standing-room only, the welcome is warm and there is a crackle of excitement in the air. A bumper crowd to cheer on the surprise National League leaders against Barnet is on the cards.
“We had a fans forum last night,” Paul Hornby, the Barrow chairman, says. “One guy said, ‘If you don’t come and support Barrow now, you never will.’ We’re top of the league, we’ve got a fantastic manager, locals doing all the right things, putting our money in, and we’re playing a great brand of football — better than anything seen here since the Eighties. And it’s no longer the best-kept secret in Barrow.”
Indeed. A 3-0 thrashing of Notts County at Meadow Lane nine days ago sent Barrow top of the pile. Hopes of a return to the Football League for the first time in 47 years are blossoming. The 2-1 win on Saturday — including a first-half volley from John Rooney to rival any strike of his elder brother Wayne — was Barrow’s 11th victory in their past 12 league games. Liverpool and Ajax are the only teams in Europe to have gathered more points from the past dozen games.
Ian Evatt, the burly former Blackpool defender and captain, is the man who has orchestrated the Bluebirds’ surge. The 38-year-old, in his second season as Barrow manager, makes no bones about this season’s aim. “I think I’ve got the best team in the league,” Evatt says, and after the minor miracle he was part of with the Tangerines in 2010, he knows belief is everything.
“I played for a manager in Ian Holloway at Blackpool, who encouraged us — not just the players but the fans, the town — to believe we could achieve something special. And we did: we reached the Premier League. Football is not always about money or reputation. It’s about the 11 players you have on the pitch. This group of players are addicted to winning.”
Winning, in Barrow, the Victorian boomtown known for shipbuilding and heavy industry, is not a familiar habit. The 118-year-old club were Football League members for over 50 years and yet in all that time they achieved promotion once. Since dropping down they sought re-election — the system under which clubs had to apply for a place in the Football League until 1986 — 11 times. The last of those was in 1972 when they dropped out of the Fourth Division.
Isolation, in truth, has long been a burden and a strength. Form Lancaster you still have an hour to travel by train. The nearest motorway, the M6, is 45 minutes away. To better attract players, first-team training takes place at Hopwood Hall, a college 100 miles south on the fringe of Manchester.
Away teams and their fans (54 hardy Barnet fans made the voyage on Saturday) do not much fancy the prospect either. (I speak from experience: an 89th-minute substitute appearance here for Grimsby Town on a Tuesday night in November 2015 — westerly winds and rain belting in from the Irish Sea — was the coldest night of my life and enough to make anyone question their career choices.) Last December, after Barrow’s FA Trophy game against Halifax Town, the freezing substitutes had to be wrapped in foil blankets by medical staff.
Outside investment has never worked for long. Paul Casson, a Dallas-based businessman with roots in the town, bought the club in 2014 but soon learnt of the unique challenges Barrow face.
Hornby and three other local businessmen took control 13 months ago. There was a dislocation between club and town. “This type of club is quite parochial,” Hornby says. “We’re in a cul-de-sac. It’s like a siege mentality. You’ve really got to harness the support of the fans and that’s what we’ve done.” The Bluebirds Trust raised £50,000 for a 10 per cent stake. “It was a real community effort,” Levi Gill, the trust’s elected board member, says.
A concerted effort to engage with local businesses and schools is bearing fruit. Saturday’s hospitality offering was sold out. Commercial revenue has grown from £90,000 to £250,000. Concessions have been brought in-house. Holker Street’s social spaces have had some much-needed TLC. A soon-to-be-constructed fans’ zone, part-funded by the Football Foundation, should put a halt to a familiar exodus to the nearby Soccer Bar for a half-time pint.
Like many non-League crowds, Hornby says, Barrow’s have long been populated by the “flat-cap brigade”, so under-16s are now granted free entry. Attendances averaged 1,375 last season; Saturday’s gate was more than 2,000. “In the past when we’ve done these things, we’ve been beaten 4-0,” Gill says with a laugh. “But now there’s some confidence, a sense there’s some momentum building. And the town seems to be responding.”
Evatt’s dynamic side has been assembled with a budget among the lowest six in the division, but he has been backed in other ways. The squad stay in a hotel before every game. Evatt, with the help of the analyst Lewis Duckmanton, can utilise in-game video footage during half-time team talks. There has been investment in a GPS player-tracking system.
AFC Fylde made a move for Evatt in October, which “would have made sense financially”, Evatt admits, “but [Barrow] made it clear they wanted me to stay and it would have been hard to leave when it feels like a job half done.”
After losing six of their first nine games, it was a switch to an expansive 3-4-1-2 formation for the 2-1 win against Aldershot in September that sparked this remarkable run. Even their solitary defeat in the past dozen games, against Torquay United, came after a questionable penalty decision and a red card for Rooney which was subsequently rescinded.
Without the ball Barrow press high and with it they pass with pace and purpose. There is a balance of youth and experience. Sam Hird and Jason Taylor, who add composure and bite to the centre of defence and midfield, have more than 700 Football League appearances between them. Matthew Platt, a 22-year-old central defender on loan from Blackburn Rovers, has been a revelation. Scott Quigley, 27, a powerful striker who arrived from Blackpool in the summer, should have added to his 12-goal haul on Saturday.
Rooney’s strike — his tenth of the season — was a thing of beauty: plucked out of the sky and sent dipping and swerving into the far top corner from an acute angle. “I think he’ll be texting his brother saying, ‘Can you match that one Wayne?’ ” Evatt said. Rooney, who signed an extended contract last week, was more bashful. “Sometimes they go out the stadium or out for a throw-in,” he said. “Once in a blue moon they fly in. Luckily it did today.”
Barrow back in the Football League? What a story it would be. “It isn’t the time for pats on the back,” Evatt says. “We’ve got to look forward, keep progressing, we can’t stand still. But hopefully at the end of the season we’ll have something to sing about.”
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