Non League

[behind the goals]

Back to Non-League means walking to the turnstiles with money in hand with 5 minutes before kick-off, getting served at the bar more easily and enjoying a smoke on the open terrace, and no more noisy away fans singing at full time after another home defeat, and getting behind the goals at the cross bar end, what`s not to like.

[blue nige]

Back to Non-League means walking to the turnstiles with money in hand with 5 minutes before kick-off, getting served at the bar more easily and enjoying a smoke on the open terrace, and no more noisy away fans singing at full time after another home defeat, and getting behind the goals at the cross bar end, what`s not to like.

Well how about the lost finance of around 1 million pounds? but hey the director's will keep throwing their money away!, so you can have a fag ,I hope you're not serious!

[behind the goals]

Back to Non-League means walking to the turnstiles with money in hand with 5 minutes before kick-off, getting served at the bar more easily and enjoying a smoke on the open terrace, and no more noisy away fans singing at full time after another home defeat, and getting behind the goals at the cross bar end, what`s not to like.

Well how about the lost finance of around 1 million pounds? but hey the director's will keep throwing their money away!, so you can have a fag ,I hope you're not serious!

Just saying what supporters can do next season IF we go down. We all know relegation will put the whole Club in danger.

[Pastor]

Whatever happens, happens. What I still can't understand is why Barrow have struggled so massively to adapt to the EFL. People on match threads keep saying how many bad teams there are in this league, no better than the National League. If so, why can't Barrow beat any of them, or even score more than the odd goal. Look at Sutton, taken to the EFL without breaking stride - nearly won a final at Wembley against an excellent Rotherham side. Harrogate are a solid mid-table team. It's only Barrow who seem to have made such heavy weather of it. Why?

I still think if we'd won the league after the full 44 games, come up with Evatt still as manager, that momentum and familiarity could have seen us pushing for play-offs. Instead the manager left, the captain left and we ended up appointing a complete novice. It kinda set a tone from which we've never really recovered. The board have made some poor decisions on managers but even they would surely have been entitled to expect the players on the pitch to have done more, like maybe win the odd home game.

Is it just never going to work for Barrow in the EFL? Will training in Bury, Macclesfield or wherever always mean a disconnect between the players and the town? Ideally the players need to be in and around the club every day. Training close by. Enjoying playing at home - even if it is windy. The current set-up just has the feel of veterans and mercenaries looking for a wage before moving on somewhere else - something they'll likely be doing soon.

Some good points there. I think the training location is crucial. The players should have been travelling to Barrow for training and should have been encouraged to move house to the area. (There are plenty of attractive locations in Furness and the Morecambe Bay area). If the public saw and interacted with the players in the streets, the supermarket etc. then the importance of the club to the town would become apparent to the players. I'm no psychologist, but I wonder whether by training remotely the players subconsciously see every game as an away fixture.

[Lightflood]

Is it realistic to offer a young footballer possibly married with young children of school age a one year deal and expect them to all move to Barrow or immediate area if he's based in central Lancashire and could possibly have the choice of other clubs with training facilities not too far away.
Already mentioned here a few are suggesting we should get rid several players if we succumb to relegation .Moving lock stock and barrel to Barrow probably isn't on most players minds when they sign for us and never will be I would suggest it would actively put lots of players off joining us

[Middleton Nick]

Not even thinking about this until it actually happens. It's not good, but there maybe one or two twists and turns yet.

[bluessupporter]

Is it realistic to offer a young footballer possibly married with young children of school age a one year deal and expect them to all move to Barrow or immediate area if he's based in central Lancashire and could possibly have the choice of other clubs with training facilities not too far away.
Already mentioned here a few are suggesting we should get rid several players if we succumb to relegation .Moving lock stock and barrel to Barrow probably isn't on most players minds when they sign for us and never will be I would suggest it would actively put lots of players off joining us

When the club was last in the Football League they owned several houses which were used by players and their families. It is not unusual in any job for a family to move to the area where the chief breadwinner lives.

The present manager has already started to engage with the local community unlike the previous ones, but I don't think long term he is the answer, and we should go for an ambitious manager from the National League wanting to make the step up to further his career, rather than someone at the tail end of theirs.

[Lightflood]

My emphasis was in the main it would be for a year... for a start we don't own several houses when was the lasttime in recent years have we had a player move his family to the area ??

[bluessupporter]

My emphasis was in the main it would be for a year... for a start we don't own several houses when was the lasttime in recent years have we had a player move his family to the area ??

As I said in my post the last time we were in the football league!

[russell_anderson]

Whatever happens, happens. What I still can't understand is why Barrow have struggled so massively to adapt to the EFL. People on match threads keep saying how many bad teams there are in this league, no better than the National League. If so, why can't Barrow beat any of them, or even score more than the odd goal. Look at Sutton, taken to the EFL without breaking stride - nearly won a final at Wembley against an excellent Rotherham side. Harrogate are a solid mid-table team. It's only Barrow who seem to have made such heavy weather of it. Why?

I still think if we'd won the league after the full 44 games, come up with Evatt still as manager, that momentum and familiarity could have seen us pushing for play-offs. Instead the manager left, the captain left and we ended up appointing a complete novice. It kinda set a tone from which we've never really recovered. The board have made some poor decisions on managers but even they would surely have been entitled to expect the players on the pitch to have done more, like maybe win the odd home game.

Is it just never going to work for Barrow in the EFL? Will training in Bury, Macclesfield or wherever always mean a disconnect between the players and the town? Ideally the players need to be in and around the club every day. Training close by. Enjoying playing at home - even if it is windy. The current set-up just has the feel of veterans and mercenaries looking for a wage before moving on somewhere else - something they'll likely be doing soon.

Agree with most of your comments but you've answered your own question. We lost our manager and some of our best players - Rooney and Brad Barry then later Quigley and Hardcastle. We also effectively lost other good players because of age - Jason Taylor and Sam Hird. Effectively, the basis of our team was destroyed and was replaced by a succession of poor managers and dreadful recruitment. Both Sutton and Harrogate kept most of their better players after promotion and replaced or added better players. That's the big difference. The only point I disagree on is insisting players move to Barrow because if the club did that we'd recruit even worse players than we have already even though that's pretty difficult to believe!

[Pastor]

Is it realistic to offer a young footballer possibly married with young children of school age a one year deal and expect them to all move to Barrow or immediate area if he's based in central Lancashire and could possibly have the choice of other clubs with training facilities not too far away.
Already mentioned here a few are suggesting we should get rid several players if we succumb to relegation .Moving lock stock and barrel to Barrow probably isn't on most players minds when they sign for us and never will be I would suggest it would actively put lots of players off joining us

If Exeter, Plymouth, Carlisle and even Inverness can all train in their local area, I see no reason why Barrow cannot.

I'm not going to get in to an online argument about it though. It's just that I instinctively feel that training away from Barrow is a bad idea.

[HenneysKnee]

FWIW I agree in an ideal world we would train in Barrow……But where did we train when we won the national league?

[Jonty]

I think the training “away” scenario would be a lot better if the club itself determined the training base and entered a longer term partnership with the venue and not allow each manager who comes in to change it to suit their own expectations which has been allowed to happen too many times. Don’t recall any issues being raised when Evatt was here and it all started with Dunn wanting to go elsewhere.
The club recognise that having an accessible NW training location gives us a better chance to bring players in. I also think training in Barrow the day before a game is something that happens anyway for the last few seasons. So a partnership with a local club (say HoB) may also help any Academy plans?

The days of buying houses and relocating families are over for the modern footballer who may only be at a club for 1-2 seasons. Its too much upheaval.

[bluessupporter]

Where did we train under Evatt?

[Hadrian]

Hopwood Hall campus