Barrow v North Ferriby Match Thread

[Kieran]

Not sure what the overall attendance was but at least half were Barrow fans.

421 was overall, so you're saying ~200 Barrow there? Cracking effort if true.

Didn't realise the crowd was as high as 421, but I'd say between 150-200 Barrow fans.

[boyliegladbach]

Deleted, as posted after a few drinks, read it back two days later and only spelt about 8 words correctly.

[McMark]

Oops! Thanks Elaine

[McMark]

The two coaches that left Barrow at 0900hrs on an uncustomary gloomy day in Barrow were full of anticipation of what the day’s football would provide.
After a four hour journey we arrived at our Final destination of North Ferriby, the Duke of Cumberland provided a safe haven and our pre match refreshments, some great tasting real ales and a warm welcome in this nicely refurbished establishment!

Kick off time beckoned so we hastily made our way through the residential Streets of North Ferriby in readiness for 90 minutes of action
The ground was compact with one seated stand on the far side, and a view of the top of Humber Bridge to the east, at a guess the ground would hold around 2,000 max but only 421 braved the East Riding drizzle with about 160 travelling to cheer on Barrow on a lush green pitch.

After a cagey opening ten minutes it looked like Barrow had the breakthrough they deserved with a neat header from Jason Walker at the far post only to be adjudged offside by the linesman. With Barrow now dominating the over physical Ferriby side, Reid produced a superb strike on 27 minutes to send the travelling support into raptures. Barrow were dominating but not finding that killer touch! Just before half time a rare break out by Ferriby produced a penalty Cowperthwaite was adjudged to have fouled Fry in the area, much to the bemusement of myself and most of the crowd. Jarman coolly stroked home the penalty, all square at half time.

The Second half Barrow appeared to lose their shape a little playing more balls through the middle and becoming predictable in their play. North Ferriby were buoyant utilising the height of Denton who started to cause the Barrow defence one headache after another and on 52 mins after a quick counter Denton’s effort was parried by McMillan and Emerton drilled the ball home 2-1. This was the kick up the backside Barrow needed and spurred on by the crowd Barrow took the game by the scruff of the neck and went all out for an equalizer. Pilkington was substituted by Ellison and shortly after a Cook effort produced a great save from the Ferriby keeper. From the resulting corner Grand powered the ball home 2-2. Barrow were pressing but also looking tired, a late substitution of ARH for Jason Walker couldn’t provide Barrow with a late winner.

Overall a draw was a fair result, still thought we missed a little creativity in midfield and that is what was more than evident in the second half! A quiet and uneventful journey home, left us pondering what could of been!

[Holkerbird]

ARH replaced Jason Walker, not Paddy Lacey.
Andy Burns received a nasty cut to his head and looked out of sorts after everyone had more or less left the ground, sitting on his own in the dug out. I wouldn't be surprised if he was concussed. He is a tough little devil so it was concerning to see him like that. Hope he is ok for next week.

[spirit of 1990]

Andy Burns received a nasty cut to his head and looked out of sorts after everyone had more or less left the ground, sitting on his own in the dug out. I wouldn't be surprised if he was concussed. He is a tough little devil so it was concerning to see him like that. Hope he is ok for next week.

Sounded a bad one Elaine, they said on the radio he tried to jump straight up then wobbled & had to sit down. They're normally ok after something like that, it's just how bad or deep the cut is that might rule him out this week.

He'll wake up today feeling like normal people do on a Sunday morning..........with a cracking headache

Without mentioning names, bumped into Barrowaberdeen last night while I was in the golf club playing snooker, up he comes & has a bit of a chat about the footy then said "he's out on someones party & the golf club's not really his sort of place so he asked his missus if he could have a wander.......to the Ambrose"

Don't know what her answer was but he soon staggered back into the main room!!

[optomisticsupporter]

I don't know why Edmondson is desperate for a new striker it's obvious to most fans we need the midfield strengthening particularly someone who can break play up, the present way they are playing leaves the gap between the central defenders and themselves too wide leaving Barrow easy targets for breakaways, it wasn't the forewards who missed at least 3 good chances yesterday it was midfielders and a winger with 2 one on ones with the goalkeeper and Pilkington doing too much with goal at his mercy, the forewards got little service all the game, in the 2nd half Barrow were awful just punting it up field hoping either Walker or Cook would get on the end of it, the pitch was absolutely superb being maintained by Hull City for their reserves an ideal opportunity to play football ideal for someone like Harvey, again selections that don't make a lot of sense to fans, If you read this Mr Casson don't get dragged into this obsession with Edmondson over forewards we need an experienced midfielder and If you want to win this league find someone who can get them playing football not kick and rush, they were lucky again today and eventually your luck runs out.

[Billy Carbuncle]

I don't know why Edmondson is desperate for a new striker it's obvious to most fans we need the midfield strengthening particularly someone who can break play up, the present way they are playing leaves the gap between the central defenders and themselves too wide leaving Barrow easy targets for breakaways, it wasn't the forewards who missed at least 3 good chances yesterday it was midfielders and a winger with 2 one on ones with the goalkeeper and Pilkington doing too much with goal at his mercy, the forewards got little service all the game, in the 2nd half Barrow were awful just punting it up field hoping either Walker or Cook would get on the end of it, the pitch was absolutely superb being maintained by Hull City for their reserves an ideal opportunity to play football ideal for someone like Harvey, again selections that don't make a lot of sense to fans, If you read this Mr Casson don't get dragged into this obsession with Edmondson over forewards we need an experienced midfielder and If you want to win this league find someone who can get them playing football not kick and rush, they were lucky again today and eventually your luck runs out.

Well said, been saying this for ages.
Personally I'd go out and buy and ex-league player (in the ilk of Darren Sherridan) that's not going to get another contract at a higher level but can still do a job by breaking play up and spreading the ball around. Play football on the deck, none of this long ball garbage.
Keep the high balls low.

[bobbie moore]

When we did play the ball on the deck we produced better scoring opportunities but sadly resorted to lumping the ball,especially in second half ,for ferriby 2 centre backs to clear at will.
Other week Burns was left out due to physical size of opposition, yesterday we should have played Williams with Grand and Livesey,to combat threat of Denton .Most of balls were directed at him and he won most of them .
Mid field is definitely weak area as they don't seem to back up forwards or give enough cover to back four.
We have get this sorted as priority IMO.
We did score two good goals yesterday

[Suffolk Blue]

Late reflections on yesterday:

- The game was uncannily like last years contest at North Ferriby ending as it did with a late Barrow equaliser for 2-2. What has changed is the relative strengths of
the teams during that time.
- Ferriby on their own turf are very difficult to counter at times. I would have taken a point before the game so am not unhappy with the outcome.
- its not the fact that we miss a lot of chances that is as worrying as the fact that the chances we create tend to be really good ones. The Pilkingon/Cook miss was
(lets not mince our words) pathetic. You cannot miss chances like that at a place like this and expect not to be punished. We need to be more clinical.
- For those stood close to their muppet of manager you could continually hear him urging his team to compress the space in midfield and not allow Barrow time on
the ball. They seem to get the message in the second half and I think it was largely for this reason that BAFC had to revert to long balls. It was not by choice.
- I totally agree with the view that our "weakness" is in midfield. The addition of someone like Darren Sheridan when he first came to the club or Andy Bond as an
enforcer in midfield might be the best way of reducing the goals against tally.
- Surprised not more has been made of the referee yesterday who looked uncomfortably out of his depth on occasions in the face of two highly competitive sides.
At times during the second half it looked like he was out for an afternoon jog and was continually irritating both sets of players. I actually thought the assistant refs
did more refereeing than he did.

Overall, BAFC still feel like a play-off side rather than probable champions. Perhaps we would have settled for this pre-season but you can see that with just a small improvement in offensive and defensive stats they could become an unstoppable force at this level. We are a football playing team in a league where clogging is the norm. We will have to fight our way out without sacrificing our playing instincts. It not an easy equation to balance.

[Ste Story]

They weren't very good in all seriousness. First half we were undoing them time and time again with smart football and quick interchanges down the wing, even Sam Sheridan did one of the full backs for pace in the first half... An offside goal that was probably just about right, a quality goal, some great chances missed by Cook, Pilkington, Reid and Sheridan and some excellent football the product of the first half. Not a clue what there penalty was all about, nobody knew what he'd blown for when he did, we were the other end from the ground but it seemed strange a best. Nevertheless we went into half time 1-1 looking like we were the better side and hoping our extra quality would show in the second half on what was a very good pitch.

Second half was a none event from our perspective, really really disappointing. As top of the league and favourites, even away from home we should be playing our best side, attacking from the off and really taking the game to teams on our terms, as it was we let them dictate the play and sunk down to their level of hoofing both the ball and the man, and if anything we were even worse for it then them. Just seemed to be going through the motions, they weren't good enough to hurt us but we weren't really getting the ball down and looking to get that second goal. Then Walker goes and loses the ball on the half way line after what can only be described as weakness at best and a dive at worst. Cue them to go on and catch us flatfooted and score. That was where you'd hope to see the character from the team a bit more. Nobody in the squad seems to be the sort of player to roll their sleeves up, think [SwearFilter] it someone has to go on and save the game for us, and lift everyone. They weren't playing badly or anything, just waiting for someone else to provide that extra bit of magic and shift up a gear for them. I suppose then its good that it was the captain who jumped highest from a corner and headed home superbly (with a quality celebration afterwards I might add) but we went straight back to being pinned in after the goal and the rest of the second half was fairly backs to the wall.

All in all we were much the better side first half, but were perhaps a bit naive and less streetwise in the second. Got caught up in their tactics too early and allowed them to play to their strengths rather than making them worry about ours. Denton up top for them is just a big monster. Think Cooky but taller, uglier and less able to play football. That being said, he's bloody good at what he does. You're clearly not going to beat him in the air so why not just stand a yard off or double up and don't let him turn a ball round the corner or bring others into play. It was his ability to hold the ball up and link the wingers and midfielders from their long punts forward that kept us penned in. It's effective, but still fairly easy for a quality side to counter and negate if done right.

Onwards to the next game then still unbeaten but for the first game of the season. All this talk of winning at home and drawing away... Remember our away fixtures so far have been Boston, Harrogate, Sollihull and Ferriby who will all be up the top 8 come the end of the season, so to be slightly ahead of the 1 point a game in those fixtures is just fine IMO. There'll be hopefully plenty of away wins to come from some of the worse teams in the league... Win your home games, don't lose your away games against your rivals and muller the rest. That'll do nicely.

[Chris Benoit]

Well said Ste. Even at our worst we have still looked competitive. Obviously there is still a good few tricky games to come but if we can kick on with what looks like a fairly decent month fixture wise then hopefully we can start putting a bit of distance between us and the chasing pack. A break from the league action next Saturday also gives us chance to play some other players such as Williams, Taylor etc. If Burnsy is out then the saving grace is that it isn't a league game.

[Ste Story]

Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini, speaking to Sky Sports: "I don't change the way we play depending on what the other team wants or prefers. It is very important for me as manager of a big club like Manchester City to try and go for the match from the beginning and win it.

[K-Man]

We are probably the best side in our league. Start our best XI and force teams to make changes and adapt to us. Pellegrini above sums it up for me.

[Roadrunner]

Win at home and draw away every game aint good enough to win the league Rich.
Overall was a fair result as we shoulda been 2 up at HT and in the 2nd half were fortunate we never went more than 1 behind. Don't think we battled as much as we could and gave the ball away far too easily - too many long balls. On the point of tinkering I dunno why ARH wasn't brought on sooner or even started?
Agree about Walker going down needlessly when it would be better to stay on his feet and its getting annoying now.

When we got promoted to the conference last time we averaged 2.1 points per game, so we do need 3 points at home and the occasional win away plus the draws