All Bluebirds Column #1: Rochdale (H)

Our draw with Rochdale may have been another ‘bump in the road’ but there are still many reasons to be hopeful for 2023.

Six years ago, a buoyant Barrow was awaiting the arrival of League One Rochdale to a packed Holker Street. A packed Cross Bar welcomed Football Focus. Barrow were enjoying a sniff of the ‘big time’ and dreaming of progressing for the first time- with a Paul Cox side organised and full of ‘mentality’.

Ultimately, a subdued home side were passed ‘off the park’ by an efficient and superior Rochdale- well drilled by the evergreen Keith Hill.

2023. Another big crowd at Holker Street witness top ten Barrow work hard to beat a struggling Rochdale. Hill sacked by Scunthorpe and Paul Cox was relieved of his duties at perennial underachievers Boston United in National League North.

After Cox’s reign turned sour we enjoyed a comedy of managers (are we still paying for Mickey Moore?) followed by a desperate rescue act with Ade Pennock and the ultimate exit of the Casson regime.

From new ownership, through the perfect storm of Ian Evatt to the pandemic ridden ‘promised land’ of the EFL in a scarce believable turn of events. Battling to adapt on and off the pitch and improve the club from top to bottom, we owe such a debt to Rob Kelly and indeed Phil Brown for our survival. Not least for saving us from four full back Jolley and the expensive Barrovian production of Les Miserables, starring Mark Cooper.

So, progress. Pete Wild was right to point out post match. We now have more league wins this season by January than we had the whole of last season. We sit tenth, two points off the play offs. Our average gate is three thousand as the tills hum pre match in the Fanzone and Cross Bar and goals celebrated under the Holker End roof. We haven’t had it so good in over fifty years- and that’s a fact.

However, form in football is ephemeral and things can change quickly. This accounts for some of the more hysterical rantings on social media in the last few weeks. Progress can stall and, to an extent, it has. Barrow have picked up two points in the last five league games.

Pete Wild is right that those oft-mentioned ‘bumps in the road’ are to be expected in a side that probably over achieved earlier in the season. Our way of playing was a surprise to many. Our work out of possession was superhuman and we carved teams up with quick interplay and deadly crossing.

In short, we overachieved but haven’t been helped by injuries and absences. Robbie Gotts may not score many but his overall work rate and drive frightens opponents and he made a difference on Saturday’s home return. Any League Two manager, will identify quicksilver Josh Kay as a potential threat, baggage or not.

In possession, the injury to Sam Mclelland seems a turning point. Both Niall Canavan and George Ray are experienced, tough as teak defenders but perhaps have less of the confident range of passing out of defence the Chelsea loanee had.

This enables schemers such as Sam Foley to start us off under less pressure and higher up the pitch. It was notable when results started to slip, he looked surrounded and everything slowed down.

We have had a lot to contend with then but have much to excite us. New arrivals are required and walking on the Wild side will always need quick, committed players with a point to prove, such as Elliot Newby. All the aforementioned players are back soon and we have more to come in. There is huge credit in the bank and we need to ‘keep the head’ and back this honest side, our most successful in half a century in terms of league position.

For goodness sake, let us enjoy it! Because football is a deadly game when complacency sets in. A sage observer of well over fifty years recalled at the Rochdale game where we were fifty-five years previously in 1968.

Comfortably top half, sitting pretty in what is now League One at Christmas, we were getting crowds of 6000 as we nestled just behind Brighton and Hove Albion. January 1973? Barrow played in front of 250 souls in the Northern Premier. Not a bump in the road, more a drive straight off a cliff, probably on a motorbike given speedway’s part in the downfall.

So perhaps the collective nervousness and a certain wry fatalism is inevitable after forty eight years of hurt. However, that should not stop anyone recognising and enjoying the heights we have climbed together now. On we go.