“The club did look seriously at training in Barrow,” says captain Niall Canavan. “But the practicality of it and the travel times for everyone on a daily basis, it just didn’t work. Some of the guys up there said that the road floods in winter.
“You can end up stuck one side of it. So, yes, we’d maybe get in for training but then you can’t get home to pick your kids up. Or you don’t get home at all. This works.”
Barrow AFC, a League Two team that trains just 100 miles from their Cumbria home, is here. Salford is the team’s weekday base after a two-year agreement was struck during the summer with De La Salle Sports & Social Club to rent their facilities.
This arrangement is not ideal for a club whose roots are deeply rooted in the Furness Peninsula community. But it is practical with Barrow’s isolated location — Morecambe Bay, the Duddon Estuary and the Irish Sea lap at the town’s border — leading many a local to joke over the years about living at the end of the longest cul-de-sac in the country.
In the highly competitive lower-league recruitment market, Barrow just doesn’t cut it as a location. Especially at a time when most player contracts in the fourth tier stretch no further than a year or two at the most, meaning there isn’t the security to up sticks and move the entire family hundreds of miles.
It is better to train locally and to only travel to the west coast to play in home matches. The players will stay overnight at a local hotel after reporting to their training facility no later than 7pm on Friday.
This way, Leeds-based Canavan, a January signing and recently awarded a new contract to 2024, and his team-mates are able to satisfy manager Pete Wild’s stipulation that his squad lives within an hour of the training ground.
“Most of the lads are based Manchester way,” adds the 31-year-old centre-half. “A few come from the Chester side, two or three of the southern lads live in a club house (in Manchester) and then there are the five of us who drive in from what the gaffer calls the ‘dark side’. We’re from Yorkshire.”
Barrow’s decision to establish a Salford base during the week gives them a fighting chance in a highly competitive recruitment market. This includes three League Two peers from Greater Manchester, Stockport County, and Salford City. Tranmere Rovers and Crewe Alexandra aren’t far away, either.
Accrington Stanley, Bolton Wanderers, Fleetwood Town and Morecambe — the latter two both around 15 miles from Barrow as the crow flies but 75 and 50 miles respectively by road — can also be found in the division above, while Wild’s hometown club Oldham Athletic dropped into the National League last May.
A young Barrow fan celebrates Josh Gordon’s winning goal against Bradford City (Photo: Mike Morese/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“The set-up works well,” says former FC Halifax Town manager Wild, who, since taking charge in May, has overseen 13 signings and 15 departures. “But we are also aware how important a role we play in the community.
“On a Friday before every home game, we send the players into the schools. We are always in Barrow so everyone sees us.
“That works two-fold, as one of the players realised last week. He was blown away at one school by how the kids knew all the players’ names. Not just one. Each one. That just doesn’t happen at every football club.”
Iain Wood, an agent with 15 years’ experience in the game and by now running his own company, was holidaying in Egypt last April when an email arrived from Barrow to turn his working life upside down.
We were looking for someone to manage operations at the club that finished 21st in its first two seasons of returning to the league. EFLTony Shearer, Paul Hornby and co-owners wanted to have a chat.
His curiosity was sufficiently piqued to allow him to join the Zoom call family trip. Six months on, he’s barely had time to draw breath. “There’s been a few bumps in the road but we’ve achieved a lot,” says Barrow’s sporting director.
Wood’s first big call was to let go of manager Phil Brown, who had made public his desire to start training back in Barrow from this season. “There were just disparities between Phil and what I thought and what the owners thought,” he explains.
Then came Wild’s ultimately successful pursuit. who did a remarkable job in taking Halifax to the National League playoffs in two of its past three seasons., as well as a revamp of the squad.
As this was going on, Wood was literally getting his hands dirty bringing the Salford base he’d found in late May up to speed to end a nomadic existence that saw Barrow’s players train at no less than 11 different locations last season.
“I remember pulling up here for the first time,” he says when giving The AthleticAn impromptu tour through the De La Salle facilities. “The weather wasn’t great and the place looked a bit tired, with the hedges overgrown and stuff like that.
“But I saw the potential straight away. It just needed a lick of paint, some nice furniture and a few Barrow signs to badge the place as ours.”
Wood, Carly Sutherland and Ryan Sutherland did most of the summer painting. Although Wood is officially a kit manager at Barrow, Ryan does many other jobs. The trio also scrubbed the walls and floor of the temporary building that now doubles as Wild’s office during the week.
This effort has resulted in a building that can be used by EFL clubs. There are two changing rooms for the squad, one for the staff and another that has been converted into the physio’s room.
All the kit for training is now washed on-site, unlike last season, when players had to bring their muddy shorts and shirts home. The club has also purchased a gym membership for all the players to use at their local facility.
“The big thing I wanted was some stability for the players,” says Wood about a set-up that includes provision for the squad to train on an artificial pitch at the nearby Salford Sports Village should the weather take a turn for the worse this winter.
“That stretches to the manager with the one thing I guaranteed Pete when offering him the job being longevity. This is not a one-or-two-season thing.”
Barrow’s commitment has already been illustrated by Wild and assistant Adam Temple being handed new long-term contracts just six weeks into the season.
A scintillating start that included 3-2 victories over Stockport County and Bradford City, the bookmakers’ two overwhelming favourites to go up before a ball had been kicked, lay behind a move that took even Wild by surprise.
Beat Doncaster Rovers by 2-0 in a match viewed by Marcus Rashford, there to support Barrow’s former Manchester UnitedJunior Tyrell Warren added to the feeling-good vibes in Holker Street. Holker Street attendances are up by 80 percent on the 2019-20 National League championship-winning campaign. Ian Evatt’s side dubbed ‘Barrowcelona’ thanks to their expansive style of football.
Barrow’s four consecutive league losses have seen them slip to 11th, despite operating on a low-budget budget. It will take patience to achieve the vision of Wood and Wild. However, progression in Tuesday’s EFL Trophy at the expense Carlisle United brought a welcome boost despite the fact that they are not in the same league. One home fan stopped play for 18 minutes and threw a firework at Michael Kelly, the visiting goalkeeper..
“We have been victims of our own success,” says Wild, who apologised to Carlisle counterpart Paul Simpson immediately after the firework incident. “If we’d won a couple, lost a couple and still been on 21 points then everyone is happy.
“But we came out of the blocks. Beating Carlisle, though, should give the players heart.”
Training is intense, as we saw in Salford. As are the regular video sessions led by Lewis Dunwoody, the club’s head of analysis and data, for players and staff.
There is still a lot of fun to be had. For example, a darts competition saw players trying to see how far they could get from the board while still hitting it.
Pete Wild (centre), taking part in training (Photo by The Athletic).
“That lasted two days,” explains captain Canavan with a roll of the eyes when asked who won. “Then no darts left. No winners in that situation.”
Wild encourages the banter at a club that returned to the Football League in 2020 after 48 years away, the manager even bestowing the nickname ‘Casper’ — the teenage lead character in the iconic British film Kes — on Barnsley native Harrison Neal soon after his arrival on loan from Sheffield United.
Wood’s next task is to establish an academy for next season. Wild will benefit from Barrow being able, for the first time in its history, to have seven substitutes on matchdays instead of six allowed under EFL rules that apply to clubs without an established youth setup.
It is planned to launch an Under-18s team initially, with 18 players. This will give it Category 4 status. Although the advertisement for academy managers will remain open until the end, there have already been more than 40 applicants.
“The academy will be set up in Barrow,” adds Wood. “Not completely confirmed yet but there is one site I am leaning towards. If I am able to sort that site out, it makes the process easier in terms of where we see ourselves in a few years’ time.”
This could mean that the first team will soon be free from their weekday exile and return to Cumbria.
“The conversation about going back to Barrow happened the moment I walked through the door,” replies Wood. “But it was quashed very quickly. It didn’t feel like the right time or the right environment.
“To underline how important where we are based is at the moment, my first conversation with every agent is, ‘You do realise we train in Manchester?’. Those were my opening words.
“But I am also aware that the football club does need to be in Barrow at some stage.”
We will have to wait to see if the terrain is right for a possible return of training on the Furness peninsula. “The only way this moves forward to Barrow being in Barrow is the club has gone in an upwards direction,” adds Wood.
“The further you go up the leagues, contracts are longer and the financials help make it work. Players have many other options than this league.
“We need to show people we are improving as a club. Our problem when sitting down with players and their agents last summer was we’d just finished third bottom of the Football League. It was hard for them to let go of that.
“I’ve already had conversations with agents who have since admitted, ‘We made the wrong choice’. That doesn’t change the fact those players went elsewhere. It does indicate that perceptions are changing.
“Next summer, I hope the conversations won’t necessarily be just about us training in Manchester or what we do on home matchdays. More about the progress we are making as a club.”
(Top photo by Mike Morese/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
