...the BAD
Barrow 1 Kidderminster Harriers 3 (GM Vauxhall Conference, 18.8.90) Our first competitive match after the Trophy triumph and typically, we threw it away, though we should have had it sewn up by half time. Monday night's report in the Evening Mail quoted Harriers boss Graham Allner: "In the first half Barrow gave us a football lesson" he said. But it was a lesson in everything but finishing, with only Billy Gilmour managing to put one away. In the second half it all went wrong. Early on Kevin Proctor was taken off after a clash of heads with blood gushing from a wound that would require fourteen stitches. Then came the equalizer which I will never forget. Peter McDonnell took a short goal kick from the right hand edge of his six yard box across the face of the goal to Stimmo who was standing on the left hand corner of the penalty area. But McDonnell severely underhit it. As Stimmo waited for the ball to trickle out of the area so he could legitimately play it, in nipped Harriers speedy black winger who promptly dispossessed Stimmo and rounded McDonnell for his biggest gift this side of Christmas. It was just so unutterably stupid and I seem to recall that their second was almost as bad. This did inspire me to pen a vitriolic piece for Beans!, the gist being that I don't mind seeing Barrow lose as long as it's to better opposition and they have at least tried, but it's still lying around somewhere in the innards of our old word processor.
Barrow 3 Slough Town 4 (GM Vauxhall Conference, 7.3.92) Bad...? This was the worst. I still have nightmares about this one, though I would hate not to have been there. Imagine watching out for the result on the teleprinter at 4.45. You'd leap out of your chair when Barrow 3... appeared, only to be struck back down as if shot when ...Slough 4 came up seconds later! The first goal came after just 23 seconds but Barrow's defence must have known that because we were selling Beans! that day we were just coming through the turnstiles. For they granted us several repeats of what we missed by opening up in exactly the same fashion in the first quarter of an hour for the second and third goals. Doc pulled one back but an identical fourth goal meant we went in 1-4 down at the interval. To give them credit the team fought back magnificently after the break and if they had played every game the way they played this second half they'd be in the League by now! They'd also be completely knackered. I don't remember Brady's goal, but Rowlands got one from a glancing header from a right side corner. If the back header from one Slough player which hit the bar with about five minutes to go had been a bit lower I think we may just have snatched this one, but Slough hung on for what must have been about their only win in their last fifteen games or so. After this it was going to be almost impossible to avoid relegation and so it proved.
Barrow 0 Yeovil Town 0 (GM Vauxhall Conference, 25.4.92) To have any chance of staying in the Conference Barrow had to win this one. A belated fight back with 3-0 and 5-1 wins at home to Telford and Kidderminster respectively had given us some hope of survival but the usual Conference end of season fixture pile-up again took its toll as the side turned in a lacklustre performance. Indeed it was Yeovil who looked the most dangerous, coming close more than once in the second half. But it was the amazing penalty incident that the game is remembered for. Fully nine minutes into injury time and the referee pointed the spot. A penalty for Barrow when the whistle should have gone ages ago! The fans, gathered together in the top Steelworks End/Wilkie Rd. corner of the ground went wild! But we were cruelly denied as Jabber's penalty kick was saved. Paul Rowlands followed up the rebound but his header went over the bar. In the end it wouldn't have mattered as the clubs above us won enough matches to save themselves, but it would have given the following week's trip to Colchester the extra edge. A tragic day in the history of the club.
Barrow 0 Lancaster City 3 (ATS Trophy second round, 1.12.92) If, as Joe McFuddle would say, Whitley Bay was ordering the pine, then this was injecting the embalming fluid into the rapidly mouldering corpse of Graham Heathcote's managerial career at Barrow. Two weeks later he was out. That was the silver lining of this result, surely the most embarrassing in the club's continuing history of coming unstuck against sides from lower divisions in this type of competition. Barrow squandered a thousand chances in the first half only to be hit by three Lancaster goals in the second. The excuse that the sad death of Ray Wilkie only three days before the game must have affected the players doesn't hold water as there were as many on the Lancaster side that night - Stimmo and Knoxy - as there were on the Barrow side - Doc and Skiv - who had played under him.
Barrow 1 Hyde United 4 (Northern Premier League, 2.4.94) Last season we suffered as many defeats at Holker St. - eight - as we did in 1991-92 when we were relegated from the Conference, and we could have chosen any of them, inflicted by the likes of Emley, Horwich RMI, Frickley Athletic and Colwyn Bay to include here. But we settled on this one as our heaviest home defeat since the 1-5 thrashing by Merthyr in 1990. At 2-1 down in the dying seconds of the first half Barrow were awarded a penalty. Jabber missed and directly from the restart former Holker St. player Dave Nolan made it 3-1. United added a fourth on the hour and Barrow were dead and buried. This was just one of a series of sad performances by the team towards the end of last season and at Chorley two days later, by all accounts they were even worse. Issue 021 - January 1995