Mansfield, All to play for.

[beachy01]

Did the players give it their all today? yes. Have we bottled it big time? Yes

If hes going to persist with this system, we need proper wingbacks, junior plus one other!!

Bar Newby and Junior, we have zero genuine pace anywhere in the team and its telling in most games. If i had choice id get rid of Telford, Worrall and Proctor sharpish plus a few others. Newby needs to be more consistant else hes a squad player at best.

I assume the 3 mentioned are top earners and none have earned their wages this season for me. If we could shift them would Stockton sign for us ?

Id like to keep Stockton, but i feel there needs to be a proper mobile forward along side him. Telford isnt the answer, hopefully we can move him on. Emile is to much like Stockton and is more of a like for like change rather than play along side. Sitting off teams worked well for us but people sussed us out, better teams ripped us apart

[boyliegladbach]

The fans gave a deserved ovation to the dejected and disappointed Barrow players who came within a whisker of the play-offs.

Deserved my arse.

Did they deserve booing? Maybe not, but they certainly didn't deserve the positive reaction they got. To have not even got a play off place from where we were at Xmas is staggering, absolutely staggering. Can anyone honestly remember a bigger bottle job in football? I can't. No excuses are good enough, that's shocking.

This isn't a Wild out post, I'd stop short of that. But he needs to come back with a massive point to prove next season. He also needs to stop with this "it's been a brilliant season whatever" and "remember who we are" shite as it's incredibly irritating.

Good post, sense as always.

[Methuselah]

Not sure what our budget is but the likes of Wrexham, Stockport were paying more than us in the National league when they took on Rooney, Quigley, Mullin etc. and looking at who is on their books now I would say they blow most teams out of the water in league 1 as well.
Mansfield aren't paying peanuts either Flint was in the Championship last season and Ollie Clarke they relocated from Bristol years ago.

I dare say some players Stockton and Telford are on very good money probably Chester too, but a lot of our players are younger and have come from lower leagues so I can't imagine we are at the top end or at the bottom, maybe somewhere in the middle.
I think for a proper promotion push we needed to add a couple more players in January but signing Stockton alone showed some intent, be nice to get him permanently with a good strike partner.

It's no coincidence that the three sides with the biggest budgets in league 2 finished in the top 3. I would say that another 6 clubs in league 2 have higher budgets than us

I,ve been saying this all season.There are quite a few clubs who are spending money on players even though the money coming through the turnstiles doesn,t equate to their outgoings.They have a lot of clever accountants who somehow manage to circumvent the rules when their owners pump money in .Until.this is reined in clubs like Barrow are always going to struggle.
We as a small club in EFL have come on in leaps and bounds compared to our first two seasons back in the EFL.Pete Wild and his team have worked wonders to get us to our current position in two seasons.Hopefully next season we will achieve either the automatics or the play offs.
People on here need to have been through all the trials and tribulations i have seen with this club over the past 60years to realise just how far we have come and how the likes of Pete Wild and his team have propelled us into the position we are now in.Long may it continue.If we carry on in the same trajectory league one will soon be in our grasp.

[russell_anderson]

Look how rammed it was!!! One final wish for me regarding Barrow would be to experience our best ever attendance again..was it 16k?

Officially, our highest ever attendance at Holker Street came on January 1954 when we drew 2-2 against Swansea in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. It was 16,874.

That's now more than 70 years ago and I know of at least two people who were there all those years ago who will be there today . . . and I don't mean me because I'm far too young and hadn't even been invented then.

I also know that one - and maybe only one after such a long time - of the Barrow team who played that day against Swansea is still alive and still here in Barrow. That player is Tom King who wore the number 11 shirt for Barrow that day.

I was there at the age of 9 with my parents sitting in the first row directly behind the directors box. I was also very upset because my parents wouldn't take me to the replay but left me with friends of the family!

[HenneysKnee]

As someone who enjoys a bet or two I can’t ever remember effectively a 1/100 chance losing but still clapping them off. As Kieran said we probably didn’t deserve that but we didn’t lose the play off place today: we lost it away at Morecambe and at home to Swindon: play like we did today and we’d have won one of them

[mulholland]

As someone who enjoys a bet or two I can’t ever remember effectively a 1/100 chance losing but still clapping them off. As Kieran said we probably didn’t deserve that but we didn’t lose the play off place today: we lost it away at Morecambe and at home to Swindon: play like we did today and we’d have won one of them

As the referee blew for full-time yesterday Tilsworth Turf was crossing the line to win the 4.55 at Leicester @ 125/1. You'd remember that one if you'd backed it alrite.

[MisterPleasant]

Look how rammed it was!!! One final wish for me regarding Barrow would be to experience our best ever attendance again..was it 16k?

Officially, our highest ever attendance at Holker Street came on January 1954 when we drew 2-2 against Swansea in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. It was 16,874.

That's now more than 70 years ago and I know of at least two people who were there all those years ago who will be there today . . . and I don't mean me because I'm far too young and hadn't even been invented then.

I also know that one - and maybe only one after such a long time - of the Barrow team who played that day against Swansea is still alive and still here in Barrow. That player is Tom King who wore the number 11 shirt for Barrow that day.

I was talking yesterday to one of the two you're probably referring to and he was reminiscing about those crowds as we looked around at a full Holker Street. I'll be happy if I'm still going when I reach his age (86 I think he said he was) but I've just spotted that today (28th April) marks my own 62nd anniversary of going to HS (2 - 2 v Millwall). Also good to hear of Tom King! My father used to play golf with him.

[MisterPleasant]

Pete Wild's interview with Adam in which the subject of retentions/releases and the way forward is mentioned:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0htp0z7

[tictactoe]

IMO we shouldn’t be dwelling on what could have been, we shouldn’t have needed a win yesterday, we should have had it wrapped up before yesterday. Biggest let down is Doncaster, 2-0 up and then go to rat and lose.

That said, my opinion is still that I’m not sure we are ready on or off the pitch for league 1 and I didn’t want it to ruin us by attempting it. That said, is there a right time, do you have to just go for it ?

We need new players but more importantly we need new investors. The board are doing great but how long can they keep doing it? Someone mentioned to me that an investor was coming in but play off depending - absolutely not, we don’t want investors like that who just want the good times, they have to want to invest and be there for bad as well.

We go again next season, but it won’t be easy

[xerxes]

If people want a scapegoat, then how about the ref who gave the penalty at Crawley last week.

And of course the other person we can blame is Jimmy Hill, who was the chief instigator of the 3 points for a win system, without which we would have finished two points above Crawley. I know it's been with us over 40 years now, but I still can't get used to it!

[pjdaly]

Xerxes, I reckon Jimmy would say we'll just have to take it on the chin.

[Jonty]

We need new investors. The board are doing great but how long can they keep doing it? Someone mentioned to me that an investor was coming in but play off depending - absolutely not, we don’t want investors like that who just want the good times, they have to want to invest and be there for bad as well.

We go again next season, but it won’t be easy

Agree- the current board have been a few years and have worked wonders but every business needs an input of fresh energy to keep things moving. Would welcome news of new investment getting on board, (all due diligence done of course). Would be a welcome boost to help us keep developing as a club.

[Bombadel]

It was mentioned at the qna that the location was a potential issue with new investors (iirc there was interest from investment bankers from south Florida who mentioned that as an issue, other interest also from North America but they didn’t have a scooby about football) who knows, this new sky deal hopefully gets us more exposure over the pond, If it’s shown on fox or whatever, as well. As let’s face it, how many local millionaires are there, who could be interested? I don’t think it’s energy we need though, the current staff and players should be providing that , just the cash injections to get the better players in.

[romabarrow]

FORZA BLUEBIRDS, Bitterly disappointed that we fell short at the end, a trip to Wembley on the19th would have been fantastico. But for me it’s been a great season and l am proud of what the club has achieved. For me the most important thing is to stay in this league and l do think promotion at this stage could have been our ruin. Looking at the clubs who went out of the of league Sutton and Forest Green it makes realise how hard it to keep our place in league 2.
So a Happy Barrow fan out here Rome, positive signs all around and looking forward to moving forward again next season.
Have a good summer all you Bluebirds. Bluebird per sempre.

[MisterPleasant]

FORZA BLUEBIRDS, Bitterly disappointed that we fell short at the end, a trip to Wembley on the19th would have been fantastico. But for me it’s been a great season and l am proud of what the club has achieved. For me the most important thing is to stay in this league and l do think promotion at this stage could have been our ruin. Looking at the clubs who went out of the of league Sutton and Forest Green it makes realise how hard it to keep our place in league 2.
So a Happy Barrow fan out here Rome, positive signs all around and looking forward to moving forward again next season.
Have a good summer all you Bluebirds. Bluebird per sempre.

Salve, romabarrow. Possiamo solo sperare che la prossima stagione sia ancora migliore di questa. Goditi l'estate.