Furness Favourites - Russ Raffle v Carlisle

[chipmunx]

Dave Smith, Dave Conlon,

Think you need your eyes tested at Conlons. Dave Conlin wasn’t bad though!
Jason Walker and always thought there was a player in the making in Brad Carroll in recent times.

yep Dave Conlin - remember him fluking a goal against someone (Telford?) from the left edge of the penalty area into the top right corner of the goal to bring us back to 1-1, then repeating the exact same goal to make it 3-1, both in the last 10 or so mins of the game

[pjdaly]

A handful of the above mentioned are "goes without saying" cases (Arrer etc).

Let's add a couple of Barrovians who might get overlooked and yet served the club for decades . . . Neil McDonald and Wilf Livingstone.

And from our early NPL days, full-back Barry Stevens, who I'm fairly sure is Barrow-born (could be wrong) and was a very, very consistent performer in the number 2 shirt.

As an aside, it was a bit sobering to see that "young" Jack Maddison, who seemed little more than a kid when I watched him play, turned 80 yesterday, 1st October. Belated happy birthday Jack, wherever in the world you may be.

[Holkerbird]

The Keen brothers Jack and Alan.

[whitty1969]

The Keen brothers Jack and Alan.

And Nigel

[whitty1969]

Johnny Martin

[barrowaberdeen]

Thanks for these so far!

Here's some of our Furness Favourites, the fans!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW1wdz6Kvvk...

https://bluebirdstrust.co.uk/russ-raffle/

Last one tonight. Play the raffle and help us get 1974 tickets sold!

[geobarrovian]

Dave Mansergh

[PerthBluebird]

The newby brothers one off which is doing well not good enough for us though hindsights a great thing

[Philipino doctor 61]

Graham nicholson , jimmy shields and the black adder combo lee o'keefe Paul slater

[Holkerbird]

The Keen brothers Jack and Alan.

And Nigel

Nigel wasn't a brother but I think the son of one of them. There was another brother though I think.

[Holkerbird]

Lee Copeland and Steve Calvert.

[chipmunx]

Ian Burgess

[pjdaly]

Elaine, I believe the third Keen brother you referred to was Bert and, if I'm not mistaken, i think it was Bert who was father of Nigel. The three brothers, Jack, Allan, Bert, made history by becoming the first three brothers to play in a FL team together when they all turned out for Barrow. I think that was 1954.

On the subject of the Newby's, there was another local called Geoff who made just one appearance for us in the late 1960's in the Football League. Geoff returned and played a number of times for us in the NPL in 1973. I have no idea whether he is related in any way to the young Newby lads playing today.

Cross-threading this article with the Bob Corkhill one, there was mention in the radio interview last night of Alec Murray and John Martin (both mentioned above) and Roger Coutts. Corkhill and Murray both featured in that last game against Carlisle. Roger Coutts wasn't in the team that day but did make a couple of appearances for Barrow round about 1964 or 1965. For many years Roger Coutts also held the course record of 65 at Barrow Golf Club so he was clearly an all-round sporting talent. Johnny never got to play in the Barrow first eleven in the FL days but of course returned in 1973, a bit like Geoff Newby, and became our brightest star in those difficult first 5 seasons in the NPL. It was hard to hear in Bob Corkhill's interview about these local lads being released when Don McEvoy took over the managerial reins from Ron Staniforth, and I was particularly sorry to learn of how hard "little Johnny Martin" took the news. Johnny passed away a couple of years ago but Bob, Alec Murray and Roger Coutts are all still in Barrow.

[pjdaly]

Lionel Duffin . . . his best season for appearances was 1965-66 when he played in goals about 30 times, even though he was only about 20 years old at that time. Lionel was actually in goals but got carried off, allowing Bob Knox to appear as substitute keeper and famously and historically save a penalty against Doncaster on 27-12-1965. Fred Else signed in the summer of '66 and so Lionel's opportunities were then limited. However, he returned when we dropped into the NPL in 1972 and made many more appearances for us in non-league. Father of course of our club artist, John.

Across several seasons in the early days of our NPL life, Lionel seemed to almost take it in turns with another good local keeper, Stuart Taylor, to wear the number 1 shirt. I don't know what the arrangement was there, but it seemed that Lionel would have a lengthy spell in goals, then Stuart would have a lengthy spell, then Lionel again, then Stuart . . . . interesting, but I don't know what was going on there!

[Arvo]

And Nigel

Nigel wasn't a brother but I think the son of one of them. There was another brother though I think.

I think Philip who was the son of one of them played a few times in the mid-70s.