Barrow AFC.net

In order to allow for the better flow of information back and forth between the club and its fans, Ian Rainford (Club Director and Fans Liason) has agreed to the trial of a new forum feature, where users can submit their own questions to the club. This will allow for a continuous "Q&A" type session throughout the year and also provide answers to a good section of the fanbase rather than perhaps the same questions being asked over and over.

To ask the club an official question
- PM me with the question you wish to go to the club in full.
- I'll post the question asked in this topic and send it to Ian.
- Once Ian gets a relevant answer, we'll post the reply in the topic.
- Should you wish to discuss the answer, please start a related new topic in the forum, or if there already is one about the subject at hand, discuss it on there.

Obviously you can still contact the club direct and if your question is urgent/private then you may wish to e-mail the club on office@barrowafc.com or ring 01229 666010

Q: Have we structured our players contracts in any way to mirror our ambitions like rewarding a winning team & appearance & performance based incentives?

A: Contracts are agreed according to many factors, age/experience, potential and proven ability at the level we play at and also above.
Generous bonuses are included to reflect the players position and our expectations of them, e.g. Joel Dixon obviously has different targets to say a goal scorer. Contracts have a developmental bonus as in an incentive to get into the squad and to play regularly. Appearances can effect a change in some contracts including the automatic extension for a longer deal. On winning the Conference North last year Paul Casson made a very generous bonus payment to the squad and non playing staff which reflected how much they had been involved in the success.
Individual contracts obviously cannot be discussed but it would be fair to say that they reflect both challenge to the individual and the realistic rewards for their successes.

Q: At the meet the manager night Paul cox mentioned coming out to some decent music, something to liven the crowd up a bit.
Is this getting sorted or are we sticking with the apprentice theme tune?. I know it was voted on a few years ago.

A: In reply to the walk on music question I contacted Darren Herbert and this is the reply I had -

The answer from me is, I work for the club and play what I'm told. Historically the club captain picked the run-out music (eg Scott Maxfield chose Kasabian - Clubfoot) after Turnball left Jonah became club captain but he wasn't bothered, he said he concentrated on the job in hand not what came out of the speakers so Phil Wilson picked the music (which is still played now). Shez and Bayles didn't want to change it due to superstition as we'd gone on a winning streak. In response to a request from the forum Martin Lewis hosted the "vote for a change" to the run-out music. There wasn't a great deal of response and choices basically reflected what people liked in their youth etc, etc. There was no great consensus to a "great" song to play that meant something to the club or Barrow as a town. In the end the decision was made for no music to be played and let supporters create their own atmosphere, this didn't work. I was then told to revert back to what we had previously. Edmo wasn't bothered, so again, it stayed the same. Paul Cox suggested "Kings of the wild frontier" at the Trust Q&A so the very next day I played that and continued to do so until the last game of the season.

Q: First of all credit to the club for getting season tickets available with an early bird offer. However, much has been said on the forum with regards to the current pricing structure and particularly the absence of a "young adult" season ticket. I have used the term "young adult" to cover fans aged 18-23/25, at university or college, on apprenticeships or in their first jobs, or trying to find work. This is an age group that the club should be targeting and making "going to the match" as affordable as possible. We need these fans to follow Barrow in big numbers and currently I think the club are pricing out this group. The leap from 11-17 to full price adult is enormous. I would like to know if the club can consider a season ticket for this group with plenty of time left get it in place for 2016/17.

A: The club looked at the young adult ticket and it was felt if they were at university they could miss too many games for it to be economical, or if not on regular wages it might be too much of an outlay. Emma has it in her plans to review as part of her up & coming three year commercial strategy.

Q: Why do season ticket holders not get a discount on corporate [seen as part of corporate is entry to the game and season ticket holders have already paid entry through purchasing a ST]?

A: There are no advertised discounts for ST holders but this is something I [(Emma] am going to bring up with the club. Also, when talking to ST holders I am taking e-mail addresses so that I can specifically e-mail any discounts that might be brought in over the season.

Q: There was a ‘thank you Barrow AFC’ type article in the Wrexham programme and HSN following completion of the 15/16 season sponsorship by St. Mary’s Hospice. I sincerely hope that the sponsorship was indeed as successful as the St Mary’s CEO Val Stangoe indicated.

Many of us felt unease initially at taking funds from this well known local charity organisation, and no doubt a lot of us will have had firsthand experience of the good work they do caring for cancer sufferers in the area.

So my question is this: Could the club continue to maintain links with St Mary’s Hospice in the future and perhaps allow some fund raising for them (e.g. raffle tickets) to continue?

A:We haven't been approached by St Mary's to do anything else with them and the raffle will this year be mainly going to the community side of the club. It's also very hard to split these things as there are so many other good causes that would also like to use the club to raise funds for themselves, basically how do you say yes to one & no to another. We also gave the hospice a very good deal which we hope they saw the benefits of during the year

Q: There has been quite a lot of terrace debate about official attendance figures so far this term. Can I ask are season ticket holders and corporate guests excluded from the official attendance?

A: Season ticket holders are counted in whether they attend or not, as they have paid for a ticket, the same applies for corporate ticket sales.