In the days before automatic promotion and relegation between the Football League and the non-league pyramid, clubs could lose their place for reasons that often had little to do with performances on the pitch. Sometimes they were voted out for being hopelessly poor. Sometimes the glamour of a rising non-league club caught the imagination of the media and the voters. And sometimes geography worked against them.
Barrow AFC, from Barrow-in-Furness in the far north-west of England, fell victim to the latter two. In 1972 they lost their Football League place, despite having been within touching distance of the Second Division only a few years earlier. Their story after expulsion was every bit as turbulent as what had come before, ranging from Wembley triumphs to brushes with financial ruin.
From Second Division Hopes to the Exit Door
Barrow’s half-century in the Football League was largely modest. Across fifty-one years they spent only three seasons outside the bottom tier, and rarely went far in the FA Cup. A brief surge in the mid-to-late 1960s raised hopes, but relegation back to Division Four in 1970 triggered a slide. They finished bottom in 1971 and third from bottom the following year. When it came to the re-election vote, Hereford United were preferred.
The timing was cruel. Hereford’s famous FA Cup run in 1971–72, when they beat Newcastle United and took West Ham United to a replay, gave them the momentum. Their election owed more to publicity than to a sustained record of achievement. Yet Barrow were the ones who paid the price, edged out after a second ballot in which Hereford prevailed.
A Changing Identity
The blow was doubled in 1974 when local government reforms moved Barrow from Lancashire into the new county of Cumbria. For the football club, the struggles continued. Invited into the Alliance Premier League in 1979, Barrow yo-yoed through the 1980s between the Conference and the Northern Premier League. Their finest moment came in 1990, when they lifted the FA Trophy at Wembley.
Controversy and Crisis
The 1990s brought darker times. A takeover by businessman Steven Vaughan in 1996 raised eyebrows due to his connections with convicted drug trafficker Curtis Warren. In 1999 Barrow were suddenly wound up, sparking years of legal wrangling over ownership of their Holker Street ground. Demotion to the Northern Premier League followed, and only after three years was stability restored. The club survived, but the scars remained. In 2007, their name returned to the headlines when one of their players became the first in England to be jailed for an on-field offence after an FA Cup tie against Bristol Rovers.
Five Bluebirds of Note
- Peter Withe – The future European Cup-winning striker with Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest appeared once for Barrow in their final League season of 1971–72.
- Mike Marsh – A former Liverpool and West Ham midfielder, his career in the League was ended by injury. He featured for Barrow in 1998–99.
- Colin Methven – A Wigan Athletic legend with over 500 appearances in the Football League, he ended his career at Barrow in 1994.
- Tony Parks – The Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper who saved the decisive penalty in the 1984 UEFA Cup final later played for Barrow during their financially chaotic 1998–99 campaign.
Barrow’s exile from the Football League was shaped by politics, geography, and a touch of bad luck. Yet their survival through decades of upheaval shows the resilience of a club and community that refused to let the game die at Holker Street.