Marked for Stephen Brown
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom6 Aug 2035
The numbers do not look good at Barrow AFC
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Stephen Brown: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Barrow AFC have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market6 Aug 2035
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Barrow AFC they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad6 Aug 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tennai Watson and Barrow AFC agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad6 Aug 2035
Beryly Lubala was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad6 Aug 2035
A muscle injury sidelines Harrison Minturn for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Barrow AFC will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Boardroom6 Aug 2035
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Simon Didier has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Barrow AFC have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Boardroom6 Aug 2035
The Barrow AFC debt reaches $36.5M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Boardroom6 Aug 2035
Wages eat 113% of everything Barrow AFC earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom22 Jan 2035
The numbers do not look good at Barrow AFC
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Market22 Jan 2035
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Barrow AFC, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad22 Jan 2035
Stephen Brown: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Barrow AFC have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Match20 Jan 2035
The wait goes on for Barrow AFC
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Match20 Jan 2035
The goals have deserted Barrow AFC
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Barrow AFC can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad22 Jan 2035
Beryly Lubala was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad22 Jan 2035
Tennai Watson falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings22 Jan 2035
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad22 Jan 2035
Tennai Watson dropped after a run of poor form
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match14 Oct 2034
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Barrow AFC have 4 straight wins of it.
Squad16 Oct 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Barrow AFC this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Oct 2034
Words at Barrow AFC training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tennai Watson is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings16 Oct 2034
Ninety minutes of Afonso Leite at his very best
Marked 8.00. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Barrow AFC.
Squad16 Oct 2034
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Stephen Brown and Barrow AFC agree another 4 years.
Squad16 Oct 2034
Ushindi gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market16 Oct 2034
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.