Barrow boss Paul Cox on the rise of the Bluebirds
HOW does a Non-League football club put itself in the promotion mix? Hiring Paul Cox isn’t a bad start.
Getting up is the long-term remit for the former Mansfield Town boss, who won the Conference title with the Stags just three years ago.
It’s a mission not just for Barrow but the man himself too, as he looks to return to the Football League he left in 2014.
Just ten months after taking the reins, Cox says he’s already noticing the changing perceptions towards his National League side, who sat fourth on goal difference ahead of yesterday’s clash with Forest Green.
“The chairman Paul Casson came out with a stat the other day that we’ve only lost five games in 2016 up until now,” Cox says. “That shows progression, but with that comes the pressure of trying to maintain where you and still trying to get better.
“The infrastructure of the club is growing. Everyone is working hard behind the scenes to make us better. We know we’re up against some giants at this level of football.
“The way we’re perceived is a lot different now. Before it was one of Barrow being a yo-yo club – top end of the National League North, but trying to avoid relegation in the Conference National. We’re working very hard to earn the right of people looking at us very differently. I’m really proud of the players.”
Bullish
Cox’s break into management came in October 2006, when he stepped up from assistant manager to gaffer at Eastwood Town following Brian Chambers’ departure.
Then struggling in the Northern Premier League, Cox turned the Badgers into promotion winners in his first full season. After an 11thplace finish at Step 2, they came fourth, only to be banned from the play-offs because their ground wasn’t up to scratch.
The former Notts County and Kettering defender resigned to further his own career, taking the task of returning Mansfield to the Football League.
The Stags, backed by chairman John Radford, finished third in Cox’s first season before winning the championship in his second, with an FA Cup clash with Premier League big guns Liverpool thrown in for good measure.
Cox had reached the Promised Land. But, after leading Mansfield to a mid-table finish, just a few weeks into his second season he lost the spark.
“Anyone who knows me knows I enjoy being out on the training ground with the players,” Cox says. “I love the work ethic, I put in long hours, but I enjoy it. Back then I stopped enjoying it.
“I wasn’t doing myself justice, or John Radford, and that’s my biggest regret. I really did enjoy working for John. He might answer it differently, but I probably thought we’d still be working together now if I hadn’t made the decision to leave.
“There are times when I thought I’d made the wrong decision, because I’d worked hard to become a Football League manager, but I made it.
“John tried to talk me out of it two weeks earlier, but the second time he knew I’d made my mind up.
“I’ve been blessed to work for Rob Yong and Keith Smith at Eastwood, and then John, who was fabulous at Mansfield, and now Paul Casson at Barrow. He’s brilliant to work for.
“You have to show respect and earn respect. With John my relationship was unbelievable. Part of walking away from it was the feeling of letting a good person down. But I had to do it for myself.
“I fell into my first job really. Brian Chambers resigned at Eastwood so I took the job. I woke up six years later in the Football League.
“I’d not had a proper holiday, I’d not seen my kids grow up, and I’ve had things personally where I look back and wish I’d done things differently.
“I can walk through a storm, I’ve got no problem with that. In this business you need crocodile skin. But I’d got to the point where I stopped enjoying football.”
Cox feels it’s important to address why his time at Mansfield came to an end. With the announcement including those dreaded words “mutual consent”, there was an assumption he had got the sack.
At the time, they were in the lower half of the table, but historically Cox’s teams have peaked after Christmas.
And he still is on good terms with Stags owner Radford – someone he “loves to bits”.
“I met up with John two or three weeks after for a couple of pints, and he asked me if I thought I’d made a mistake in resigning,” Cox says.
“I was probably a little bit bullish. It sounds odd, but by that time I’d recharged my batteries. I said, ‘No, I made the right decision’. I explained that I was tired and it was funny because John said, ‘You probably could have gone on holiday, come back refreshed and carried on’.
“That was my relationship with John, and what made him a fabulous chairman to work for. But I kind of lied to myself. By that time I was missing it again. Missing the pressure. Missing the training ground, the banter with the players, the mind games, even the abuse from opposition fans.
“The game never changed, it was just me who did. You let certain things get to you, which hadn’t in the previous five or six years.
Formula
“It made me smile because John said that with a glint in his eye. As if to say, ‘You made a mistake’. Who knows? My time at Mansfield was all positive. We had FA Cup runs, a Championship, and we put an infrastructure into the club.
“When the light goes off at night and you can’t lie to your own sub conscience, I sometimes think I did the wrong thing, walking away from Mansfield.
“Six weeks before I had the chance to go and talk to a Championship club. I decided it wasn’t something I wanted to take up.
“But I’ve become a better person for all my experiences. I’m fiercely ambitious to manage in the League again – I know it takes a lot of hard work and I’m doing that at Barrow.”
Cox took a sabbatical after leaving Field Mill and enjoyed watching football with no agenda. A short spell at Torquay followed, but with the struggling south-west club unable to pay his wages, he left after three months. Right club, wrong time, but at Barrow he is certainly back in the mix.
With his own stamp on the squad, last Saturday’s 2-0 win against York City made it five wins and two draws in seven games.
He’s back enjoying the pressures of management and the challenge of maintaining their good start.
“The thing with Paul Casson is he’s a very shrewd and clever man,” Cox says. “He wants to leave a legacy at this club. It’s a club close to his heart. The positive thing is he knows this is a building process. He knows we’ve got to improve the infrastructure, and he understands that. He’s very aware of how much work we need to do.
“He also knows the hard work we’ve done and the strides we’ve made already. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out we have made unbelievable progress in the last ten months.
“But that’s not good enough yet. We want to improve, we want to be consistent, and people to understand this is a winning football club with a winning formula. With a great plan and mindset we can be very competitive.”