Barrow chief sums it up HORNBY’S MODEL SEASON
NEVER mind Liverpool, National League leaders Barrow are the club with perhaps the most to lose from the current situation.
Barrow chairman Paul Hornby’s revitalised club are on the brink of a return to the English Football League after an exile of almost five decades.
The Cumbrian side are four points clear at the top with a superior goal difference.
Although it now looks like the season will be completed, for Barrow the sporting lockdown is already a financial disaster.
But if the 2019-20 campaign had been declared null and void, Barrow’s dream would have become the ultimate nightmare. “Good luck to Liverpool, who deserve to be Premier League champions, but Barrow’s loss would be far greater if this season’s efforts count for nothing,” said Hornby, one of a group of local businessmen who bought the club 18 months ago.
“For a start, they’re much richer than us and they could quite easily win the title again next year, while I’m not sure we could, if I’m totally honest.
“And while I understand their fans have been waiting 30 years to be crowned champions, for us it’s 48 years.
“Most of us can’t remember Barrow in the Football League and those that can never thought we’d get back.
“And while we’ve had a smattering of success in the interim, winning the FA Trophy twice and playing the likes of Middlesbrough and Sunderland in the FA Cup, we’ve never come close to regaining our place.”
Hornby and his fellow directors have been doing their sums since football shut down and their answers make grim reading.
“The big issue is that while the big clubs are sitting on millions of pounds, the rest of us are not,” he added.
“We would be around £150,000 out of pocket by not playing our last four home games and, for us, that is massive.
“In our position, we were anticipating sell-outs as the season reached its finale, representing around 20 per cent of our turnover for the entire year.
“We’re left with a very black hole and HMRC are still expecting us to pay taxes.
“Players’ contracts usually last from July 1 to the end of April, but if there’s an extension, we’ll have to carry on paying them through the summer, costing us roughly £5,000 per week.”
Manager Ian Evatt has transformed the team to such an extent they are known as ‘Barrowcelona’ by locals. But he fears all his hard work could count for nothing.
He said: “It’s the uncertainty which is killing us. We’ve got loan players from Blackburn who make a big difference and we don’t know what happens with them and, of course, it’s difficult to keep everyone match fit.”
Hornby, not surprisingly, claims Barrow should go up whatever happens.
“We’ve led the league since October and not too many clubs would dispute we’d be worthy champions,” he added.
“The saving grace for us could be Bury’s demise, which means the Football League is one club down. We just want to go up.”