Source: Daily_Mail
The club that saved the cup: Barrow on the buses as 8,000 head to Sunderland
Merry Barrow chairman Brian Keen has a rosy-cheeked, one-word explanation for why the FA Cup third round still thrills so much that there will be a convoy of 77 buses helping transport 8,000 Barrovians north-east across treacherous Pennine roads to Sunderland today. It is, Keen says, 'folklore'. [LNB]Sheffield Wednesday are not opening their Kop for the visit of Crystal Palace and there may be other places across the country where the FA Cup will feel shunned today - but not in Barrow. [LNB]On Wednesday the local paper in this Cumbrian outpost had a 16-page pull-out entitled: 'Love Cup Fever'. As Keen said: 'The FA Cup is very much alive and well.'[LNB] Barrow boy: Macauley Woods dreams of heading the winner against Sunderland[LNB] Keen knows all about folklore. The 66-year-old engineer, who stepped in to save Barrow a decade ago when a court in Leeds was about to foreclose on a club founded in 1901, is a lifelong Sunderland fan, despite being born in south London. [LNB]Keen was at Wembley in 1973 when second division Sunderland entered FA Cup folklore by defeating then-mighty Leeds United. Keen's mother came from Pallion in Sunderland and many of Keen's relatives worked in Doxford shipyard there. There will be smiling reunions on Wearside today. [LNB]Keen's father Roy was a London docker-turned-fireman during the Blitz. His son Tony - another Barrow director - works in the docks locally and the chairman's conversation weaved seamlessly between work and play. [LNB]Barrow is an old-time industrial town sustained by its shipyard and spin-off manufacturing. Keen arrived 40 years ago. This time last year, Barrow, 16th in the Blue Square Premier, reached the third round and also travelled to the North East, to Middlesbrough. [LNB]Barrow lost 2-1 but the results of the income generated by the 25,000 gate and by the run to the third round can be seen in the car park of the club's Holker Street ground. There is new Tarmac, upon which Keen tapped his feet proudly. There is also a new disabled ramp, fresh paint, a blossoming academy, an education room with 24 computers and corporate facilities that can entertain 150. [LNB] Saviour: Barrow chairman Brian Keen stepped in to save the club a decade ago[LNB]'Welcome to our happy little club,' Keen said. 'The Middlesbrough game last season is now part of our folklore and nobody in their wildest dreams thought we'd have a repeat this season. The ticket sales, the shop takings, the feedback from local industry - submarine company BAE, Kimberley-Clark - it's all tremendous. [LNB]'All the talk in the workplace is about the Sunderland game. It's improved the happiness of the town. There's certainly Cup fever here.' [LNB]It is a throw-back view of the Cup's meaning but arrayed on the blue velvet in the club shop on Tuesday were the last five tickets of the 8,200 allocation Barrow received from Sunderland. They estimate more than 1,000 others will make their own way to the Stadium of Light. [LNB]Seeing blue flag after replica jersey leave the shop, Keen's opinion seemed neither romantic nor cliched. 'I can go back,' he said, 'I'm a Sunderland supporter - big-style; I went to the '73 Cup final. The big feedback from that run to the final from the shipyards in Sunderland was that production went up, absenteeism went down, everything improved. [LNB]Enlarge 'It was the same here last year when we played Middlesbrough. Kimberley-Clark and other industries in Barrow gave us the feedback that everything improved. It's just incredible. [LNB]'If you walked around Barrow over Christmas, the blue and white colours were out, the atmosphere was there, the paper stands carried the news, everyone was talking about it. It's been building and when they turn up at the Stadium of Light in the blue and white with their flags, they'll show you. It's going to be magnificent.' [LNB]It is a while since 'magnificent' has been applied to Barrow, on or off the pitch. In a recent Financial Times feature was a quote from a local describing Barrow as 'the a**e end of the Lake District'. [LNB]Traditionally, rugby league has been a force in the town and Jason Walker is the only Barrovian in the AFC side. Hence they train 100 miles away in Salford. It does not matter to Keen. [LNB]'I think there's a little bit of exaggeration about the state of the town,' he added.[LNB] 'Providing the economy holds, the town has got a 27-year order book. There are seven nuclear submarines. We've got the follow-on from that, the maintenance of it, we've got two mega-constructions starting next month, off-shore wind farms and a big new cavern project, where you pump low-pressure gas into where the gas has come out.[LNB] 'On top of that they found new gas out here two weeks ago - there'll be another 25 years of work from that. Then they're bringing gas in from the Caribbean in big tankers and they're pumping it into the caverns. [LNB]'Barrow is really buzzing. I would say it's one of the most employed towns in Britain. All we're short of is skilled labour. If we could get the tradesmen, there's jobs here.' [LNB]He may sound like a salesman, Brian Keen, but he has put his money where his mouth is and did so at a time when it would have been easy to remain silent. [LNB] Lucky boy: Daniel Duckworth (11) gets one of the last tickets on sale[LNB]Barrow were members of the Football League from 1921 to 1972 and once finished eighth in the old third division. But they were voted out in 1972 in favour of Hereford United and their existence teetered. [LNB]In the late 90s, Stephen Vaughan, an associate of Curtis 'The Cock' Warren - once described as 'Interpol Target One' - took over the club. The ownership of Holker Street, it emerged, had been transferred into one of Vaughan's companies. When Barrow was mentioned, terms such as drug-dealing and money-laundering began to follow. [LNB]Keen had to handle the fall-out and it was far from simply signing forms. It is an episode Keen preferred not to return to. But the club was almost gone. 'I thought, "Dearie me, Barrow without football". [LNB]'I was thinking, "I'll just make a phone call". I promised my wife I wouldn't get too involved financially and I rang the FA and the Football League. I said the courts in Leeds had foreclosed on the club. They said, 'Oh my God.' [LNB] Cup fever: The ladies of Dodd's Florists make car ribbons for supporters[LNB]'So I asked them, "What does it need? I don't want to get in too deep." [LNB]'I got the fans together at a meeting at the Town Hall. Quite frankly, I couldn't get in, it was packed. I got their assurances that they would come with me if I put my head on the block and turned it into a family club. They gave me £30,000 - in buckets. The only people who let us down were the Football League.' [LNB]But Barrow stabilised, the club prospered and, on the back of FA Cup revenue, next season should see them try to mount a promotion challenge to return to the Football League. [LNB]It is apt that, this morning that blue convoy of buses leaves from Phoenix Road.[LNB] 'Charity of Middlesbrough stars rescued me' - Barrow defender pays tribute to Riverside support ahead of Sunderland clashWest Ham beg for FA Cup fans in email pleading for '12th man' against ArsenalJeff Powell: Save the FA Cup and give the winners Champions League chanceNottingham Forest boss Billy Davies: I was a nightmare for Birmingham boss Alex McLeish [LNB]
