Barrow Town - Riverside Park

Barrow Town FC
Riverside Park
Barrow Road
Barrow-upon-Soar
Loughborough
LE12 8EN

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Ground: 119
Date: Saturday 18th September 2021
Barrow Town 3-3 Hinckley
United Counties League Division 1
Attendance: 112

Barrow Town - History

Barrow Town's exact founding date is unknown, but it is believed they were founded in the early 1900s under the name Barrow Old Boys. This team was comprised of former pupils of the village's grammar school and had to compete with other teams in the village such as Barrow Rising Stars, Trinity FC, The Gunners and Barrow Athletic. After disappearing for a time, the Old Boys returned in 1932 and competed in the Leicestershire Mutual League before moving to the Loughborough Alliance League (which they won in the 1940/41 season).

After World War 2, the club joined the Western Division of the Leicestershire Senior League, before being placed in Division 2 when the league was reorganised in 1948. After twenty years at this level the club finished as runners-up to earn promotion to Division 1, but struggled at this new level and were relegated back to Division 2 after two seasons.

After ten or so years of mid-table finishes, the club changed its name to Barrow Town. In the 1983/84 season, Division 2 was renamed Division 1 and the club continued to finish mid-table at this level for several more years. However, the 1992/93 season saw the club win the title to earn promotion to the Premier Division. Two seasons later, the club finished as runners-up in the Premier Division before settling into a series of bottom-half finishes.

The club finished as Premier Division runners-up again in the 2002/03, 2005/06 and 2007/08 seasons, despite having three points deducted in that latter campaign. That runners-up finish in 2008 was also enough for the club to earn promotion to Step 6 for the first time, joining the East Midlands Counties League. The club remained in this league until being transferred to Division 1 of the United Counties League this summer (due to the East Midlands Counties League being disbanded as part of the summer restructuring of the non-league pyramid), recording a highest finish of 2nd in the 2012/13 season.

The club's best FA Cup run saw them reach the 3rd Qualifying Round in the 2011/12 season, beating Kirby Muxloe, Rothwell Town, Thurnby Nirvana and Mickleover Sports before losing to Rushall Olympic. As for the FA Vase, the club have progressed as far as the 2nd Round on three occasions, most recently in the 2005/06 season: in that run, they beat Congleton Town and Borrowash Victoria before losing to Quorn.

My Visit

I started planning a groundhop on this date way back at the start of August, initially looking at something that would cost £20-35 on the train as a slightly-belated way of celebrating my birthday (at that point, I hadn't fully drawn up my list of grounds feasible on the train from Peterborough, hence that sporadic price range). I can't remember the full list of options I had at that stage, but I know it did include Atherstone Town, North Ferriby and a couple others, with North Ferriby being my preferred option.

A couple of weeks after drawing up that initial list, I sold some stuff for good money and decided to plan something more ambitious to utilise that increased financial flexibility. This saw me start to look at options on the train that would cost £40 and above and ending up with a list including two matches in the Greater Manchester region in the form of Daisy Hill and Abbey Hey, with Daisy Hill being the preferred option.

This remained the plan until the FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round gave Nantwich Town a home tie: I'd wanted to visit Nantwich for ages, and that seemed like an ideal opportunity to do so. However, seeing that Crewe were also at home yesterday and not wanting to deal with how busy it would be on the way to Nantwich because of that, I scrapped that plan and instead looked at other matches on offer in the FA Cup. This gave me a few options in London, including Hanwell Town (my current team in the family FA Cup competition).

However, after reading about fellow groundhopper Russell experiencing considerable difficulties with TfL last weekend when he visited Buckhurst Hill, I became hesitant to head into London. As such, I started to draw up a new shortlist of options, initially including this, Potters Bar Town, Sherwood Colliery, Shirebrook Town and Stansted, the plan being to decide on Thursday (when I get the weekly London travel update email) whether I'd head into London.

By Wednesday, though, I decided to scrap the London plan as I could not be bothered to deal with those potential problems or the large crowds that would be involved. As such, I started to check my existing shortlist to see how the train prices looked. This revealed that both Potters Bar and Shirebrook would be more expensive than I'd anticipated, so I had to have another rethink. At this point, I was starting to think I wanted to try becoming more confident with buses this season, so I looked for options that were in the £15-20 range on the train but would require a bus from the station to the ground.

Having done all that, I ended up with four options for this groundhop: this, Ipswich Wanderers, Sherwood Colliery and Stansted. However, I was having a very hard time deciding which to go to and decided to use a poll to decide for the first time in ages. This went up on Wednesday afternoon and finished the following day, with this narrowly beating out Ipswich Wanderers in the end.

With that decided, I double-checked the route and went to see which Football League sides in the area would be at home (so as to gauge how busy the train would likely be). Thankfully, unlike last weekend, Leicester were away from home so I wasn't too concerned about the train being busy. On top of that, Birmingham were also away and so were Coventry, so I was hoping the train would be much quieter than last week (as I would be getting the same train as last week, just changing at Leicester instead of Nuneaton).

With the weather having been good every day after Tuesday, I wasn't worried about the match being postponed and so started on my research on Friday, spending a considerable amount of time trying to figure out what that skeleton-looking thing on the club's badge actually was (I eventually discovered that it is supposed to be a Plesiosaur skeleton found in the area and nicknamed "The Barrow Kipper").

When I did all my final checks yesterday morning and went to buy my train tickets, I did notice something that concerned me, something that had the potential to send the entire day awry if things went wrong: the train back to Leicester from Barrow-upon-Soar station would leave at 5:03pm, and the station was close to a fifteen-minute walk from the ground. If I missed this train, as would be entirely possible if there was a lot of added time, I wouldn't get back into Peterborough until after 8pm due to how the timings worked out. I still ordered my train tickets (for £20.25) despite this, but I was worried about it for sure.

Like last week, I got on the 11:54am train from Peterborough to Birmingham New Street, but this time it was much less busy and I was easily able to get a seat, even with a few Leicester Tigers fans getting on the train (I'd obviously failed to account for the rugby team being at home in my research). As such, I was able to comfortably read my Kindle and eat the lunch I'd packed before the train rolled into Leicester an hour or so later.

At this point, I had near-enough an hour to wait at the station due to the infrequency of my connection to Barrow-upon-Soar. So, once I made my way to the platform I needed to go to, I went to the Costa on the platform and ordered a Strawberries & Cream Frostino and a Salted Caramel Brownie, taking these into the waiting room while I waited. I continued to alternate between reading on my Kindle and flicking through social media as I waited, before taking a quick trip to the toilet before my connection arrived.

From Leicester, it took fifteen minutes for the train to arrive at Barrow-upon-Soar's small station, and from there it was a fifteen or so minute walk to the ground, including along a rather precarious section of path along Barrow Road. Upon arrival at the ground, I paid £5 for admission and received a free programme as I passed through the turnstile. I then set about doing my circuit of photos before standing on the near side waiting for kick-off.

With ten minutes to go, I went to the tea bar to order some hot food; I'd wanted a bacon and sausage cob, but they were only doing burgers so I settled for a cheeseburger instead (one of the better ones I've had so far this season). I received it shortly before kick-off and headed for a space on the far side to stand for the first twenty-five minutes, before moving to stand behind the near goal for the rest of the first half. This move was fortunate, as I got talking to a club volunteer trying to figure out who scored Barrow Town's second goal. In doing so, I mentioned I hadn't seen any team sheets and he was able to get me a couple for the second half, which I spent standing on the near side in preparation to make a quick exit to catch my train.

I'll admit that Hinckley having scored 18 in the FA Vase last weekend was a big reason why this match ended up on my shortlist to begin with, and even though I wasn't expecting to see anything close to that I was hoping to see plenty of goals despite the two teams being fairly close together in upper mid-table (I thought Hinckley might be in a slightly false position based on their goal difference).

Hinckley dominated the early proceedings of this match and took the lead in the 4th minute through Tom Weale's volleyed finish. Weale almost had a second in the 12th minute when a long ball over the top forced Barrow Town keeper Toby Randall to head clear before Ryan Slinn could reach the ball. In doing so, he headed the ball straight to Weale but was able to get back to make the save when Weale eventually got a shot away. However, Weale did eventually get his and Hinckley's second in the 23rd minute when he latched onto a through ball and rounded Randall for an easy finish.

This seemed to wake Barrow Town up as they started to up their intensity and get some attacks going. In fact, it took them just seven minutes to pull a goal back as Jordan Holmes smashed a powerful shot beyond Hinckley keeper Matthew Hill after picking up a loose ball on the left wing. Hinckley came close to restoring their two-goal cushion from the kick-off, Jack Edwards shooting narrowly wide from the edge of the box. In the 39th minute, Tom Mangan equalised for the home side after tapping in a Jordan Holmes cross at the far post. Barrow Town then scored a third on the stroke of half-time when Daniel Chapman rose highest to head home from a corner.

Barrow Town started the second half on the front foot, Dean Hopewell coming close in the 52nd minute with a shot that went narrowly over the crossbar. However, chances for both sides soon became few and far between as the match devolved into a more scrappy affair with lots of aerial balls and disruptions to play due to injuries and fouls.

It took until the last fifteen minutes for things to start to open up again as Hinckley were forced to push harder for an equaliser. This gave Barrow Town space and time on the attack again and momentum started to shift back in their favour. In the 76th minute, Mangan should have scored his second after Nick Reeves found him unmarked in the centre of the box, but he smashed his shot into the crossbar to miss an open goal. Deep into added time, Barrow Town were made to rue that miss as Weale completed his hat-trick to earn his side a point (unfortunately, I had just left the ground as this happened to head back to the train station, so I'm not sure how he scored).

Though the second half didn't live up to the first (though, this is perhaps always to be expected when two teams are so open at the back for 45 minutes), this was still probably the most entertaining match I've been to as a neutral this season, with plenty of goals and constant shifts in momentum as the teams battled for the points. A draw was probably a fair result overall, but Barrow Town will no doubt be disappointed to have dropped two points so late (much like how I'm disappointed I missed that late equaliser).

Towards the end of the second half, I began to realise that I would probably have to run for the train, as stoppage time seemed to go on and on beyond 4:50pm. I probably should have left earlier, but I didn't leave the ground until 4:55pm, with Hinckley scoring their equaliser almost immediately after I left the ground. On the way back to the station, I alternated between brief bouts of running and walking as I desperately tried to get back in time. Fortunately, I just made it to the station as the train was arriving, albeit only because it was delayed by a minute or two. This was the first time I'd had to run like this since my visit to Baffins Milton Rovers in March 2019, and I felt just as awful at the end of it this time as I did back then.

Fifteen minutes later, I was back in Leicester again and again had close to an hour to wait, so after getting to the platform I needed to be on I opted to get a hot chocolate from Pumpkin Coffee to rehydrate myself (as I'd finished the drink I had packed at the match); I wasn't too happy to add that additional unplanned expense to the earlier Costa I had (that meant £10 of unplanned expenses overall), but I did need it.

In any event, there were no real issues to speak of after this and I eventually got back into Peterborough at 7:10pm (still slightly late, but not as late as last week) and back into the house fifteen minutes later. I fitted in a shower before dinner and then worked on my photos and match report before relaxing for the rest of the evening.

No football for me next Saturday, as I'm instead meeting up with some friends from University in Cambridge. So, my next groundhop is set to be on the 2nd of October, when I'll hopefully be heading up on the train to Durham and then getting a bus to visit the iconic ground of Crook Town. There's still a little bit of research I need to do to confirm the feasibility of that plan (in terms of timings, back-ups etc.), but that's probably what I'm going to do. Beyond that, my October groundhopping plans are currently very flexible depending on if I go through with the Durham plan or not and what happens to Yaxley in the FA Trophy.

The Ground

Riverside Park is a fairly typical Step 6 ground, with three small areas of cover on one side. The only seated cover at the ground is in the form of a small 50-seater Arena stand and next to this is a similarly-sized Arena terrace. Next to these is an unusual covered structure which looks like it may have once been a dugout. A couple of tables were positioned inside this, but without these there would be standing space for 20 or so people.

The rest of the ground is open hard standing, though there is some uncovered seating in the form of a few benches in front of the clubhouse. The ground is positioned close to the A6 and the noise from passing cars can be heard throughout the match.

Photos