AFC Barrow: the non-professional football club that plays like FC Barcelona

English non-league football teams are mostly known for their simplistic, route one tactics, physical playstyle, inconsistency as well as relying on a disorganised approach and hoping for the best. The club we are going to write about in today’s article, AFC Barrow, used to be part of this lot given the fact their budget was (and continues to be) significantly lower than what other teams have in the same division. One of the lowest points in the club’s history was back in 2017/18 season when Barrow would finish just 1 point above the relegation zone with only 4 players staying in the team by the end of the campaign. The arrival of Ian Evatt, who had a previous experience as a caretaker manager of Chesterfield for a limited number of 3 matches, wasn’t something that made the fans of Barrow, who were becoming less and less as the years were going by, hopeful for the seasons to come.

Who is Ian Evatt?

Born in Coventry, England, Evatt played in the centre back position in his professional career as a footballer. Derby County gave him a chance in the main squad where he learned a lot. Later on, he went on to play for the likes of Chesterfield, Blackpool and Queens Park Rangers. Retiring from football at the age of 35 enabled an opportunity for the Englishman to start a managerial career. When talking about inspirational figures in his development as a footballer and manager, Ian explains:

“Ian Holloway was a huge part [of my career] not just because of the attacking brand that we played at Blackpool but really about tapping into players’ mentality and changing their mindsets of being ‘don’t settle mediocrity, you always have to aspire to be better, you need to have that self-belief’ and that’s a huge part of football that I underestimated in my early years. It’s kind of changed my own mindset as a person…”

When Evatt was appointed Barrow’s head coach, as already mentioned, he inherited an atrocious team with a long-lost connection with its fans and only 4 players left. Nevertheless, being ‘a modern-day coach with old-school values’ as Ian describes himself was what truly helped him rise AFC Barrow from the ashes.

The rebuilding process

In spite of being a non-league team, Evatt wanted AFC Barrow to play a certain style of football. It wasn’t going to be that easy, however, as he and his assistant manager, Peter Atherton, soon realised. Evatt recalls his first steps into managing a football club:

“In the first training session, we couldn’t string 3, 4 or 5 passes together, it was frantic. But then, 6 weeks later, we scored a goal in the National League with 24 consecutive passes ending with a fantastic finish.”

It wasn’t an easy task to change the mindsets of such players, but this was Evatt’s main goal. What made Ian so successful as a manager was the fact, he was a firm believer in his tactical approach and wanted his players to believe in their abilities as well. As Holloway tried to change his mindset back in the days at Blackpool to never ‘settle with mediocrity’, he did the very same with his players. Nevertheless, he admits it was complicated to do so, especially when his team doesn’t find itself on the winning side:

“It’s hard to build that belief in the players, and sometimes, the most difficult thing is keeping that belief when results aren’t going your way. It’s a lot easier to start with that philosophy at the start of the season, pre-season but it’s when it comes down to not getting results when managers seem to revert to type pretty quickly. Whereas you have to have that unwavering belief in yourself and your team that you can get results playing that way. I say to my players all the time that fear is not a stop sign […] When you start to believe in yourself that much regardless of the results... it’s the process of what we are trying to do. That’s when you’ll get the end outcome and winning games […] Winning is a habit long before you actually start winning games.”

When he was in the start of his attempts to play attractive football, he got a lot of stick for that and people told him that he wouldn’t get out of the National League playing like that. That didn’t discourage him whatsoever but, in fact, made him even more committed to prove the doubters wrong. Ian Evatt had the laborious task to bring new and fresh faces who were somewhat capable of doing what he wants. Then, it was his duty to educate and train them his way. Once Evatt prepared his players mentally and tactically, it was time to show his approach to the world.

Tactical approach 

In order to explain his style of football as simple as possible, he named his main principles as ‘non-negotiable’s’ first of which- when the ball is on one side of the pitch, the winger on the opposite one had to stay very high and wide even when the team’s not in possession. This could easily set up a counter-attack scenario which is of Barrow’s liking because of their pacey forwards. Another non-negotiable is running on the pitch during half time breaks- this shows his team is ready for a fight regardless of winning or losing. By doing that, Evatt also sends out a message to the opposition that, no matter the players’ condition, each individual will resist a full 90-minute game giving 100% of themselves.

Something which is an absolute must for Ian’s tactics to work is playing the ball out from the back. When his team has a goal kick, the keeper has to play it short to the centre backs or full backs from whom is required to dictate the movement of the ball by recycling possession, moving into free spaces, or even being brave enough to dribble with the ball in feet. If the opposition is pressing high up the pitch, AFC Barrow’s defenders will try to create overloads with the help of the goalkeeper which would inevitably lead to overcoming the press therefore finding unoccupied zones. However, most of the teams in the league tend to play a highly structured football with low-defensive block which, on the other hand, enables Evatt’s side to build their attacks gradually and patiently by rotating players, changing the ball's movement, and again, creating overloads. This patience inevitably leads to an opposing defender overcommitting and then free spaces occur which should be exploited in the best way possible. One more philosophy that is essential to Ian Evatt is the popular 6-second rule created by Pep Guardiola- within the first 6 seconds after losing possession, Ian would like the nearest to the ball players to apply an intense pressure to the person in possession as he is likely to make a mistake due to lack of time and composure to make the right decision. The players not engaged in the press have to man-mark possible receivers of the ball. This obliges the person with the ball to either dribble past the pressuring him footballers or to make a long pass which is likely to be inaccurate. With this non-negotiable, Evatt wants to teach his players that they shouldn’t be disappointed or infuriated when losing possession- their initial reaction should be to hunt and press the opposition the moment the ball isn’t under their control. If the players fail to regain possession, the team should be structured back to normal as soon as possible, otherwise it might be caught off-guard. When a pass from the opposition is misplaced or someone has done a heavy first touch, the 6-second rule will, again, come in handy.

A lot of people have likened the way AFC Barrow plays with the treble-winners, FC Barcelona, under the guidance of Pep Guardiola, so it only came naturally when the English club have been nicknamed as ‘Barrowcelona’.

Results

During Ian’s first campaign, AFC Barrow had its ups and downs which perfectly fits in with their final position on the league table- 10^th. Everyone at the club was satisfied with the outcome except, of course, Evatt himself:

“That first season, the club was ecstatic with a tenth-place finish, I wasn’t. It comes down to that mediocrity again, I can’t stand for mediocre, it just eats away at me and I knew it was a missed opportunity because we got better as the season went on.”

Even though websites do not provide statistics for non-league clubs, the data analyst of AFC Barrow, Lewis Duckmanton, introduced some interesting figures to the public: average possession of 59%, 507 passes being averaged per game as well as having the best ball recovery time in the league are facts that shouldn’t go unnoticed.

The second season of Evatt’s reign was just what he expected: before the COVID-19 pandemic, AFC Barrow was comfortably sitting on top of the league with 70 points. They have scored an astonishing amount of 68 goals whilst conceding only 39 in their 37 league games. When Evatt started winning games with the attractive football he wanted to play, most of his colleagues from other teams expressed their pleasure playing against him but outlined they can’t implement such a style of football due to lack of suitable players. To these comments, Evatt usually replies:

“Hang on a moment, your budget is probably twice mine. You could recruit to any budget and if you want to play football- recruit footballers. They might not have the physical capabilities, but you can still recruit anybody.”


AFC Barrow has to cope with being one of the 92 clubs which participate in the professional English leagues without Ian Evatt as he and his recruitment team went on to join Bolton Wanderers FC on 24^th June this year. It will be intriguing to see if the Englishman will transfer his attractive football philosophies to a renowned team in a period of crisis like Bolton as well as whether the new manager of Barrow, David Dunn, will continue the legacy of Ian’s which secured the small club a place in the English professional football system for the first time in 48 years.