T'Other Side: Barrow Raiders

  

Head Coach: Paul Crarey

 

Paul Crarey has been Barrow’s head coach ever since 2015. In the Championship only Mark Aston at Sheffield has been head coach at a club for longer. He was also Barrow’s head coach from 2006 to 2007.

He had a short spell as Whitehaven’s head coach at the beginning of the 2008 but left in March of that year as a result of illness.

In his playing days he was a hooker and made over 170 appearances for Barrow as well as playing for Carlisle.

In 1992 he was hooker in the Cumbria side who played Australia in a warm-up match for that year’s World Cup.

 

 

Captain: Jarrad Stack

 

Australian second rower, Jarrad Stack has been the Barrow captain since 2020. He arrived in the UK in 2009 to join Workington from Melbourne Storm at the age of 20. He then moved to Barrow in 2017.

He has played 303 games in the UK (171 for Workington and 132 for Barrow) and scored 107 tries (62 for Workington and 45 for Barrow).

Loan players and Dual Registration

Barrow have a dual registration agreement with amateur club Ulverston which has seen Tom Wilkinson (prop) playing for Barrow recently.

They currently have three Wigan players on loan: Zach Eckersley (centre), Harvey Makin (prop) and Kavan Rothwell (prop). Keanan Brand (centre) came on loan from Leigh in May but hasn't played since June 18th so we are not sure whether he is still at Barrow.

 

The Fev connection

 

For geographical reasons only 20 players have played for both Fev and Barrow.

One such is Tommy Smales. That’s the loose forward as opposed to the other Fev Tommy Smales who was a half-back. The pair of them are a bit of a nightmare for tracing stats as not only did they both play for Fev but they also both became Fev head coaches! The one who played for both clubs started his career with Wigan in 1958 and then played for Barrow from 1960 to 1965 before ‘coming home’ to join Rovers as his last club in 1965. He retired in 1969 and then coached Rovers during the 1974-75 season. Tommy is the father of Fev’s Ian Smales (1987-1993 and 1997). In 1984 he was the head coach of Dewsbury when they beat Leeds in the Championship play-off final.

Jamie Rooney started his career with Fev, at the age of 18, in 1998. He went on to play 121 games for Rovers and scored 66 tries, 479 goals and 38 drop goals for a points tally of 1,260. In 2001 he set a new Fev record for points in a season with a total of 429, the first ever Fev player to score over 400. His record was overtaken by Liam Finn in 2012 with 436. Jamie played for Barrow from 2009 to 2011.

Andy Ellis came to Fev on loan from Wakefield in 2012 and then became a Fev player from 2013 to 2016. He was at Barrow from 2007 to 2009. One day, we took our seat in the stand at Fev and was surprised when we discovered the great Johnny Whiteley sitting nearby. We had a great chat during which he revealed that he was at Fev to watch his grand-daughter’s husband – Andy Ellis! If you are too young to know about Johnny Whiteley, look him up on Wikipedia and you will see why we called him great!