THE old speedway track beneath the Holker Street pitch is continuing to cause problems for Barrow AFC – more than 40 years after it was a factor in them being thrown out of the Football League.

The circuit, which ran around the outside of the pitch – coming over the areas in front of the corner flags – was used by the Barrow Bombers team between 1972 and 1974.

As well playing a part in the club not being re-elected by the Football League at the end of the 1971/72 season – when Hereford United took their place on the back of their famous FA Cup defeat of Newcastle United – the circuit is now causing issues with the playing surface.

Combined with the early-season work to install new floodlights at the ground, which compacted the ground in front of the Popular Side, the track is preventing water properly draining.

A day before AFC's FA Trophy defeat to Brackley Town, parts of the pitch were under water after heavy rain, and work has gone on since then to try to rectify the issue.

Groundsman Gareth Morgan and managing director Andrew Casson have been looking at solutions, and Casson is confident there will be no issues for tomorrow's match against Sutton United, though the forecast is for rain overnight and into the morning.

“The pitch looks fantastic, we were looking at it this morning,” said Casson.

“We had some work done on it after the Brackley game, to improve the drainage and get a bit more sand onto it. It has handled the rain this week perfectly well.

“Barring a torrential downpour on Saturday morning, there shouldn't be any problems.”

He added: “The two big problems are that, with all of the work that was done on the sides with the floodlights, and all the heavy machinery driving back and forth, with the areas, especially along the Popular Side wall, there is no drainage because the ground is so compact. All the water, because there is a little bit of a slope, flows into that area.

“Gareth and I are trying to figure out what the best strategy is, because – this is the other problem – on that side, there are only five or six inches of dirt before you get to the old speedway track and the base of what used to be the bottom steps of the terracing. You can only get the pitch-fork halfway in, because you are hitting rubble at that point.

“There is not really much you can do in there, so we are looking at irrigation and different things, and we are starting the process of building the budget for the summer in terms of what kind of improvements we want to make.”