A MAJOR new obstacle has been thrown in Barrow AFC’s path back to the Football League – Holker Street itself.

While the team are battling to reach the National League play-offs on the field, off it, officials face a new fight to prove the Bluebirds’ ground is fit for promotion.

The Football League have this week given AFC a deadline of April 6 – just three weeks – to provide detailed plans, signed off by Barrow Borough Council, of how they will increase the stadium’s capacity from 4,400 to above 5,000.

AFC owner Paul Casson and chief executive Austin Straker are rallying round local engineering and design firms to prepare plans and carry out a structural survey for putting in new crush barriers at the Holker Street End.

“We need to make this thing happen and quickly,” said Casson.

“We have a capacity of 4,400 and it needs to be more than 5,000. There are a whole sequence of steps that need to take place – we have to go in with a design to show where we will increase the capacity, then we have to go to the council for them to re-certify the ground if this work was carried out.

“We’ve got to get this done in the next three weeks to keep the dream alive until the end of the season as we keep playing.”

The proposed work on the Holker Street End should take the capacity well beyond 5,000 and ensure possible promotion is not scuppered by the state of the 108-year-old ground.

The club have been caught off-guard by the demands, as plans deemed acceptable when submitted to the Football League in previous seasons in case of promotion, have now been questioned.

The league have tightened their entry requirements. Rather than general submissions of how the capacity will be increased, they now need stamped engineering plans and confirmation from the borough council of how this would affect Holker Street’s capacity.

Despite the short-notice of the April 6 deadline – a letter was received on Wednesday notifying them they would not be considered for the play-offs should they not have the required plans submitted by that point – Straker is confident everything will be filed in time and the play-off push will not be affected.

“For several years, we have known that the capacity for this ground is below the 5,000 that’s needed,” he said. “For many years, the club have said ‘if we are successful, these are the alterations we would make’. In the past, that has always been satisfactory and they have accepted that.

“What’s happened this year is that they have tightened up on the proof and verification sections. We’ve sent through the alterations we would carry out on the understanding we have always been told it would raise the capacity over 5,000.

“But they have come back at the last minute – and they have been very supportive – saying they need us to prove we have designs we are willing to carry out and that those designs would increase the capacity to where we say it will.

“It has come as a bit of a surprise that we have had to go into this much depth, because we had received verification from an expert in the field who used to work for the council. But they have decided they cannot accept his verification, because he no longer works for the council.”

Plans for the development of the Holker Street End under the previous board have been used in plans submitted in past years. However, the paperwork confirming the council-assessed capacity implications cannot be found by either party.

That means a new engineering survey must be carried out and approved. The work itself would only have to take place should Barrow be promoted, though Straker said it could happen anyway, even if AFC remain in the National League.

The club chief executive and other AFC officials are already working with Barrow Borough Council – who will have to sign off the plans and confirm their affect on capacity for the Football League to accept them – and local engineering firms who can carry out the work.

They are also open to other firms providing them with plans or structural surveys should they wish to carry out the proposed work.

“We’ve been working with the Football League and the National League to keep them informed,” Straker added.

“We need to quickly get the information to them, so that should we be fortunate enough to reach the play-offs, we will be able to take part in them. Without the verification, you can’t take that step. They will do everything they can to support us, but we need to get that verification to them.

“We’ve got several meetings this week, and we’re looking at what groundwork needs to be carried out, who would come in and check and verify our calculations. We want it done ASAP.

“The Football League and National League wouldn’t want to stop us competing, so it is up to us to get the figures together – which we thought we had done, but we have to go that step further.”

Barrow – who sit just outside the play-off places in eighth going into tomorrow’s match against Dagenham and Redbridge – are the only club among the promotion-chasers faced with such a challenge.

Others, such as Lincoln City, Dagenham and Tranmere, have been Football League clubs recently and already meet the criteria, and the likes of Gateshead have stadia with capacities well above the 5,000 mark.

Straker added: “There are very few stadia in the country who need to go through this. We’re unique in the sense we’re from Cumbria, we’re in the National League and we have to meet Football League criteria before we move on.

“Teams like Tranmere already have the capacity above 5,000 and they don’t have to jump through these hoops.

“They are closing the door a little bit tighter, because other clubs may have gone up and not carried out work they said they would.”