FC HALIFAX TOWN 0 BARROW AFC 1 (White 69)
The Scottish striker was Barrow’s hero at Halifax, as they made it three National League away wins in quick succession.
He spent much of the afternoon sat on the bench, but with the game locked at 0-0 past the hour-mark, White was called into action.
The 6ft 4ins striker stepped out onto the field at the Shay to replace Adi Yussuf, and 20 seconds later was celebrating scoring the only goal of the game.
No-one at the ground could ever remember a player making an impact so quickly. Manager Ady Pennock can rarely have made such a decisive intervention in a game.
It was a goal which earned three points in a game where the home side had twice hit the woodwork, but where the Bluebirds will feel their effort warranted the result.
Pennock gave a debut to new loan recruit Calum Macdonald in defence, with Moussa Diarra and Asa Hall both back – Jack Barthram and Tony Diagne dropping to the bench and Chris Clements out of the squad entirely.
The first 20 minutes bore all the hallmarks of the reverse clash at Holker Street in August – though anyone who remembers that game well enough to make the comparison is either a football reporter or punishing themselves which such memories.
Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Had Henry Blofeld been in attendance he would have despaired even at the absence of any and all bird life on the skeletal trees shivering in their scant winter dress above the ground.
When Danny Clarke volleyed with no direction and no power well wide of goal, it was still the most exciting thing to have happened all afternoon.
Adi Yussuf – shorn of his locks and possibly wondering now if they had a Samson-esque effect on his game – did break into the home area, but his ball across the box was blocked, and no-one outside the tight enclave of away fans showed even the slightest inclinations of appealing when Harry Panayiotou tumbled to the ground a minute afterwards.
Tom Denton’s glancing header at the other end was far from causing a threat, though Scott Garner’s opportunistic 40-yard effort on the back of a poor AFC clearance did at least raise a murmur.
Jimmy Dunne met a Bradley Bauress free-kick and swivelled a shot into the side netting. Things did not get much better.
It appeared a game drifting directionless through 90 minutes, a leaf caught in the current, aimless, meandering without purpose or substance.
Then, albeit for a short time, it burst into life.
First the ball was half-cleared from the Barrow area to Josh Wilde, who rasped in a shot across the face of goal that had Stuart Moore stretching helplessly as it thudded against the foot of the post.
The ball bounced out to the middle of the box, where George Waring was waiting with the goal at his mercy. Lift the ball just a couple of feet from the ground and it was in, as Moore lay prostrate, but he could not and the Barrow stopper blocked from almost point-blank range.
Hitting the woodwork just once was not enough, and another gilt-edged chance came and went for the hosts as former Bluebird Ben Tomlinson collected a Josh MacDonald cross headed down by Tom Denton. He twisted and turned in the box and made space to have his pick of the entire goal. Instead, he rattled the bar.
It was back to normal after those few minutes of manic activity, with Bedsente Gomis shooting tamely at Tom Nicholson, and the midfielder then playing Yussuf through, with the striker wide of the near post with his effort.
Yussuf had an effort blocked behind for a corner early in the second period, but for another 20 minutes there was monotony, dull, mind-numbing nothingness.
Halifax were the side who eventually came to life, with MacDonald capturing the ball after a Diarra slip close to the AFC area, but wasting the chance with a wayward long-range effort.
Clarke had a shot blocked from a MacDonald cross, and Moore had to be alert to run to the edge of the area and take the ball from the feet of MacDonald as he was almost in on goal.
Barrow offered little in the way of definitive chances, hence the decision to replace Yussuf with White – after the fourth official eventually got round to holding up the board for the substitution.
Barrow had a free-kick and White ran to the near post.
He barely had time to compose himself before Bauress played in a cross and he leapt high to direct it in at the far bottom corner.
Only 20 seconds had elapsed since he stepped onto the turf – talk about an impact sub.
Barrow now were on the front foot.
Panayiotou ran into the area after a ball through on the right and shot wide, when a little more composure would have at least tested Nicholson; Gomis had a superb opening as a low cross found him in space 12 yards out on the back post, where he turned and steered an effort inches wide, with the keeper stranded and watching on helplessly.
At the other end, Denton headed over from a corner, Wilde shot softly at Moore, but there was nothing to worry about as panic seemed to set in for the Shaymen.
Asa Hall shot just wide from the edge of the area as the clock ticked over to 90 minutes, but there were still five to go.
Barrow saw them out with little fuss if some tension, their only major moment of concern coming when Moore fumbled a shot from Harry Middleton, but Dunne was there to clear up and alleviate the danger.
The whistle went soon after, the home fans called for manager Billy Heath’s head, the away fans celebrated with their players another good day on the road.
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