VANARAMA NATIONAL LEAGUE

BARROW AFC 2 (Williams 20, Diarra 67) DOVER ATHLETIC 3 (Miller 22, 47pen, 90)

IT may have ended in defeat to Dover, but Barrow AFC can look back on this season as a great step forward and with big hope for the future.

National League top-scorer Ricky Miller – a man destined for the Football League after netting 40 times this season – was the difference between two sides who just missed out on the play-offs on this final day of the campaign.

He will not be with Dover next season, but Paul Cox and his promotion-chasing squad will, in the majority, still be at Holker Street, and they will hope that in 12 months time they have built on this campaign and taken a further leap forward.

This season has seen AFC claim their highest-ever non-league finish and their best Conference points haul. They went 26 games unbeaten at one time, defeated the champions twice and only missed out on the play-offs by a handful of points – a loss into a draw here, a draw into victory there.

Anyone calling this season a failure after expectations were built up by the pre-Christmas run is churlish at best, delusional at worst. The Bluebirds now stand in a better position than ever to end their 45-year Football League absence, with Cox and owner Paul Casson both aware of where they went wrong this season and what they need to do to put it right next time round.

In Moussa Diarra, Richie Bennett, Nick Anderton and Jordan Williams. Barrow have four young players who have bloomed in their first full seasons at this level, while in Byron Harrison, Shaun Beeley and Danny Livesey, they have three old heads capable of holding a team together.

To AFC’s benefit, they have most of those players already on deals for next season. There will be no great exodus of the core talent, those who go will more than likely be from the fringes. It is all positive.

The season ended with one of the more entertaining fixtures to grace Holker Street this term – five goals, a hat-trick from the league’s best striker and a new father celebrating with a goal of his own. There was not much to the first 19 minutes – though the home side had most of the possession – but the game came to life in the 20th.

A quick break from the Barrow area did not look promising as Williams miscontrolled a clearance header in the centre-circle with his first touch, but he regathered himself and set off down the left flank.

Williams beat two men and cut back inside, ignoring the storming run of Beeley in support on the right, and going himself, into the area, drawing Mitch Walker from his line and finding the far bottom corner.

One superb goal was quickly followed by another as Dover immediately responded.

A ball over the defence to the left of the area found Miller, who controlled with one touch, looked up and volleyed over Jon Flatt into the far corner with the second.

AFC went close to a second three times in quick succession thereafter.

The first fell to Williams after a long Anderton throw-in cleared the men at the near post and fell to him, unmarked, a yard out. But Williams was caught unawares and could only poke the ball at the prostrate figure of Walker, lying in his path on the line.

Bennett then rattled the bar with a rasping shot from nothing from 20 yards, with Williams meeting the rebound with a diving header that struck the same woodwork, still rattling from the initial impact.

Miller went close to a second for the visitors as he created space for himself to the right of the area near the by-line and fired in a shot which Flatt did well to tip over the bar.

Into the second half and the visitors went ahead as Miller was brought down by Livesey near the by-line in the area and beat the dive of Flatt with the spot-kick that resulted.

Barrow could not find a way to equalise and created little for 20 minutes until a free-kick from Williams found the head of Bennett two yards out at the back post. He made good contact and the ball ruffled the net – only it had gone past the outside of the post and rebounded off the advertising boards to do so.

Yet the home side were level two minutes later. A Williams corner cleared Diarra’s towering head in the area, but came to Beeley wide on the right.

He whipped it in again to the far post, and new dad Diarra was there to head home – celebrating by rocking the metaphorical baby in his arms.

Dover hit the post – more by luck than judgement – as a spinning Sam Magri effort bounced like a googly on the Holker Street pitch, and both sides kept pushing for a winner into the final stages.

It came two minutes into stoppage time as Livesey was caught one-on-one with Miller as a high ball came in.

This was a rare occurrence where the Barrow captained was slightly off his game and his header looped up and to the edge of the area, leaving Flatt stranded and Miller home free.

The Dover man took it in his stride and fired back across goal to settle matters.

So, it ended in defeat, but the last time Dover beat Barrow, the Bluebirds went on a 26-match unbeaten run thereafter. Same again, anyone?

Barrow AFC: Jon Flatt, Shaun Beeley, Nick Anderton, Danny Livesey, Moussa Diarra, Matty Platt, Alex-Ray Harvey, Paul Turnbull, Akil Wright (Ross Hannah 87), Richie Bennett, Jordan Williams.

Substitutes Not Used: Elliot Newby, Lindon Meikle, Jack Thomas, Inih Effiong.

Yellow Cards: Williams (84).

Dover Athletic: Mitch Walker, Sam Magri, Aswad Thomas, Connor Essam, Richard Orlu, Ricky Miller, Jamie Grimes, Bondz N’Gala, Ross Lafayette, Joe Healy, James Hurst.

Substitutes Not Used: Chris Kinnear, Jim Stevenson, Mitch Pinnock, Peter Skapetis, Moses Emmanuel.

Yellow Cards: Lafayette (59), Orlu (65), Miller (90).

Referee: Peter Wright.