BARROW CC’s future in the Northern League is in doubt due to proposed changes to the structure of amateur cricket in Lancashire.

It looks like this season could mark the end of the Ernest Pass club’s 12-year tenure in the league – with a possible return to the North Lancs and Cumbria set-up a real possibility.

Talks have been taking place for several months involving the Lancashire and Cumbria Cricket Boards, plus the Lancashire League, Northern Premier League, Ribblesdale League and Palace Shield.

The plan which has been under discussion is that the Lancashire League and Northern League join forces, with a structure below made up of the Ribblesdale League and Palace Shield.

But the Lancashire League’s proposal has caused a lot of disagreement, largely due the fact there would be no place in the new structure for the Northern League’s four Cumbrian clubs – Barrow, Penrith, Netherfield and Kendal.

No satisfactory solution has been reached as yet, but it does appear the 2016 campaign will be Barrow’s last in the Northern League.

“We will get 2016 season out of the way, but what happens after that I really don’t know,” said Daryl Wearing, Barrow’s former captain and the club’s representative at the meetings.

“At the end of September we sat down as a league because the way things had gone with the league, things had gone a bit stale.

“We decided we wanted to improve things and a better structure, so all the clubs got together and came up with a new format which is basically going down the same sort of avenue as the North Lancs League.

“It involves stuff like limiting bowlers to 17 overs each, and introducing fielding restrictions where you have got to have four in the circle at any one time.

“We created a new points structure and the biggest change was allowing clubs to field more than one overseas player. The thought process was each club could sign two overseas players. If you wanted to find two amateurs one had to be a marquee player.

“All that was voted in and everything was going to plan.

“The Lancashire League then came forward with a new format whereby they wanted to recruit a number of clubs under their banner. The LCB got involved and had discussions with ourselves, the Lancashire League and the Ribblesdale League.

“The whole idea from our perspective was that the Lancashire League and Northern League would join forces and create a Premier Division and Division One and then the Ribblesdale League would come in as a kind of a feeder structure so it created a kind of promotion/relegation, which is something the ECB are really wanting to push.

“Everybody thought they were singing off the same hymn sheet, but the Lancashire League were after something completely different.

“There were certain clubs they wanted to play against and others they didn’t – namely the Cumbrian clubs – because they didn’t want to travel this far north.”

He added: “The top and bottom of it is the talks are still on-going and nothing has been decided.

“On the flip side, it could work out as a good thing for the North Lancs and Cumbria League as they could recruit a few more clubs.”