PHIL Brown has challenged Barrow’s confidence-zapped players to show their character and keep the club in the Football League.

The battling Bluebirds suffered a painful last-gasp defeat to promotion-chasing Port Vale at Holker Street on Saturday.

Josh Kay put the hosts ahead in the first half and Barrow caused Vale plenty of problems. But Jamie Proctor levelled with his tenth goal of the season on the hour mark, before Aaron Martin popped up with an excruciating last-minute winner.

Barrow saw a precious point slip through their fingers right at the very end as they remained three points clear of danger.

“You can see it, you can tell they’re driving for promotion and we’re playing with fear; the fear of relegation and we’re looking over our shoulder and what’s coming behind,” admitted Brown.

“We’ve got to try and stop that, but it’s the situation that we’re in. The players that we’ve got need character, we need character.

“We need characters that are going to play in a certain manner. If we can ask Port Vale questions then we can ask Crawley questions and that can be a stepping stone to make the next home game easier.

“Desire and endeavour and heart and hard work: that’s going to get us out of the trouble that we’re in. That’s the only thing that’s going to get us out of trouble.

“And then the little bits of quality will come because the players start believing and the confidence grows. It’s not rocket science, it’s just imagination.

“The players are playing under pressure and I’m trying to take that pressure off them.”

Brown was pleased with his side’s performance and thought they desperately deserved something out of the encounter.

And the former Premier League boss felt especially aggrieved at not being given a penalty when huge handball shouts against Mal Benning were waved away as Vale went down the other end and scored for the resultant corner.

Angry Brown fumed: “Second half was a massive decision by the referee not to give a penalty.

“He gave us a corner and they score from the result of the corner. And you can always say ‘another manager moaning about fine lines’ and that’s exactly what I’m moaning about.

“It’s a fine line and the referee pandering to the ‘big boys’. And what I mean by the ‘big boys’ are the ones at the top, the ones that are probably tickling with comments and niceties about how well he’s playing.

“And our boys don’t do that; our boys are fighting for it and our boys are scrapping for everything. We can’t really get a point because of it.

“It seems to be synonymous with what has happened at the club for the past few months where we can’t get a win at home.

“We asked for a push from the crowd and they gave it to us. I think it spilled onto the pitch and the players responded to the crowd.

“The first half of the performance was worthy of a 1-0 scoreline at half time—but you don’t win a game at half time after 45 minutes, you win after 90 minutes.

“We didn’t want anything to change. We knew that they were going to try something different: a change in formation, a change in personalities. They’ve got a good squad and they’re playing with confidence.”