THINGS have being going wonderfully on the pitch for Barrow AFC this season and they’ve been given a huge boost off it with the news that Holker Street has met Football League requirements.

That means the Bluebirds will be allowed into League Two next season should they achieve promotion from the National League and secure a return to a level that they haven’t graced since failing to win re-election in 1972.

With the team doing so well, the club have been subject to some rigorous testing from the EFL in recent months and they received news the day before the 2-1 win against Dagenham and Redbridge that the ground was up to their standards.

Plenty of work has been done at the stadium since last summer and work is currently ongoing on a new fanzone at the Steelworks End.

Mean while a canopy roof is set to be put over the Holker Street End during the summer.

Chairman Paul Hornby said: “It was a strange one, really, because we didn’t think the process would cause us much problems.

“We went through it last year, exactly the same process, because we had a chance this time last year of getting into the play-offs.

"But this year it has been a lot more rigorous because of the position that we’re in.

“They’ve gone through it in a lot more detail and we had to produce a lot more information than we had to previously, so for a period there was a lot of hard work.

“Because of the position that we’re in, we don’t want to mess it up off the field, so it was all hands to the deck to make sure we got everyone on board.”

New crush barriers have been installed at the Holker Street End after being designed by co-owner Kristian Wilkes, whilst there are other areas of criteria that the Bluebirds need to meet over a certain amount of time to be EFL compliant.

The new barriers will ensure ground capacity will be above 5,000 but if they do go up, the hard work will have only just begun.

Hornby said: “You have three years to do some work, two years for others and one year for other areas, like in a year’s time we’ll have to have bigger changing rooms and better facilities for match officials.

“That’s going to mean our existing changing rooms would have to be moved, probably to under the Main Stand.

"But it’s not good enough to say that, you’ve got to show the planning, the design drawings and the costings to show how that’s all going to be achieved.

“The other thing we were talking about was the canopy roof at the Holker End because you’ve got to have a certain amount of covered support, so that was essential.

“The final big area was that in three years’ time, you’ve got to have another 1,000 seats, so that will involve some form of extension to the Main Stand.”