BARROW Raiders head coach Paul Crarey says there have been more highs than lows during his time at the club.

Crarey recently passed 300 games at the Raiders helm and his love for both the club and the sport is stronger than ever.

In part-two of this special interview looking back over his time at the club, he said: “There have been some really special moments. Getting promoted with Barrow and winning the championship were real highlights.

“But honestly every week is a highlight, because there’s nothing I’d rather be doing. In fact, I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t do this.”

Having passed the milestone of 300 games is some achievement, and Crarey is only aware of one man who has bettered that tally at Barrow.

He added: “I think there’s only one bloke that’s done more and that’s Frank Foster.

“He did 345 games. He’s a bit of a legend Frank.”

Frank Foster is described as one of the ‘greatest ever rugby players to come out of west Cumbria’.

He played for hometown club Workington, Hull KR, Bradford, Barrow and Oldham, and represented Great Britain.

He returned to Barrow as a coach in 1973 and stayed for around 10 years.

Crarey is no one-man band and admits that he’s proud to be part of a great team at Raiders.

He said: “I spoke to Steve Neale (Raiders chairman) about coming in and helping out and he’s been here ever since, so he’ll be cursing me.

“But we’ve been here through thick and thin together.

“Now we’ve got a community team that are second to none in what they do.

“It’s about putting a bit back into the community and helping people.

“We have stuff like Able Raiders and Raiders Walking and all kinds of stuff going on.

“Sometimes you can take, take, take and expect people to give, but we want to give and hopefully people will come along and support us with what we are doing on and off the field.

“We haven’t got a multi-millionaire businessman at the helm, we’ve got Steve who is a working class lad and he just works hard as does everyone at the club.

“From the coaching staff to the directors everyone is just working hard and doing stuff behind the scenes as well.

“Of course, everyone want to win games and that’s what we want to do, but we also have to see the bigger picture and it’s about making sure we build a club for the community.

“That takes a lot of hard work, and everybody is working hard.

“Steve (Neale) doesn’t let anyone rest on their laurels and nobody does.

“Sometimes it feels like you are just working so hard just to keep going, but the game has changed so much and hopefully, we are evolving with it.

“We want to keep giving the town a club they can be proud of and giving them a club that they want to come and watch on a Sunday or a Saturday afternoon.”