Attendance – 17,071 (511)
Joshua Kay’s first half strike was enough to make sure that all three points went back to Cumbria, as they left the home side to rue their missed opportunity to return to a playoff spot.
Bradford City started the brighter in the opening four minutes of the half, Liam Ridehalgh combined with Richie Smallwood on not one but three occasions, and the resulting low crosses into the box were dealt with by the Barrow defence.
Since the early flurry, Barrow successfully slowed the home side down and tried to catch the Bantam’s on the counterattack but to no avail. Barrow only mustered up a single long shot which ended up in the upper tier of the only empty stand in the ground after a brilliant unimpeded run through the middle.
And with 20 minutes left of the first half to go Barrow opened the scoring, completely against the run of play – Adam Clayton robbed in the middle of the park and Barrow with slick passing found Ged Garner on the wing, and cut the ball back for Kay to slide the ball home.
This set back didn’t deter the home side as they carried on peppering the Barrow box, but the travellers stood strong with everyone behind the ball and deflected anything that came into their box.
Five minutes to go until the half time whistle, tempers started to flair in the home dugout as both the captain Smallwood and Jamie Walker went into the referee’s book, as Barrow took a slender lead into the half time break.
Bradford came out in the second half on top as they searched for that equaliser, but like the first half Barrow defended in numbers and rode the pressure, Niall Canavan came close to doubling the visitors lead but misjudged his kick as the ball trickled wide.
With just half an hour to go until the full time whistle – Bradford change tact and went a bit more direct, and continued to pepper the box with cross after cross, but the home side were outnumbered and Barrow kept the home side at arm’s length.
Bradford kept on producing chances but again couldn’t find their way past a stubborn Barrow backline, and with a few minutes left the home side went route one.
Deep into injury time Jamie Walker found time and space to have a strike but the defender threw himself on the line to make the block and that was that Barrow took all three points back to Cumbria, leaving a very frustrated Bradford crowd.