Barrow AFC 1 Harrogate Town 0: Angry Simon Weaver blasts Sulphurites for wasting travelling fans' time

Harrogate Town were beaten 1-0 by Barrow at Holker Street on Saturday afternoon. Pictures: Matt Kirkham

An angry Simon Weaver blasted his Harrogate Town players for wasting their supporters’ time during Saturday’s League Two defeat to Barrow.

The Sulphurites were beaten by Josh Gordon’s fluke strike just before half-time, but never really threatened to get back into the game until the dying minutes, when they belatedly fashioned a couple of half-chances.

Their performance was in stark contrast to the incisive attacking display served up at Gillingham in midweek and boss Weaver revealed that he told his team in no uncertain terms how annoyed he was by their lack of courage in possession.

"The feeling is disappointment, we’ve been by no means out-classed, but it was too little, too late from our point of view,” he reflected.

Sulphurites boss Simon Weaver tries to get his point across from the sidelines during Harrogate Town's League Two loss at Barrow.

"And that’s why there was a bit of anger shown in the changing room, because we have wasted our supporters’ time for 80 minutes and our own time because we so wanted to build on that fantastic win in midweek.

"We have to take responsibility. Football is sometimes about risk and reward and at 1-0 down, don’t wait until the last 10 minutes. It was too cagey until then. You’re creating two or three chances instead of the seven, eight, nine we created the other night.

"We didn’t show enough courage on the ball. We didn’t do enough. We haven’t passed the ball well enough, we didn’t create enough and we didn’t carry out the game-plan as we wanted.

"We were screaming on instructions [from the sidelines], but it can’t be like that, it can’t be an ongoing coaching session. We need leaders to be able to dictate and to get angry if needs be and to properly organise us so that we are ultimately a more positive attacking force.”

With a strong wind at their backs, hosts Barrow had the better of the first 45 at Holker Street.

Pete Jameson had to make a decent early stop to deny Gordon, before Bluebirds goalkeeper Paul Farman’s long punt downfield caught the breeze and clipped the top of Town’s bar.

Jameson then produced an even better save, pushing away Ben Whitfield’s 20-yard effort, but on the whole the visitors looked relatively solid at the back.

They did however find themselves behind on the stroke of half-time when Gordon advanced down the left-hand side of the away box and delivered a cross which deflected off George Thomson and looped inside Jameson’s far post.

Needing a goal to get themselves back into the contest, it took Harrogate until the 85th minute to really threaten a response, and even then, Luke Armstrong’s header from Kayne Ramsay’s inviting right-wing centre was well off target.

With time running out, they finally managed to open their hosts up as substitute Tyler Frost came in off the left and set up Matty Daly, but having engineered himself a clear sight of goal courtesy of some neat footwork, the on-loan Huddersfield midfielder was denied an equaliser by Farman’s trailing leg.

"It was a lucky finish, a massive deflection,” Weaver said of the game’s decisive moment.

"It’s immensely frustrating because the back-three had been solid throughout the first half.

"But it was a switch-off moment. There was a drinks break two minutes before and at this level it can cost you because players switch off, and we did just that.”