Barnard Castle will be a Wearside League Premier Division team next season.
The club’s agonising two-week wait to discover their Division One promotion fate finally ended when rivals Deerness Valley were beaten in a must-win match at Chester-le-Street United Reserves.
While the wait was frustrating, it meant Barney’s promotion was confirmed just hours before their end of season awards event, meaning everyone could celebrate in style at the Cricket Club.
“It’s been an amazing season and the players had a great time on the night,” confirmed manager John Clarke, who added: “but for the management team, while we were obviously delighted, there was also a huge sense of relief.
“It gives clarity now for where we will be next season and we can now meet up and decide what our aims and expectations are and discuss the makeup of the squad for next season.”
Barney, who won their final game of the season 4-1 on May 3, are promoted in second place behind champions Willington.
Closest challengers Deerness had four games in hand over Barney and went into their final fixture on the back of three successive wins to close the gap on second place to just one point, though with an inferior goal difference.
Needing a victory to leapfrog Barney, they were unable to pick up the three required points as Chester-le-Street proved too tough a nut to crack, winning 1-0.
In the crowd was a contingent of very interested spectators from Barnard Castle, including John, who manages the team along with Jimmy Raine and Steven West, and several players.
“We went to the game knowing we’d done all that we could so, while we knew the outcome of that game would determine our season, we had no control over it,” said John.
“It was pretty relaxed until the game reached the last ten minutes and, with Deerness losing, we realised we might actually go up!
“Before that I think we were just expecting Deerness to win and we couldn’t do anything to affect that.
“It’s been an uncomfortable wait to be honest,” added the gaffer, who admitted promotion wasn’t the target at the start of the season.
Barney were only promoted to Division One in 2023, so the stated aim was to improve on the sixth place finish achieved last year.
“We had meetings with all the players individually and some of them were hoping for promotion, but the management team were focused on simply doing better than last season,” confirmed John.
“That meant finishing higher in the table, conceding fewer goals, scoring more goals and recruiting some players from outside Barnard Castle because we recognised we maybe needed a bit of strengthening. Thankfully all of those things have been achieved.
“We scored over 100 goals, conceded less than 40 goals, in fact we’ve conceded the fewest goals in the division, including champions Willington.
“We’ve only lost two league games, drawn six and at home we’ve played 17 league games, winning 16 and drawing one. Nobody else has a better home
record and our average points per game is 2.47.
“We’ve done everything we could have done.”
Promotion has been achieved on the back of impressive on-field performances and effective long-term planning off the pitch. Investment costing upwards of £100,000 over the past few seasons has ensured Barnard Castle’s Tens Field ground is up to scratch for Premier Division football.
“We recognise it’s going to be a difficult season,” said John looking ahead to August, when the new campaign gets underway. “We found this season that half the games were very competitive but other sides weren’t as strong.
“Next season we anticipate that every game will be a really challenging game.”
The category winners at Barnard Castle FC’s end of season awards event, which took place at the Cricket Club.
- Club legend award: Rob Dixon
- Players’ player of the year: Jake McKellar
- Player of the season: Lewis Robinson (five man of the match awards)
- Top scorer award: Tai Saunders and Rob Peart (18 goals each)
- Trevor Joel young player of the year: Jed Dominick.
- Manager’s player of the year: Matty Wheeler
