Ian Evatt smiles at the suggestion he had to bring Barrow closer to Bolton to achieve his first big managerial success in football.

Back in the summer of 2018, the current Wanderers boss took on one of the most unfashionable jobs in football. A year later, they were making TIFO podcasts about his tactical success and comparing the Bluebirds to a non-league Barcelona.

One of the big early decisions he made was to train 100 miles away from Holker Street, down the M6 at Middleton, which would enable him to attract players from the North West without the need to make the long journey to Cumbria.

Tonight, Evatt will welcome his former club in the Papa Johns Trophy, a couple of years after he led them back into the Football League for the first time in half a century.

And he remembers well those early days with the Bluebirds, then a team treading water in the National League.

“I have a lot of fond memories,” he told The Bolton News. “At the time, I had American owners before Paul (Hornsby) and the rest of the board took over and I think we had seven players I think on our first day of pre-season, which was in July with three or four weeks to prepare.

“I remember the first rondo (a possession-based training game) we did like it was yesterday. Myself and Peter (Atherton) joined in and we were the best two players. Four weeks later, we scored a goal in the first game of the season - we won 3-0 – I think it was 23 or 24 passes. From them on, it was just progression.

“We finished in the top 10 that season and obviously managed to win the National League the next season.

“The group of owners who have it now are fantastic people. They love the club, they are local people. They were fantastic with me and gave me the platform to get them to where I believe they belong.

“Since then, to sustain themselves in League Two is fantastic and this season they are really making a splash, which is great to see.”

These days, Barrow are led by another bright young manager in Pete Wild, who turned heads with his work at Halifax Town after a couple of spells in charge of Oldham Athletic.

Evatt is pleased to see their progression and looks back with fondness at the part they played in his own development as a young manager.

“It was a blank canvas and I was able to do things my way,” he said. “We made some serious changes to what training like professional footballers looked like and the board backed me every way.

“For instance, training in Manchester was a good move to get people to play and come there. But then the home fixtures, we didn’t want players travelling on Saturdays because it is quite a way – one road in, one road out.

“We decided to treat it more or less like an away game and stay overnight – Fridays train in Barrow. That has a cost to it – staying in hotels et cetera - and the board backed us with that. Then we started to get good results and from then on it snowballed.

“It was a really tough job but a really good grounding. I don’t do things easy – I took over Barrow at that point.

“I came here when things weren’t all hunky dory. But I like a challenge and I will never forget my time there.”

But was 'Brand Evatt' - the footballing philosophy that has translated since his move to Bolton in the summer of 2020 - in his mind when he first made the journey to meet the Barrow players back then?

“Yeah, during a football career you develop likes and dislikes. Coaching is basically just ‘magpie-ing’ – nobody reinvents the wheel. But it is just taking those pieces, transforming them into your own ideas and making sure whatever your ideas are that you stick to them.

"Sometimes that can be difficult, especially when you are not getting results.

"At that point, everyone said to me, ‘you can’t win promotion like that from the National League, it is just impossible. You need six-foot-five ogres who can head it in both boxes, set pieces et cetera’. But that just made me want to do it more – the character I am, it just makes me even more determined to show people what we can do."

Barrow, now a couple of seasons in as an EFL club and challenging at the right end of the League Two table, still have plans to move back up to Cumbria and tap into a rich seam of footballing talent which has produced players like Kyle Dempsey and James Trafford.

“The football club is the heartbeat of every community and they want to see Barrow footballers in and around the town,” Evatt added. “That is what I wanted to see. We wanted to see kids in Barrow shirts and we got to that stage.

“We never got to that stage where we were comfortable enough in the Football League while I was there to move everybody and relocate up to Barrow to base everything in the town, which I think is really important for the community.

“From what I understand, that is the owner’s plan and it should be the plan. There is a huge catchment area there that is only really shared with Carlisle, the nearest club, which is an hour away. There is a huge catchment of talent and I think while the club is doing well and progressing, they are able to build up an Academy and build up the young footballers from that area to be able to coach them, training them and then hopefully get them into the first team further down the line.”