Jody Barford is liked by everyone he meets.
The goalkeeper lives and breathes Non League Football and he has enjoyed a career spanning 20 years. He’s not a tracksuit collector as some make out.
He’s had structured career with long spells with Tadcaster Albion, Brodsworth, Ossett Albion, Retford United and Brigg Town (as joint manager too). Yes, Barford’s recent years up until his arrival at Hall Road Rangers last summer, have been seen him turn out for several clubs.
But that’s more because he fashioned himself out as an SOS goalkeeper – the man who is always there for managers in need.
In his interview with Non League Yorkshire, Barford remembers beating Ferriby in the FA Cup with Ossett Albion, the Richard Sennett WhatsApp videos and many other memories from his career – one that is still very much alive.
Now he’s back enjoying playing local to home with Hall Road under Leon Sewell, Barford’s biggest fan and a man with an eye for talent as the co-manufacturer of the ‘Jody Barford, England’s Number One’ flag.
This is Jody Barford’s Non League Journey:
“I was on a sports course at Bishop Burton College and there was a coach there called Chris Coates, I still speak to him now. I was playing for North Ferriby reserves and Ferriby had a goalkeeper called Paul Sharp who was a fireman who was fit as a fiddle so there was no chance that I was going to get in the first team. I spoke to Chris Coates and I said that I wanted to push myself further than local football. He said ‘I know a team who are struggling and I know the people involved with it, it is Tadcaster Albion’. So that was my first entry into Northern Counties East League football. I reckon I was 20. I had only played in the Humber Premier League before.”
Tadcaster Albion
“This was around 2001 and it was a bit daunting and I drove there myself from Ferriby where I was living. I was only used to playing with lads I knew so it was strange going into a changing room with men who I had never met before. I wouldn’t say boo to a goose to start with, but then I got to know the lads.
“I only went for experience and I stayed into the next season so all this collecting tracksuits business is nonsense. The first year Bridlington won the league (Division One) and it gave me experience and it was good to challenge myself against people like Paul Palmer’s and Martin Thacker’s.
“The manager was Wayne Day and he had been there a while. He used to run everything at the club. His assistant was a guy called Simon Targett who was a really good bloke, I liked the pair of them. I remember a striker called Billy Hicks who could also play centre-half and his younger brother James who played at Pontefract. Billy was a character and daft as a brush. I remember Danny Pitts as well, he was class.
“I left to go back to Ferriby reserves as they were saying they were going to get back in the Northern Counties East League reserve football. That never happened so I ended going back to Tadcaster as Wayne Day got back in touch with me. But his era ended not long after and Jim Collis came in. I reported in for pre-season, but from the team previous there was literally me, Paul James and Matt Cressey. All the other lads were all Castleford, West Yorkshire lads. Jim Collis brought like a York team to the table. PJ was local, Cressey was Glasshoughton area and he was a nice guy. I looked at it and I thought ‘I’m not sure I’m going to play here’. He had other goalkeepers at training so I felt like an outcast and I looked to find something more local.”
The Next Phase
“I flitted about a bit with Hall Road, Retford United, and Winterton Rangers after leaving Tadcaster. I also played for Ferriby reserves, but a lot of lads in that Ferriby reserves side were training with Winterton.
“Around this time I got in touch with a guy I have played for several times. He’s a good manager, but he’s not managing anymore. That is Richard Sennett and I have a lot of time for him. He’s a great guy and he used to get good sides together on low budgets, just because he had a really good rapport with lads. He got lads who weren’t majorly bothered about money and were willing to roll their sleeves up and have a go. He could really build up team spirit.
“I first met him when he was slowing down as a player and he had taken over as player/manager of Rossington. So I went there for a short spell. One of my main memories from Rossington was seeing the worst brawl I have ever seen. It is when they had the old cage at Rossington and there was a 22-man brawl and it was like a scene out of WWE. There were limbs, arms flying everywhere. Everyone was involved.
“Rich left Rossington and took Brodsworth over when they were really struggling towards the back end of a season. I went with him and four or five lads like Gav Cooper, Paul Bradley, Robert Sanderson. Not everyone followed him went straight away, but the plan was to make Brodsworth not the perennial strugglers anymore. He must have been only 18 or so, but Liam Radford was there when Rich took over and he was Broddy’s only goal-scorer. Even Brett Lovell was playing the odd game. Josh Wright came later as he has a good relationship with Sennett.
“I started really enjoying playing for Rich, but unfortunately I broke my leg really badly. I didn’t play for a long time. I did my tibia, a clean break and I was out for a full season. I actually broke it playing outfield during a indoor five-a-side game. I’ve always fancied myself as an outfield player and I’ve always had a bit of temper in a tackle. That’s how I did it.”
Return and the Selby Town love affair begins
“While I was injured, Rich introduced a guy like Rich Turner and the pair of them turned Broddy into quite a good side.
“The first game I played after recovering was again for Rich Sennett at Brodsworth. Out of the blue he said ‘I don’t want to push you, but you can stand there and get us through a game as we’re really struggling’. So I helped them out a few times, maybe I shouldn’t have had. I remember going all the way to Glapwell to help them out and I got whacked on my shin in the first five minutes. It swelled up like a balloon and it was far too early to be playing.
“One of the games I played for Brodsworth was against Selby Town during the Bob Lyon era. I don’t know why but I always fancied playing Selby. One because it is fairly local and two because two guys called Ian Phillips and Richard Tomlinson from my end in North Cave, they played for Selby. I knew it wasn’t that far. I’m ten minutes from North Cave and that’s probably 25 minutes from Selby. Selby also had one of my best mates Adam Mitchell in goal and he went to America at the back end of a season. Me, Adam and a load of other young goalie’s used to train with a guy called Pete Glanville on the pitch at Selby. He used to be a coach at York City. I still go and do a session with him now. When Mitch went to America, Bob needed a goalkeeper and I got the call.
“It was his final season and I absolutely loved playing for him. But towards the end of the season Bob decided not to carry on and that’s when Mick Gray came in.”
The Flag
“Leon and my other mate Steve Underwood came over for a game as we were going out for a drink afterwards. This was a year or two before Leon became manager of Selby. Anyway they made this flag for a laugh and put it up!”
The Selby Journey Ends Briefly (2010/11)
“I trained pre-season and Mick favoured another goalkeeper from Grimsby so I went to Garforth for a bit and played locally here and there. Leon Sewell has always managed teams in the Central Midlands League and Humber Premier League before coming into the NCEL so I’ve always dual-registered with his teams like Westella. I’ve never had problems getting games! I’ve had phone calls off Humber Prem managers at 10am on a Saturday morning asking if I had a game. I’ve even played upfront for Leon in the Central Midlands League.
“That’s what I think I did until Mick Gray left and (interim manager) Gary Paton brought me back. Leon took over as Selby’s manager for the following season (2011/12). Leon probably didn’t have enough experience at the time. Now he’d be a great candidate. (Chairman) Ralph (Pearse), who has always liked me over the years, wanted a young local side and I became assistant to Leon. We only did about 11 games. Nobody battered us, bearing in mind we were in the NCEL Prem, but when you’ve not won for ten or 11 games, you start to think. I stuck around after Leon left and that’s when Mr (Dave) Heard came in with his two sons. Graham Hodder replaced Heard, but we had a young side and we were always up against it so I wanted a new challenge. To be fair to Graham’s team, he had some great young players like Calum Ward and Nick Black. They just needed time.”
NPL Football with Ossett Albion
“What I had done is help out Eric Gilchrist on a couple of occasions at Ossett Albion and I thought it would be a challenge playing higher. Eric was no longer in charge, but he gave me the number for the new manager Lloyd (Fellows). I dropped him a text. At first he said he was happy with what he had. But a couple of months later he asked me if I fancied going through and training. I went training and I was thrown straight in. I stayed with them a while. It was the backend of one season, the next season and then the following one.
“I used to have to look after Tom Corner and Joe Fox. That was the car school and I had to meet them all over the place. We got lost going to New Mills which isn’t the easiest of places to get to. It is horrendous, especially midweek. It was a 7.45pm kick off and we must have rocked into the changing room at 7.30pm. The game got delayed, but I had no warm-up and after five minutes, New Mills got a penalty and I saved it. I think Tom Corner also scored.”
FA Cup Run (2012/13)
“I experienced the best FA Cup run I ever had with Ossett. We beat Ferriby which the Ossett lads won’t have understood at that the time, but that was massive to me as they are my local club. Ferriby were flying and they won the NPL Premier Division that year and we went and beat them on their own ground. There’s not much stuff on the Internet, but I can’t find much from that game. I’d love to see some photos. We beat them 2-1 and I think Tom Corner scored both goals. I was bouncing all week. I went to the local pub in Ferriby ‘The Duke’ after the game and there was loads of people in green and white jumpers in there and I was stood in there with my Ossett Albion tracksuit. I’ve never been hammered as much. People couldn’t get their head round it. There was only me from Ossett in there. I was celebrating on my own.
“We beat some good sides on that FA Cup and we lost to Bradford (Park Avenue) in the last qualifying round. What an experience that was to play in such a high pressure game. We’d beaten Farsley which had taken a replay and we beat a Conference North team in Hinckley.”
Reunion with Richard Sennett (2013/14)
“I hooked up with Rich Sennett again at Retford United, even though it was a bit of a trek, and we had a really good side – Bobby Johnson, Liam Wilkin, Lee Holmes, Rich Medcalf, we had a right side. I can’t believe Rich kept that side together. We were near the top at Christmas, but we fell away and finished around fifth. Sennett had his spell at Winterton and I never played for him at Winterton, but he kept that group and took them to Retford. The group he had was probably the best I ever played with. Rich should be managing now and he should be managing at the top end of the Northern Counties. The camaraderie was unbelievable in the changing room. I played there for the full season, but they were having problems so everyone left at the end.
“Rich was a bit of a nutter on the side-lines, but mainly he was just funny. He was basically a wind-up merchant, but good at it. He’d say daft stuff in a dry way and he would be a ranter and raver, but he was brilliant to work with. He was all about the lads and the team spirit. We never had great budgets, but he’d say things like ‘we’d going to take on all these sides with big budgets and silence’.
“The most comical thing from my career was Rich Sennett’s half-time rants. Leon can rant as well, but Rich could get carried away in a funny way. The lads used to do WhatsApp videos to each other mimicking what he said. He had a full rant at the team once and he was naming players and he kept saying ‘you’re not fit’. He went round one by one saying why we weren’t at it. He started off with Jack Cross, ‘Crossy, you’ve got all the ability, but can you do it for 90 minutes? No. Because you’re not fit’. He was having a go at everyone ‘you’re not fit, you’re not fit, you’re not fit’. I think it was only 0-0 at half-time against someone half decent. So that’s the one the lads did videos of – I suppose like an early version of TikTok. The rant ended with him saying ‘I’ve had enough’, throwing his arms in the air and walking off. We went to him at the end of the game in the clubhouse and said ‘what was all that about half-time?’ He’d just start laughing. We even sent him the WhatsApp videos and he wasn’t bothered.”
Sennett’s Feud with Basford
“Rich Sennett didn’t like them because they were throwing money around at players and not doing anything with the ground at the time. Obviously the ground has been improved massively since. He even tried to get our away game there called off.
“Someone had been to the toilet and not flushed it. The changing rooms hadn’t been cleaned. There was water and mud everywhere. It was a disgrace. Rich literally walked into the changing room and turned round with his bag and stormed off. He said ‘right lads, we’re going’. One of their committee members was outside and he had an argument with them about whether the game would go ahead. They talked him round and I think we drew with them and I saved a penalty from Martin Carruthers.
“Then we had a brawl at the home game. Somebody had said to Brett Lucas or someone like that and it all kicked off down the corridor. Sennett was a big unit so he was pulling people all over the shop. He piled straight in. The full 15 minutes of half-time was spent calming people down.”
Managing Brigg Town
“I briefly went to Cleethorpes after Retford before spending a while with Brigg Town, probably three years on and off. I even ended up managing with Anthony Bowsley for two spells when they had the old tax embargo and couldn’t sign any players. I’ve had two managerial experiences that would put anyone off doing it. I remember going to Kidsgrove and all over Staffordshire with a bare eleven of 16-17-year-olds. I once remember managing to get another goalkeeper because I couldn’t cope with the stress. Rob Zand came to help out. I literally couldn’t think of anything worse than trying to sort the team out on a Friday night and then play on a Saturday. I was stressed to the max.
“That period wasn’t about results, it was about keeping the club afloat on the field. It looked like we had a really good side at the start of one season when Scott Hellewell and Paul Grimes were running it. But then there was problems with the budgets, but I stuck around and played through some bad times. Me and Bows ended up managing on two occasions. They asked us to do for a third time and permanently, but we said no because it was too stressful. They didn’t have a reserve side and you were having to sign players like magic. There were some good lads like Ryan Thompson, but he was 16 then and our best player.
“But I enjoyed my start to my time at Brigg and it is a lovely ground. They have had some good times, but they dropped and dropped and it became a mess. It is sad because they won the FA Vase one year, but it is good to see them back. I contemplated going to play for them last season, but then Leon got the Hall Road job.”
Pranks Calls
“I was reading Duncan Bray’s interview and what I have done is the old classic where you pretend to be an opposition manager and ring another manager up. Me, Anthony Bowsley and Danny Buttle have done that when we were at Brigg. On the way back from games over the loud speaker in the car, we used to get managers most of the time. We’d say we were managers of other clubs and we’d say that we were putting seven days in for their best striker. You could sense that they were shaking their head in the background and they’d say things like ‘not a chance’. They’d fall for it hook, line and sinker.”
Red Cards
“There’s been a few red cards! I don’t know whether I got too excited, but I remember returning to Retford with Bottesford. Do you remember the German goalkeeper Harald Schumacherin the 1980s who used to fly off the line? I did that and kind of kung-fu kicked someone. I was just a bit giddy about being back at Retford.”
Odd Jobbing
“This is when I started odd jobbing, after leaving Brigg. There were a few games for Barton, Goole, Bottesford and a tiny spell at Winterton. I couldn’t settle and If I’m not enjoying something, I’m not going to do it. I tried out at a few clubs and didn’t enjoy it. I was travelling on my own so I odd jobbed around North East Lincolnshire basically helping out managers who needed a goalkeeper. Before my late thirties, my career was structured and I hope people see that reading this.
“My head wasn’t really on football until after I got married and that’s when Curtis Woodhouse and Bowsley got in touch with me. They had a goalkeeper crisis at Bridlington and I went up there. I enjoyed working with Curtis. Some people like him, some people don’t. But for me he’s straight to the point and if you’re playing well he’ll tell you and if you need a kick up the backside he’ll do that.
“Curtis went through a stage where he said you had to play out from the back. ‘Be brave, take risks’, all that. I tried to Cruyff turn Will Waudby and I got away from him, but as I went to play the ball, I tried to Cruyff him again and he got a toe-end on the ball and scored. So within a minute we were 1-0 down against Barton. We equalised before half-time, but I remember Curtis having a serious look at me for taking too many risks. But he said ‘you did it once, why did you do it again’? Danny Buttle was straight on and he was sending pictures of me out with Jordi Cruyff’s name underneath. Danny’s another one of my best mates and he’s hilarious.
“Pre-season (2017/18) was great with Curtis, Bows and Danny, but then we played Hall Road Rangers in a pre-season game. I picked the ball up and one of their strikers came shoulder to shoulder. It didn’t cause me much pain at the time, but it turned out that I had damaged my rotator cuff in my right shoulder. I lost my place to another goalkeeper Tom Jackson who will do well in Non League.
“I had some time off because I wasn’t at full tilt. I used to go watch and sit on the bench, but if they had said ‘right you’re going on’, I don’t know what I would have done because my shoulder wasn’t up to it at all. I didn’t think it was serious, but when I had physio I had it checked and rehabbed like you should.
“Danny Buttle had gone to Handsworth so Jon Froggatt rang me so I gave it a go there. It was the whole bug of playing. I should have said ‘no, I’m injured, that’s me done for the season’. I played a few games and we got battered by Bottesford, but that’s when my shoulder was at its worst. I don’t know how I got through the game.
“So that’s when I went to physio. But the moment I thought it was alright, Mark (Aldred) and the gang from Selby get in touch. I was still in the process of recovery, but it was my fault for passing myself fit.
“So that’s the season I went back to Selby for a short spell, but every-time I was diving on the floor, it felt like my shoulder was going to come off or my arm was going to fly off. It wasn’t worth it. I did alright in the first few games, but soon the shoulder is in agony and I’m taking painkillers before games. I think I lasted five games.”
Playing for Biggest Fan Leon Sewell
“I’m probably fitter than I was when I was 28. I’ve lost quite a bit of timber and I feel good. The shoulder is working again so last season Leon took the Hall Road job and I’m good mates with him outside of football. He sent a message saying ‘don’t you be signing for anyone just yet’. I was like ‘why’. For the last few years I’d said ‘I’ve play for you’ and I never had. I don’t know why I have put it off for so long. I see him outside of football, but he puts that much effort into his planning, it is crazy. I’ve seen it first hand in his house. The managers he speaks to is unbelievable and it is clear he’s learnt a lot over the years. I’ve never seen work of such depth. He’s an underrated manager for me. He keeps the lads together, there’s no big-time Charlies. We started the season slowly with a young side, but we gradually got better as the season went on. When the season ended we were looking to sneak into that top ten and with the lads we had, we were capable.”
The Future
“I’m fitter than ever before and if I can stay away from injuries, I can go into my forties without a problem. I’m 38 now. The drive and enthusiasm to keep playing is there. During the lockdown I have been out in the garden kicking a ball around and I’m ready to go again. The extra lay-off might be do me good.
“I would say Selby, Retford and Ossett Albion were my happiest times and I don’t know about management. What I’d like to to do and the perfect scenario for me is to be at a club where I can go down with the wife and kids, do a little bit of goalkeeper coaching, watch the game and be involved, but not too involved. That would suit me down to the ground.”
If you have enjoyed this interview and the Non League Journey interview series, please watch the video at the bottom of the page and consider making a donation to the not-for-profit organisation NLY Community Sport which provides sport for children and adults with disabilities and learning difficulties. CLICK HERE to visit the JustGiving page.
NLY Community Sport, run by James Grayson and Connor Rollinson, has always had combatting social isolation at the top of our objectives when running our Disability Football teams so when the green light to return is given, our work will play an important role in reintroducing our players, who have disabilities and learning difficulties, back into society.
We have six teams, a mixture of Junior and Adult teams – Nostell MW DFC, Pontefract Pirates, Selby Disability Football Club and the South Yorkshire Superheroes (Barnsley) – across Yorkshire.
Like most organisations, we have been affected financially by the Coronavirus and we have incurred losses which we cannot recover. We have not been hit as badly as other organisations, but we do need raise £2000 to put us back at the level we were at in mid-March and enable us to make a difference once again to our players’ lives in the future, without having financial worries. As each day goes on, a substantial number of our players become further isolated so we need to be ‘ready for action’ when restrictions are lifted.
Any amount raised above £2000 will be put towards new projects (when the world returns to normal) designed to further benefit people with disabilities and learning difficulties. You can learn more about the organisation HERE and on our Facebook page.
Watch the video below to see highlights from our three years as an organisation. The video was produced for our players at the end of March to remind them of good memories from the last three years.