Barrow AFC are likely to have to wait another week before discovering their fate, but manager Ian Evatt can still look back on the Bluebirds’ most successful season in many a year.

It’s been over a month since the remainder of the National League’s fixtures were cancelled in light of the coronavirus outbreak and confusion has reigned since, with the non-League football’s highest level seemingly waiting for decisions to be made for them.

Clubs in the English Football League are due to meet next Monday over how to end the season, with the Championship set to resume on June 20, League Two set to finish, bar the play-offs, and League One’s conclusion uncertain.

As a result, AFC fans are nearing the end of a long and nervous wait as to whether their club will be promoted to the EFL for the first time in 48 years after finishing the curtailed campaign four points clear at the top of the pile.

Evatt’s side had been at the division’s summit ever since a superb win at Notts County on November 16, the day which the 38-year-old has picked out as his biggest highlight in a season full of them.

Evatt said: “Football seasons always have ups and downs, but the biggest ‘up’ for me was when we won 3-0 at Notts County and we went top of the league.

“That was the time where everyone outside of Barrow started to really look at us and what we were doing, and our brand of football and how we play.

“What we’ve done now is create a great identity.

“Teams have now heard of Barrow, people up an down the country, the press, managers from higher up the football pyramid, fans of other clubs.

“We have a reputation now that we’ve earned ourselves, so that’s the one thing that I’ll take out of this season.”

When Evatt took charge of Barrow two years ago, no-one could have seen such a rapid rise coming after the team has fortuitously avoided relegation under predecessor Ady Pennock.

A reputation for free-flowing football soon followed, but the addition of a cutting edge in the season just gone is what allowed the build-up to bring its real reward.

Evatt said: “In a short space of time we’ve completely changed the club’s identity.

“The club’s trajectory, in terms of where we’re heading, has changed and to do that in the space of two years is just amazing and it’s everything I said I’d do, but we’re just getting started.

“There’s still so much more improvement to come and I firmly believe that if we are in the EFL then we can compete and challenge there and there’s no reason why we can’t.”