As recently as 2011, Craig Wood used to spend his Sunday mornings cutting the grass on the council's Harry Road playing field in Old Town so his Sunday League side Aquaforce could play.
Six years and five promotions later, Wood is owner and chairman of Shaw Lane AFC, who will this Sunday interrupt their battle for promotion to the National League North, formerly Conference North, to host National League club AFC Barrow in the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup. Victory against a side 28 places above them in the league system would put league leaders Shaw Lane into the first round of the world-famous cup next month which will also feature League One and League Two clubs.
"You can't quantify how far we have come," said Wood, who also owns Barnsley-based plumbing business Aquaforce.
"When I was cutting the grass for the Sunday League team, or washing the kits for the next few years when we went into Saturday football, I never could have imagined getting this far. But, as we grew and grew, my main two aims were to get to the Conference and to draw a Football League club in the FA Cup. We are starting to knock on the door for both of them.
"Barrow is a massive hurdle to overcome, they are full-time professional outfit. It's David versus Goliath. But you can't help thinking: 'what if we beat them?'"
If given the choice of promotion this season or beating Barrow then playing an EFL team in the FA Cup first round, Wood says he would prefer the cup tie. That is partly because of the boost it could give to attendances which are averaging 200 this season, the fifth lowest in the Evo-Stik Premier Division in which the Ducks are currently first.
Wood, who is hoping for a Sunday crowd of 700 with Barrow likely to bring 200, said: "We have plenty of time to get to the National League but opportunities like the one on Sunday don't come around very often. We need to boost the profile of the club and increase the attendances and a cup run like this is the perfect way of doing it. I am convinced that, if we get extra fans in for the cup games, most of them will like it and come back regularly.
"If we go into the National League North, there are some massive clubs with huge budgets in there and we won't be able to compete without some more money coming in through the turnstiles. But we are a new club and we have to be patient. I know we will never get seven hundred home fans every game but we need to be getting more than we are at the moment.
"There are a lot of professional clubs in our local area so it is difficult to attract fans but we are doing everything we can. We have the cheapest tickets in our division again and we have moved our midweek home games to Mondays to give people a new option. We are playing Barrow on Sunday so it doesn't clash with Barnsley's game or any other local football."
Sunday's match will take place at Sheerien Park, the home of Athersley Rec who the Ducks agreed a groundshare deal with in the summer following the end of their tenancy at Barnsley Rugby Union Club. That was too late to change the club's name for this season but they are planning to do so for the 2018/19 campaign before the deadline in early December, while attempting to avoid receiving a letter from Barnsley FC's solicitors as they did when they tried to become Barnsley Town FC in April of last year.
Wood, who had to drop Aquaforce from his club's name because it breached FA rules, said: "We will definitely be changing the name and we would like the word Barnsley to be in the title but we haven't decided on a name yet. When we have a name we are happy with, we will put it to Barnsley FC first because we don't want to get into a dispute with them.
"Moving to Sheerien Park is the best thing we have ever done. Pete Goodlad (Rec general manager) and everyone he works with are real football people and it's a perfect fit for us. I hope we are a few weeks away from getting planning permission to put the Daniel Wilkinson stand up which we have brought from Shaw Lane. It is much easier to develop Sheerien Park than Shaw Lane."
Barrow are fifth-bottom in the National League, while they have not won in any of their last seven matches including a 2-2 draw at home to Leyton Orient on Saturday. They are yet to win away this season in seven matches, losing five.
The Ducks – who will be without former Plymouth, Ipswich and Leeds player David Norris due to suspension – have won 14 of their last 16 matches. Their seven-match winning run ended with a 1-0 loss at Barwell on Saturday. The home side hit the bar twice while Shaw Lane, who had won 13 of their previous 14 games, were not at their best but did have a leveller ruled out for offside.
They were overtaken in first place by Warrington Town, but regained top spot two days later with a 2-0 home win over Buxton in which Paul Clayton opened the scoring with an overhead kick then Alex Byrne got another just after the break. They stayed three points clear at the top after Warrington lost on Tuesday.
The Ducks are due to host Cleethorpes Town in the League Cup on Tuesday but, if Sunday's game with Barrow is a draw, they will face a midweek replay in Cumbria.
Tickets for Sunday's 3pm kick-off are £8 for adults, £5 for concessions and £1 for under 17s.
