Barrow Raiders have today unveiled a new identity for the 2027 season, in front of local businesses and civic leaders at the Speed Competitions Stadium.

The club’s name does not change. Nor do its colours. What changes is the badge, and the way the club presents itself in everything it puts its name to.

The new badge sets the club’s name against the shipyard that defines the town’s skyline, with a submarine at its centre and the year 1875 on the ball beneath it.

Where it comes from

The club took the view that its identity should come from Barrow and from nowhere else.

This is a town built by work. Hard, physical, unglamorous work, done in shifts and in all weathers by people who got on with it and did not make a fuss. The yard has set the rhythm of life here for a century and a half, and generations of the same families have gone through those gates.

Rugby league took root in towns like this for that reason. It was the game of the men who did that work, and it has always carried the same qualities: toughness, graft, and a refusal to be beaten by something simply because it is difficult.

There is also a plainer reason the badge looks the way it does.

A submarine is a raider. That is what it is for, a vessel that goes out unseen, does what it went to do, and comes home without telling anyone where it has been. Barrow has built them for more than a century. And for the last 25 years, Barrow’s rugby league club has been called the Raiders.

“We have been the Raiders for many years and we have never really said what we meant by it,” said Barrow Raiders chairman Steve Neale.

“That is what today is about. Anyone who has worked in this town will recognise themselves in that badge.”

“We were never going to change the name. It might not have started here, it came down the county from Carlisle in 1997 and we kept it, but it is ours now, and there are three generations of supporters who have never called this club anything else. It stays.”

A club anyone can join

Alongside the new identity, the club is replacing its season ticket with a membership structure built so that everyone has a way in, including supporters who will never walk through the turnstiles.

Memberships run from a low-cost option for those who cannot get to games, through to a small number of premium memberships for supporters who want to be closest to the team.

Every member receives a heritage number: one number, issued once, held for life. The numbers issued in 2027 will be the first the club has ever given.

The price of a standard season membership does not rise. Supporters renewing will pay what they paid for the 2026 season. Under 16s will continue to be admitted free of charge with a paying adult.

Taking local business with us

The club has also launched a tiered partnership structure, running from a level a small local firm can comfortably afford through to a single principal partnership. The four tiers are named after classes of boat built in the town.

“Barrow’s commercial life is not made up only of its largest employers,” Steve Neale added.

“It is the garages, the practices, the builders, the pubs and the shops that have kept this town going through every cycle it has been through. We wanted something that works whether you are a one-man garage or the biggest employer in Cumbria.”

Where the club stands

The announcement follows yesterday’s confirmation that Barrow Raiders ranked 15th overall in the IMG gradings – the highest-ranked club in the Championship – and confirmation of Hummel as the club’s technical kit and apparel supplier from the 2027 season.

The 2027 playing kit, produced by Hummel and carrying the new badge, will be revealed on Friday. Memberships and partnerships will be open from the same moment.

“This is an ambitious club in a town that has been counted out more than once, and we are not pretending otherwise,” said Steve Neale.

“But Barrow has spent a century and a half making things that outlast the people who made them. That is the standard, and we have set it ourselves.”

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