Whing calls for FA help in perimeter wall issue

Andy Whing took over as Barrow head coach in January this year

Barrow head coach Andy Whing is calling for the Football Association (FA) to help clubs resolve the issue of perimeter walls at the side of pitches.

This comes in the light of the tragic death of Chichester City player Billy Vigar, after sustaining a "significant brain injury".

It is believed that he collided with a concrete wall during a match at Wingate & Finchley, a team in the Isthmian League, the seventh tier of English football.

Barrow's SO Legal Stadium remains one of the last remaining grounds in the EFL to still have perimeter walls around the sides of the ground.

"It's taken the worst thing that can happen to someone for it be put into question," Whing told BBC Radio Cumbria.

"It definitely has to be looked into and that has to come from The FA."

Whing wants the game's governing body to provide the guidelines and funding, especially for clubs lower down the pyramid, to improve facilities and infrastructure so that something like this can be avoided in the future.

"There's a lot of money in football and surely it can filter down to help clubs struggling to redo their grounds, or at least put cushions around the ground where walls are," said the former Solihull Moors boss.

"But it definitely needs to come from above. They have to set these guidelines."