BARROW boss Paul Crarey has sung the praises of York City Knights coach James Ford ahead of this evening's clash - but he has also warned that his Raiders side will "ramp it up" as they look to begin the League One season with a bang.

York have not beaten the Cumbrians since 2007, with Crarey continuing that hoodoo over Ford in recent seasons.

But he is aware of the off-field adversity faced by his opposite number in his two previous years at the helm and, although the Knights go to Craven Park as big underdogs amid the rebuilding process under new owners, the Barrow chief still expects a notable challenge.

"They've got a great coach in James Ford, who has done it real tough and stuck by the club," said Crarey, who led his side to the play-off final last year.

"He should be applauded for hanging on in there when other teams would have wanted him.

"He creates great structure and his teams are hard to break down, and we've had some great battles with his teams over the last couple of years."

Crarey also told the Raiders' website: "It will be a real tough fixture. James Ford has held the club together really when there has been a lot of adversity.

"I think he will instil a winning mentality in the group - he always does. His teams are always hard to beat. We don't expect anything less than a hard challenge."

However, when asked what message he wanted to send out to League One as the campaign kicks off, Crarey said: "Don't be complacent because we won't be. We're going to ramp it up every week.

"We've set ourselves some goals to do really well, and our mentality has been really good from week one in pre-season. We've worked real tough and hard. We want to get the town behind us.

"We want to send a message out, but we're not going to get above our station because you can become unstuck if you do that and predict certain things. We're not going to do that - we're just going to work hard and look after ourselves and hopefully get the job done."

Barrow's two competitive games this year have both been comfortable wins over amateurs Rochdale Mayfield, having drawn them in both the League One Cup and Challenge Cup.

Crarey said: "I thought we did really well in the pre-season games but that counts for nothing, and it's hard to judge yourself against Rochdale Mayfield.

"We want a good start. It's a home crowd - hopefully we'll get a lot of people in, in a good frame of mind having had a few beers and stuff."