[Football] Club’s Survival On a Knife Edge

Barnet’s return to the Football League didn’t go as smoothly as had been anticipated. Runaway winners of the Conference the previous year, they struggled to make much of an impact languishing towards the bottom of the division with threat of relegation always at the back of their minds.

It was only towards the end of the season that those fears were laid to rest with a five point gap eventually separating them from second bottom Oxford. But, as has often been the case at Barnet, there was little time for them to rejoice at this result.

In the middle of May, the Barnet council announce that a road - Priory Grove - was pedestrian access only, a decision that would have effectively rendered it impossible for the club to use their Underhill Stadium.

The matter was eventually resolved, but it was the last in a long list of differences with the local council that have threatened the club’s existence.

“Barnet’s ground is outdated and is way behind other League 2 grounds” Janet Matthewson, the chair of the Keep Barnet Alive campaign explains. “The spectator accommodation is poor especially for our disabled fans. We have no credible off-pitch revenue opportunities and more importantly we do not reach football league standard. We now have only two years to bring Barnet up to scratch or face relegation. Long-term we need a stadium that meets all the criteria for a modern stadium with a viable future.”

Finding a site for such a stadium is never easy but when the club is located in an area where most free sites are either in green belt or the strictly regulated metropolitan open land, this becomes more problematic.

For Barnet, however, there seemed to be a potential solution with a site at South Underhill capable of hosting a 9,212 capacity stadium and which had received clearance from the Mayor of London. Everything looked set for Barnet to start planning for a new stadium until the council’s administration changed.

Suddenly, the development plan was changed to remove the option of building on the site at South Underhill, the council took Barnet FC to court over the price paid to the previous council for the acquisition of land and also shackled the club by putting an injunction preventing minor development activity required for safety and disabled access reasons. The Priory Grove issue was simply the latest, and one of the more petty, differences to emerge and which led to the formation of Keep Barnet Alive.

“I feel that most Barnet fans will not give up on staying in Barnet until the final hour. Common sense dictates that we need a supportive council in order to survive, something, to date, we have not had under the present administration, but our hearts are in Barnet,” Janet explains.

That the Priory Grove issue has now been resolved is, at least, a start yet the fans remains sceptic. “I am glad to see that common sense prevailed over the Priory Grove issue but that has not gone away its simply on hold! They have given back something that the club has enjoyed for years for FREE, access down Priory Grove. Suddenly the council expected them to pay through the nose for it! If common sense does not prevail over the long-term use of Priory Grove, it may well result in another court case, why should the club pay for something that they have always had? And why should the council be looking for ways to put the squeeze on the club?”

“Unfortunately unlike other councils, I feel that Barnet council do not truly recognise what a wonderful asset they have in Barnet FC. They have not grasped the wealth of opportunities that exist for partnership working to enhance our community and deal with a wealth of issues including anti-social behaviour and obesity problems among our youth.”

This potential for Barnet to be a success – on and off the field - is underlined by the fact that the London Borough of Barnet is the second largest borough in London with a population of over 310,000 residents. Their huge following was evident when promotion from the Nationwide Conference was achieved and when they were drawn against Manchester United in the FA Cup last year, taking over 5,000 fans to Old Trafford.

Yet the hopes for a ground that would enable the club to tap further into that potential seem as far away as ever. “Unfortunately no,” Janet says of their hopes for this issue to be solved. “So many of us want to ensure the long-term future of Barnet FC in Barnet but without a supportive council we have little hope of that! Travelling to other League Two grounds highlights the growing gulf between us and them. Most other clubs are very lucky to have the support of their local politicians.”

At the latest round of council elections, Keep Barnet Alive campaigned to have the current Conservative administration removed, a bid at which they failed. Does this mean that the residents don’t rank the club highly in its list of priorities? Not at all, Janet retorts. “On the contrary, there was a big U-turn by the Conservatives during the election, they went from saying nothing about Barnet FC to ensuring residents that if they were re-elected that they would be fully supporting Barnet FC.”

“On the national trend Barnet conservatives should have swept the board, and although they made gains, they should have made many more and without our campaign they would have. There were one or two prospective councillors that were particularly anti-Barnet FC, we know that as their comments on the doorsteps were reported back to us, they did not get elected so that was a result in itself!”

“All in all I feel that the conservatives now know how important Barnet FC is to Barnet residents, it is now up to them whether they fulfil their election promises to residents and actively start supporting Barnet FC or continue in their old ways until the club is gone!”

Even so, it was “a big setback as both Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors are fully supportive of the club and believe in its value to our community. Unless we can convince the Conservative administration of the club's value to our community and the advantages of working with the club to benefit the community, the future is very bleak within the borough of Barnet especially given the latest developments.”

“Over the coming months we will turn our energies into showing the council the benefits of having a football club within our community, if that falls on deaf ears, we will have done all we can because without a supportive council, we have not hope of a long-term future.”

“The KBA has always said that our key objective was to secure a long-term future for Barnet FC, and ultimately that is still our objective, unfortunately time is not on our side to secure that future within Barnet without a supportive council. It is now in the hands of the council, they have to decide and decide quickly, do they want a football club or are they happy to watch us leave?”

At least, Barnet have had the recent good news that their famous slope to the pitch has been approved by the Football League, allowing them to continue at Underhill for the time being. But even that news does little to alleviate the mood with Janet delivering a stark warning.

“Barnet FC will only survive in the borough of Barnet with the support of our local politicians, the life or death of the club is in their hands. If they fail to support Barnet FC, then the club may have to look outside of Barnet to ensure its future and that is hard for me to admit, as I have spent years fighting to ensure its future here in Barnet! Being homeless could ultimately mean the death of our club. Recent developments have put Barnet's survival on a knife edge.”

This review was originally featured on squarefootball.net on the 16th June 2006.