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Since my favorite team <a href="https://worldsoccertalk.com/2015/04/25/watch-southampton-2-2-spurs-match-highlights-video/">Tottenham Hotspur were away to Southampton</a> this weekend, I decided to look elsewhere for my weekend soccer adventure. Since the two promotion chasing Championship sides (Watford and Brentford) were playing away from home, I decided to think outside the box. As it turned out, the team that is geographically closest to where I live in London, Barnet F.C., were at home for their final match of the season in the Vanarama Conference, the fifth tier of English football. Barnet were one point clear of Bristol Rovers atop the Conference and a win would ensure promotion back into the Football League.
Enticed by the possibility of a promotion party, I headed out to the London Borough of Edgware at the end of the Jubilee line to watch the Bees (as Barnet are known) take on mid-table Gateshead, a team that might be familiar to some Premier League supporters as they lost 7-0 at the Hawthorns to West Brom in this year’s FA Cup third&nbsp;round.
Barnet have an&nbsp;interesting history. Despite being founded in 1907, they did not reach the Football League until 1991. In 1993, they were promoted to the old Second Division (third&nbsp;tier) but almost went out of existence when&nbsp;the club went bankrupt and the players were&nbsp;unpaid throughout much of the season. They were relegated the next season and then relegated from the Football League altogether in 2001. They were promoted again in 2005 but relegated back to the Conference in 2013.
After the 2013 season, the borough of Barnet did not extend the club’s lease on the Underhill Stadium, which the Bees had called home for their entire 106 year history.
Despite the protests of the team’s small but fervently loyal fan base, the team moved six miles west to a new stadium in Edgware called The Hive. The team also shares close links with Arsenal as Arsenal used to use Underhill for reserve matches and the two clubs often met for preseason friendlies.
After exiting the Jubilee line at Queensbury, I could just barely make out the Wembley arch that towers over the 90,000 seat national stadium, which was quite a beautiful sight. Walking from Queensbury to the stadium, I noticed that unlike all of the other matches I had been to in England, it was not readily apparent that there was a major sporting occasion about to take place in the area. Every time I have been to Tottenham (or any other Premier League ground for that matter), the mile surrounding the stadium would be full of street vendors selling team merchandise, food and matchday scarves. Here, there were no signs of any of that and the people in Edgware seemed to be doing what they would normally be doing at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon.
The Hive is located in the middle of a large complex of football pitches that doubles as Barnet’s training complex. This was also a major difference from the other stadiums I have been to as all the Premier League stadiums in London are packed into residential areas with housing in the immediate vicinity of the stadium. Not so at The Hive.
My ticket for the match was on the unallocated South Terrace, which meant that I was forced to stand for the entire match. Soccer fans who have been going to matches since before Hillsborough would be very familiar with this arrangement, but this was the first time I have watched a match from a terrace and my only chance to experience what it was like back in the “good old days” (depending on who you ask).
The stadium was so small that three out of the four sides of the pitch only had about five or six rows of seating (or standing). There were many instances throughout the match where the ball went out of the entire stadium, which is not something that I see at the bigger grounds. In the backdrop of my view of the pitch was the Jubilee Line train tracks where trains came by every five minutes or so, which was a really pretty sight that reminded me of Shea Stadium in New York. The PA system also was not really functional as the speaker nearest to where I was standing kept cutting in and out so I did not hear any of the pre match announcements.
The atmosphere was palpable before the match as the fans were ready for a party. After a minute’s silence before the match to honor the 56 fans who died in the Bradford City fire of 1985, the fans let out a huge roar. But when the match kicked off, reality started to set in that Barnet would need to get the three points or hope that Bristol Rovers failed to win in order for that party to happen. And as a result, the opening exchanges were very nervy and there was not much singing on my terrace and most of the noise came from the seats in the stand to my left. Another nice addition to the atmosphere was a drum which basically dictated what was being sung by the fans and kept them all on tune.
Barnet were the better side in the beginning but besides a golden chance off a poor clearance by the Gateshead keeper, they failed to create much. The quality was obviously much lower than what I have been accustomed to watching but it was still quite interesting as the players had extremely unique skill sets. Some players were big, overweight and dynamos in the air while others were small but extremely skillful. These were the type of players that would make <a href="https://worldsoccertalk.com/podcasts/2010/billy-beane-interview-epl-talk-podcast-34993/">Billy Beane</a> glee with delight (those who fail the eye test but can be very effective in their own way).
Many of the supporters around me were cheering constantly for “Big John” (John Akinde), a career journeyman in the lower leagues who has scored 31 goals for Barnet this year &nbsp;and who overpowered defenders with his size throughout the match. With that being said, there were some moments of sublime quality, whether it was some nice skill or a perfectly placed thirty yard cross field pass.
The supporter next to me spent most of the first 20 minutes refreshing his phone as his friends asked him what seemed like every 30 seconds “what’s the score in Bristol?” to the reply of “Nil Nil” And 25 minutes in, he turned to his group of friend “1-0 to Bristol Rovers.” It was the last I would hear of Bristol Rovers for quite a while as about a minute later as Mauro Vilhete headed Barnet to a 1-0 lead and the crowd awoke again. The rest of the first half on the pitch was somewhat boring as Barnet continued to be on the front foot without creating much. And in the 42nd&nbsp;minute, I decided to beat the halftime rush for refreshments and had to say “excuse me”&nbsp;to about 10 people who were standing in the aisles of the terraces. While waiting in&nbsp;line for food, I heard many little kids around me discussing amongst themselves how excited they were for the post-match pitch invasion if/when Barnet won.
The second half began with Barnet attacked the goal in front of my terrace, and the ultras to my left greeted the Gateshead keeper with a ton of fresh unprintable abuse.
Four minutes in, Vilhete put Barnet two up and that is when the real promotion party started to begin. The celebrations for the second goal were so wild that the terrace underneath me began to shake from all of the supporters jumping up and down. I looked over to the stand to my right and realized that almost all the seats were empty as all the fans rushed towards the perimeter of the pitch at the second goal but soon they were back in their seats. Songs about “running away to the Football League,” “E-I-E-E-I-O, up the Football League we go!” and “if Barnet win, we’re on the pitch,” as well as an adaption of Millwall’s famous chant of “No one likes us, we don’t care,” which did not really make sense to me. Another chant that I found interesting was their version of “We are Barnet, Super Barnet” which ended with “from Underhill” which to me showed a resentment of the team’s current location and a yearning to move back to their home of Barnet.
The rest of the match on the pitch was a somewhat dull affair as Gateshead never really looked like getting back into it. Despite attaining more possession, they never really looked like scoring and I was more interested in the songs that the Barnet fans were singing.
The second half seemed to take forever. And around the 80th&nbsp;minute, the fans started singing the tune of the song “Final Countdown” to Barnet’s promotion. In the 85th&nbsp;minute, one of the guys around me pulled out his phone and laughed before announcing that Bristol Rovers were 6-0 up (they went on to win 7-0) but it was irrelevant now as Barnet were on their way into the Football League.
In the 88th&nbsp;minute, many fans in my terrace started gathering next to the perimeter fencing to prepare for the inevitable pitch invasion. What struck me most about this, however, was the demographic of these supporters. They were almost all between the ages of 15 and 20 years old. It was at this moment when I realized that I have seen very few soccer&nbsp;fans of that age at Premier League matches. Many simply cannot afford the expensive ticket prices,&nbsp;so most of the Premier League club supporters are middle-to-old-aged men with the occasional child who gets in for half price. For many of these soccer&nbsp;fans, Barnet is the only affordable option and if they grew up in the general vicinity of the club, they provide your bi-weekly entertainment for a cheap price.
In the corner of the pitch, four police officers had video cameras out filming the supporters for the inevitable pitch invasion to identify any potential ringleaders, which to be honest was kind of pointless because there were about five hundred of them so singling out one, two or even ten would be a bit harsh.
After four minutes of stoppage time, the full time whistle blew. Unfortunately, I did not hear the full time whistle and instead I just heard a huge roar and then the pitch enveloped with people coming from all angles. Within about 10 seconds, almost every inch of the pitch was covered with spectators celebrating jubilantly.
Soon enough I also made my way out onto the pitch to join in with the celebrations but felt a little bit guilty because Barnet are not really my team and I had never seen them play before that day,&nbsp;but the scenes were incredible. Fans hoisted other fans on their backs to film the scenes, which mostly consisted of fans hugging each other and singing songs about going up.
Next thing I knew the goalie was walking through the fans and I was able to hug him before the rest of the fans mobbed him and shoved the other fans in order to get close to him as the celebrations continued. After about ten minutes of this, the PA announcer told everyone to get off the pitch so they could continue with the trophy presentation. The fans roared as the players lifted the trophy and “We are the Champions!” blared over the PA system before the players paraded the trophy around the pitch. As the chairman came to where I was standing, he started to let some of the fans (including myself) touch the trophy, which is something you would never ever see in the Premier League.
For fans who feel that the core values of soccer&nbsp;have been abandoned in this global media age, they should really take a look into lower and non league football.
When professional soccer&nbsp;was created in the late 1800’s, its purpose was to provide affordable entertainment for the local community. As a result, football clubs became the identity of small towns and villages around England. The better the team did, the more prominent the town became. But no matter where the team was in the league pyramid, the fans would come out and support them every other Saturday.
Unfortunately with the advent of the Premier League era, some of these values have been lost in the higher reaches of the pyramid as the financial obsession takes its toll, but the further down you go the league ladder, the more you see soccer&nbsp;for what it was originally intended for — to provide affordable&nbsp;entertainment on a bi-weekly basis and to give members of a community something to rally around. These clubs and their fans know they will never be able to achieve the status of a team like Chelsea or Manchester United so they celebrate every small step of progress fervently because they never know when it’s going to go the opposite way.
I would definitely recommend a trip to Barnet (or any other non or lower league club) to anyone who has a real interest in what the real British game, devoid of billion dollar revenues, is like as there are quite a few pleasant surprises in store. I have been to almost thirty matches in England this season across three different divisions in six different competitions and I must say this was one of the most memorable. The quality of the players might not have been very good but everything else about my experience was phenomenal.
Editor’s note: Read <a href="https://worldsoccertalk.com/author/andrew-puopolo/">Andrew’s other articles</a> about&nbsp;his travels through Europe.
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An American travels to Barnet to experience club’s promotion

An American travels to Barnet to experience club’s promotion - World Soccer Talk

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