Following on from our article about the plight of Doncaster Rovers and Luton Town we bring you another story about a Club in crisis this time, Barnet Football club. Again, the reason is not because we have any connection with Barnet but because we care about football.

If you’ve seen the plans for Stadium 2000, our new ground that’s going to be built on the old gas works site; you won’t have failed to be impressed.  The sliding roof and the retractable pitch are state of the art.  And the plans to build in a complete leisure complex are excitingly ambitious.  Spare a thought then, for Barnet.

Barnet are having all sorts of problems.  They desperately need to find a new ground in 9 months time or they will be history.  In the time that it takes to create a life, a football club that’s the living soul of a community could be destroyed.  This is not a new problem, Barnet have been living with this for about four years.  And the Government are dragging their feet and washing their hands of the whole affair.  The same ‘New Labour’ Government that pledged to bring football back to the fans.  The same one that promised to look at ways of re-introducing terracing.  They have sadly failed Barnet.

Barnet fans are not to be beaten easily, though.  They have formed an action group called ‘Keep Barnet Alive’.  Their chairman, Mike Edwards, has been working hard to try to bring Barnet’s plight to the attention of the media.  He is doing some good work.

On Saturday 17th July he organised a protest outside Downing Street.  With only three weeks to get the word around he managed to attract 700 supporters from clubs all around England.  Yours truly went along, proudly wearing her City shirt to show some moral support.  This wasn’t just about Barnet, it was about football.  It was about giving football back to the fans and supporter solidarity.  Barnet aren’t the only club in a predicament like this.  Chesterfield and Cambridge are also having planning problems.  Luton are also in a mess.  Brighton fans were being forced to do ridiculous round trips to get to home games.  And Wimbledon are being pressured into looking at Dublin (no, not Dion) as a serious location for their home games.

Barnet found themselves a decent site for their new home.  They had plans to build a new 10,000-seater stadium on the Copthall athletics track in Mill Hill.  These plans had been approved by the local Labour council, only for the Government to overturn them after a public inquiry.  Apparently the local residents (who are quite posh in those parts) didn’t fancy the idea of a football stadium in their back yard.  Although Athletics and Rugby were OK.  They obviously have more snob-value.

The Government claimed the application was refused because it was on green belt land.  And strangely there seems to be a different law for athletic and rugby grounds than there is for football stadia.  Barnet fans had more cause for anger when they discovered that the sites chosen by the Premier League’s Arsenal and Southampton for new stadia had been accepted on green belt land.  To say they feel there is someone out to get them would be an understatement.

So the demonstration at the end of Downing Street that hot Saturday in July was a very vociferous one.  It kicked off at 3pm; the traditional Saturday afternoon start time.  The target for the fans anger was John Prescott.  He was the man responsible for quashing the Copthall plans.   There were many chants directed at him.  ‘Who killed all the clubs, who killed all the clubs?  You fat bast***d, you fat bast***d, you killed all the clubs.’   There were also plenty of people holding up banners which read ASHAMED TO VOTE LABOUR.  Hoping that the threat of withdrawing votes might spur the Government into action.  The chants continued.  One not really suitable for such a warm afternoon, but which proved popular was ‘Jump around if you hate Prescott’.  It was quite amusing to see all these supporters standing opposite Downing Street jumping about and singing like crazy.  Reports in the paper that week about Mr Prescott Senior also falling out with young John sparked chants of Even your Dad doesn’t like you, Your Dad doesn’t like you’ to the tune of Guantelamera.

More than one open-topped bus went by, kindly slowing down so the occupants could get their photographs of Downing Street.  Only for the passengers to be more interested in getting a shot of the brightly coloured supporters on the other side of the road.   A very amusing sight for the tourists, I’m sure.  You can hear the loud-trouser-wearing Americans now ‘Gee, are those the soc-cer hooligans we’ve seen on TV?’

It was reassuring to see so many fans decked out in their various clubs’ shirts.  There were supporters from Ipswich, Brighton, Arsenal, Luton, Manchester United, Wimbledon, Crystal Palace, Tottenham Hotspur, Sheffield United and surprisingly Harrow and Wealdstone to name but a few.  All fans united in their protest and wanting to make their power felt and actually do something.  At 3:45pm a solitary drummer banged a slow, funeral dirge.   Some supporters of Barnet FC carried a coffin decked out in the club’s orange and black colours across Whitehall and laid it at the entrance to Downing Street.  They were accompanied by some other Barnet fans bearing wreaths also in the clubs colours with the inscription ‘Barnet FC – R.I.P.’ In a great showing of unity the Man United fans had also brought along a wreath, in red, black and white bearing the same sentiment.  It was a great moment for football supporters.

There was plenty of reporters there.  Even more photographers.  And just for good measure a TV News Crew.  Yet I’ll bet you never heard a word about it.  Mike Edwards is very aware of this and is still working to try to get things done.  He is bombarding John Prescott and Chris Smith (the head of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport) with letters, telephone calls and e-mails.  Both are claiming it’s not their responsibility and trying to pass the buck to the other.  The upshot of that being that Mike is getting passed from pillar to post and not getting any answers.  He finally contacted Tony Blair who informed him that it was Chris Smith who had the responsibility for looking at their campaign.  Still no word from Chris Smith, though.

This is only the tip of the iceberg in the way that Barnet have been mistreated by the authorities.  They were told to improve their ground by a Football Association Inspector and were given the plans to use for the improvements by the FA.  Only when they had finished the work and spent £200,000 were they told by the very same Inspector that the changes weren’t good enough and their ground capacity would have to be reduced.  They are the only league club to have a capacity of less than 6,000.  This season it will be less than 1,000 due to the FA’s outrageous demands.  Both Macclesfield and Exeter have stadia in a more decrepit state than Underhill and yet the FA are happy to let them continue with their capacities.

We can all help Barnet.  We can all make a difference to all the clubs struggling in the same way they are.  The Government is very concerned about Manchester United pulling out of the FA Cup for one season.  Yet seem oblivious to the fact that several clubs are in serious danger of going to the wall.  One day a Premier League club will fold and it is only then when the authorities will sit up and take notice.  Let’s not let it get to that.  Afterall, it could be us.

Mike Edwards is planning another march on October 24th.  This time he is hoping to get 100 fans from all clubs.  He plans to march from Marble Arch to Downing Street in a bid to force the Government to take action.  Put it in your diary.  Football needs you.