Barnet Football Club find themselves in a position whereby they're on the cusp of the play-offs with several games in hand. Unfortunately, if the league table was determined by hospitality, professionalism and supporter transparency instead, they'd be in a relegation battle. For the hundreds of Dagenham supporters in the vicinity of the Hive at the time that the game was scandalously called off on Tuesday night, it was a logic and belief defying farce of incredible proportions. For Barnet, however, it's the norm nowadays and perhaps that explains the attitude of the nonchalant and blasé stewards who it appears have been present for so many postponements recently that the effect of such a decision on both sets of supporters is neither comprehended nor appreciated. The worst thing about this situation is that it isn't Barnet's most embarrassing postponement of a season, it probably doesn't even make the top three. For a team with a modern sports complex that was supposed to signify their progression as a football club, the irony of it not being able to stage a game without a glorious heatwave is quite staggering. Tuesday night was just another day at the office at Barnet FC, and the haste with which the ground was cleared from around 7pm onwards just reinforces the lack of consideration around a club that seems so far away from the days of Underhill. The club have done a decent job of hiding behind both the referee and 75 year-old ex-manager Barry Fry, whose views on the postponement were aired in a baffling statement that has since been removed. Quite how a club who have called games off at 7.43pm and at half-time on separate occasions this season, have the audacity to question another man's ability to do his job is quite incredible, and a public statement openly slamming a match official epitomises the lack of professionalism shown by the club all night. On the decision itself, I do understand their frustrations somewhat because the pitch looked more than playable and postponing a game because of something that hasn't materialised yet is very odd; if the decision was made on the forecast alone I don't understand why it took until half 6 for it to be made as it had long been predicted that a downpour would occur during the game. However, the fact that the referee decided that the pitch was in such a vulnerable state that even a small dosage of rainfall would've rendered it unplayable, is an indictment of how atrocious the surface is. In spite of attempts to deflect the blame onto the referee, the fact remains that the state of Barnet's pitch and it's susceptibility to be destroyed by rainfall forced his hand. If it was a good pitch, the game would've gone ahead and you would imagine the pitch was barely playable at the time of postponement anyway, otherwise there would not have been such concern or worry from the referee about the impending forecast.
However, just as disappointing as the postponement itself was the fact that, upon entrance to the club bar, there were stewards and safety officers hastily shutting the blinds to prevent people looking at the pitch. I managed to take a picture of the surface before they did this, which went against the wishes of one of the staff members who said we couldn't look at or photograph the surface. There was no sympathy or understanding, and from what I gathered they weren't too keen on people sticking around for too long either. This, combined with other stewards openly laughing when the supporters' coach arrived, sums up a very inhospitable experience at a time where you would expect to be treated a little bit better as visiting fans, and indeed customers, to another team's home. Compared to Harrogate, Farsley and the many other clubs Barnet have inconvenienced this season, the disruption caused to us was minimal. However, I alongside many others still went over 30 stops on the District & Jubilee lines there and back for a journey that took the best part of two hours each way. That's part and parcel of non-league football in all fairness, and with Barnet's track record it was always a risk, however that doesn't reduce the frustration of seeing a game postponed when it was portrayed as if it was definitely going ahead. So we'll begrudgingly be back at the Hive at some point during the next couple of months, potentially a Thursday night given the backlog of fixtures awaiting the Bees. I wonder what time they plan on calling that one off.
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January 2024
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