30 years and one heck of a journey
Three relegations, two promotions, what price to level it up?
This season we are heading into Tony Kleanthous’ 30th year as Barnet FC chairman. Colourful, controversial, celebrations, covid are just a few of the words you can associate with the Bees owner and anyone you speak to will of course have an opinion of their own.
Tony has been at the club six months longer than I’ve been a supporter, I do feel old when I look at it like that but there are many around me who have been here longer and seen a lot more.
He arrived at the club days or hours after a time when the club reached its lowest ebb and had survived by the skin of their teeth to remain in the Football League, a time when they had reached the equivalent of today’s League One.
Through the dedication of a few but great people the club made it through just and having drawn Chelsea in the FA Cup, switching the tie to Stamford Bridge with Underhill unable to host the game for safety reasons, Kleanthous was announced although not registered as a director until April 1995 as records show.
That brought with it the arrival of a certain Ray Clemence at the same time, Gary Phillips having done a magnificent job of pulling the club together on the pitch sidelined for the former England keeper after that first Chelsea game.
Since that day and season however the club has never played at that level since, it is a mystery why. The proximity of the club to London and the Tube network gives an easy pick to take up those discarded by the top level clubs. Sometimes it has worked but not consistently and for a club that should be celebrating comfortable times in League Two at least.
You can pick out plenty of moments with a hint at least of controversy, the biggest being the move to The Hive which came without a supporters referendum in the end. No one can doubt the superb facility we have; it is the envy of many but for some will never be home.
One day the Bees might return to their home borough, the cost of everything in this day and age has the potential for putting the kybosh on that for good, only the future will tell us if it will.
Some managerial appointments were less than successful. Replacing good managers with less than adequate ones has probably led the club to where they are now, the likes of Tony Cottee, Harry Kewell, Graham Westley and Mark McGhee spring to mind.
But it’s not all gloomy is it? The club has bounced back from relegation and been promoted relatively quickly but not sustained itself properly, some of those names above culpable as is the man who appointed them.
Paul Fairclough and Martin Allen are in history with Barry Fry as champions, Dean Brennan is currently leading a revival of sorts amidst clubs with Hollywood owners and also those who like to spend a pound when making a penny.
No doubt Tony could throw money at it in order to get the club up again, but what if he did and it didn’t work? What if that became a decision to be ever prudent and keep within means? A National League for good unless one year a freak return came about?
There are times he’s admitted he’s taken his eye off the ball on the football side, no doubt it’s contributed to where we are today but there a couple of things I don’t think you can question but feel free to however.
His passion is still there, would you last 30 years doing something that you plough money into if the spark wasn’t there, even just a tiny bit? I think he finds it hard to have a manager on the same wavelength, one or two have been there or thereabouts, Brennan appears to be as close as or on it.
The second is not once in 30 years has the club been close to a financial tightrope since he took over. There are times where I feel the purse strings should have been loosened and other times where they should have been kept tighter.
I’m not here to say we could have had Ron Martin, the guys who drove Macclesfield or Bury into the ground or any other unscrupulous owners and that makes Tony a wonderful owner in light of those and others, imagine having been a Southend fan just for the past two years, we’ve not been anywhere close for three decades, sometimes you do have to be careful what you wish for.
For all the faults, for all the good times he’s human just like the rest of us and mistakes appear along the way. Not one of us is perfect, neither is he but he does provide us with a facility to attend if we choose and sometimes the club gets it right and very right and sometimes it gets it wrong and very wrong.
30 years is a long time anywhere, marriage, a job, a friendship, any kind of relationship, I wonder if going through his mind as we approach the new season what a way to mark it with another promotion that would be? Time will be the teller of course, but just maybe if we get to February/March maybe that wallet will open for a final push, we’ll have to see won’t we…….
Hi Trevor. Excellent sum up of those 30 years.
I think one has to point at the mess of marketing made and still made to this day over attendances.
To many instances to name, right up to the current season ticket issuing!
Interesting fact: did you know the BFC in the community building in Edgware Stonegrove doesn’t even have a Bees fixture list advert or cards available?! All the best for this season’s enjoyment to you.
I just feel Tony loves the club first and foremost, yes he has made appointments which have not worked mostly in regard to managers who did not understand the level of football we are at at present, but he is not their for the lime light even as Chairman he never pushes himself forward and he appears to be letting DB have his head which equals trust, always the fist step in any successful organization. I do feel we are in with a real chance this season if you think with the top two from last year gone we finished 3rd in the league last season and relegated sides do not often tear up any trees in their first year after relegation in the National League.