Home is where the heart is and the football
A return to the borough the shot in the arm for Barnet FC
Monday 19th February 2024. 12pm. As a Barnet fan you will remember that date and the time, the day and the time Tony Kleanthous announced that the Bees were heading back to Barnet.
I actually didn’t see it until around 20 minutes later, busy writing about more non-league football for programme columns and then picking up my phone to read the latest on social media.
Rarely am I ever speechless as I remarked on Twitter, I’m full of words, you all know that! The link crashed, I had to go to the main site to find out what the ‘Chairman’s Statement’ entailed. Was he about to announce he was stepping down? Was it just going to be some run of the mill announcement? Not in the slightest!
‘Plans are underway for Barnet FC to return to the borough’. Excuse me? Where did that come from? I will recall that when the club moved to The Hive, lock, stock and beer barrels TK did say ‘find me a plot of land we can build on and I’ll return us back’.
Now many of us took that with a large pinch of salt, ten years in Harrow with the sand timer seemingly running out further with each passing year. But, here within this very statement a top secret state of affairs for four years no less building up this plan to return and not just any old return, but to South Underhill the original site being a few feet away and to the point where he always wanted to be situated.
A 6-8000 capacity stadium, a training pitch, community access and a partnership with the school next door, and dialogue with the council over this time and a company appointed to start the planning application process.
The social media timelines and WhatsApp groups went nuts for a good couple of hours before they calmed down. I was as much in the dark as anyone whose followed the club for 30 years or 30 minutes, to keep something like this under wraps for that length of time must’ve taken some doing, even for those inside the club ‘in the know’.
Once the initial shock subsided it then opened up all manner of questions, how long, what happens to The Hive, is TK selling up, do we need to register our support of the plans etc. Let’s have a look at a few shall we.
It is very early days, there isn’t yet an application on the table. One would expect we’re quite a way down the line in terms of favourable acceptance. I mean, after all why release anything or everything without being confident of it moving through, that’s a waste of the last four years if that’s the case. Depending on the process, any hiccups to digest, any hurdles to navigate, anything from two to four years for a timeline.
TK also then runs a further gauntlet of vitriol if it’s a case of late bolting the stable door, would you yourself put you in that position? I pretty much say no, there’s genuine cause to understand it’s very positive.
The Hive. The money-spinner. It’s served it’s menial purpose to house the football club when Underhill become less viable year on year to constantly waste money on that wasn’t improving the stadium, it was patching it up.
Underhill was home, Underhill had character, Underhill was Barnet FC. Do I agree that the move should have happened without consultation? No. Do I agree that it safeguarded the club for the medium term? Yes. Do I believe there could have been communication over the years to keep the flame alive but on the backburner? Absolutely.
We’ll have people in all three camps here, some split between one or two, others firmly in one and that’s fine. However, back to The Hive. I believe there’s a 1% chance TK will sell the complex as we move back to the borough. The cash value is very sizable, it will have a functioning stadium, and everything else that comes with it making the cash to keep financing the football club.
There is plenty of speculation as to what happens to the stadium we currently use. What follows is my opinion and my opinion only. Not a chance it will be sold and realistically who in their right mind would buy a stadium in the middle of a complex like that?
If the land around is sold by TK for whatever reason in the future, where would that leave the stadium? My expectation is that it will be rented out, and let’s think outside the box here, it won’t be a rugby side. From what I can see those wanting or needing a ground are in the market to buy, can’t see that being an option for TK.
Nor is Wealdstone, even if it’s a tongue in cheek situation so where are we thinking then? Well, check into the Women’s Super League and Arsenal or Spurs Ladies. Whilst the former are ingrained at Boreham Wood, the latter are very nomadic but enjoyed their time at The Hive when they were tenants.
A stadium completely to call their own, no need to keep moving the branding and a home. But, let’s take that outside the box further and think two stops down the tube line, what price also a hub for the Lionesses when they are at Wembley? Opportunities…..
I wouldn’t rule out the NFL either. Whilst I would expect any London franchise to be housed at the ready Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, they need a training complex etc, another perfect scenario.
Now cast your mind back to the Q&A over the summer and TK’s words of 30 years is a long time to run a football club. At some stage and point in life he will step aside, it’s a staggering amount of time and whatever your thoughts of the man you have to be eternally grateful our club has never been mismanaged in all that time financially, plenty around us would give a limb for that.
Returning the club to the borough, with a training pitch and facilities to sustain itself makes it a viable sellable asset. You could buy the club today for £1 but all you would own is the wage bill and badge, nothing more. Moving back to Barnet with a stadium, there is a club to buy with its own ground and ways to make money, again another masterstroke from Tony or me playing devil’s advocate, I’ll let you decide.
I know some have thrown caution to the council coming out a day later and almost pouring cold water on the fire of the news on Monday. What I would say to that is, like The Hive stadium, think outside the box and the bigger picture.
They aren’t going to come out less than 48 hours later in full support of the plans. Imagine how that would look to every constituent in the borough from the word go, especially given the delicate political nature of the country as a whole.
Read a little between the lines, they’ve asked the club to provide details of how it benefits the community blah, blah, blah, what do you think TK has been undertaking for the past four years? That we can provide that would mean the council can then say they are satisfied it meets all their criteria and the hopeful green light.
You might say I’m very optimistic, that is me in a nutshell, always has been with everything in life, but sometimes you have to look beyond the black and white and find the golden nugget.
No doubt in the coming weeks and months there will be co-ordinated campaigns to support the application and that’s when the work starts not just for the club, but us as well and I am here lastly now to say get behind it, spare what time you have, I can push plenty through my medium’s as I’m sure others I know who write about Barnet with the same passion. As Badiel & Skinner and the Lightening Seeds almost sung…..’They’re going home, they’re going home, they’re going, Barnet’s going home.’
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With you in every comment, not for the first time we are on the same page.