Barnet vs York City
The National League has seen some epic title races in recent seasons. Despite representing the fifth tier of English football, teams that have been promoted from the National League have gone on to achieve real success in the football league. In the 2021/22 season, Stockport County won promotion to League Two after a heated title race against Wrexham ended with them finishing above the Welsh side by six points. A season later, Wrexham won the title and took the only automatic promotion spot, ending the season on 111 points, with Notts County finishing four behind them on 107 and eventually going up via the play-offs. Fast forward to today and Wrexham are third in League One, Stockport are just behind them in fourth and Notts County are fourth in League Two. What this shows is that the National League is full of talent, but only having one automatic promotion spot makes it an incredibly difficult league to get out of.
Barnet and York City are this seasons major promotion hopefuls and have both enjoyed massively successful seasons so far. Barnet narrowly missed out on promotion last season after facing the frustration and heartache of finishing second. In any other division, a second place finish would be celebrated with bottles of champagne after being promoted, but the only benefit that you get in the National League is a ‘bye’ into the semi finals of the play-offs and home advantage for the single legged semi final match. Barnet didn’t make that home advantage count however, losing at the Hive 4-0 to Sollihull Moors who booked their place in the final at Wembley.
While Barnet were battling it out for promotion, York City were locked in a relegation battle in the 2023/24 season. They ended up surviving the drop by three points with Torquay United going down instead. With a new American ownership, York were able to strengthen their team for this season and have been accused by some people for trying to ‘buy the league’, as other clubs such as Wrexham have done in recent years. Over the Summer they brought in several new signings such as Ollie Pearce, Joe Felix, Tyrese Sinclair and goalkeeper Harrison Male in an attempt to push themselves higher up the table. In my opinion though, you can’t really compare their spending to that of Wrexham’s who were splashing out on players in the football league, whereas York are giving players such as Ollie Pearce a platform to showcase their talents on a bigger stage.
Going into this anticipated fixture, Barnet were sat at the top of the league and four points ahead of York City in second. The summer signings have paid off for the Minstermen and they look in good shape for the remainder of the season. Barnet have also looked like an improved outfit, with fiery Irish manager Dean Brennan keen not to let last season’s failings repeat themselves. Brennan made a name for himself across the world of football earlier this season after a passionate interview following a home victory against Altrincham where he berated his own supporters for moaning about the team and their general lack of positivity. That interview was picked up on social media and he was lauded for his brutal, refreshing honesty. The relationship between Brennan and the supporters seems as strong as ever now, the fans have responded to the success that they have been seeing on the pitch and they are feeding off the manager’s passion.
Returning to Underhill
Barnet have been playing at the Hive in Harrow since 2013 after they moved from their home at Underhill which was later demolished in 2018. The Hive claims to be Europe’s largest football facility, with modern facilities and a very well maintained pitch. Despite having only three stands, the stadium has a capacity of 6,500 which is an adequate size for the support that the club currently get. Despite all of this, there is currently a strong fan movement to ‘Bring Barnet back’ to Underhill, in the North London Borough of Barnet. The identity of the club is inseparable from the Borough and the fans are desperate to move back there.
As I was exploring the Legends Bar during my trip to the Hive, I came across many fans wearing coats and jackets covered in ‘Bring Barnet back’ badges. As well as this, A4 paper posters with QR codes that linked to the website for the movement were scattered around the vicinity of the stadium, placed on the tables in the bar and even hung up in the toilets. The movement has so far been successful as club chairman Anthony Kleanthous has announced his intention to move the club back to the Borough of Barnet. Along with this, planning applications for the New Underhill stadium have been submitted, which features a 6,000-8,000 capacity stadium, a training pitch and two multi-use games facilities. If you wish to read more about the proposed move then check out the New Underhill website: https://newunderhill.com/index.html.
Players in focus
Barnet- Callum Stead:
Callum Stead signed for Barnet from Brackley Town last summer after shining in the National League North and guiding them to a third place finish, winning the managers, players and supporters player of the season all in one go. Stead started his career at Biggleswade Town and has risen through the leagues playing for Hitchin Town, South Shields and Kettering Town along the way. He’s been picked out as our player in focus for Barnet due to his immense work rate, attacking threat and versatility to play off either wing or through the middle as an out and out centre forward. So far this season he’s scored 10 goals and managed 5 assists in 31 games for the Bees, showing that he has the quality to play in the National League, and perhaps even higher.
York- Ollie Pearce:
Ollie Pearce originally made a name for himself down on the South coast playing for Worthing FC. The striker spent six years at Worthing and during his time there he was a goal scoring machine. Pearce scored 155 goals in 245 appearances for The Rebels, managing to fire them to promotion from the Southern Premier Division. He showed that his goal scoring touch wasn’t just tuned to step three football, as he adapted to step two football astonishingly well, firing in over 30 goals in his first season in the National League South, and an incredible 46 goals in 51 games in all competitions last season. Erling Haaland eat your heart out. Since signing for York, Pearce has made another substantial jump look easy, smashing in 18 goals in 30 appearances so far this season in York’s promotion bid.
The match
This top of the table clash at the Hive was set to be a cracker, with two in-form teams gunning for promotion in front of over 4,000 fans, over 1,000 of which had made the 200 mile trip from York for. The excitement could be felt as I took my seat in the Legends stand for kick off. Before the game I predicted a 3-2 Barnet win and I wasn’t far off in the end, although I definitely expected a closer, more end-to-end type of match.
It was evident from the first five minutes that the home side were up for it. The high press that had been adopted by Dean Brennan was working wonders, thanks to the energy and tenacity of those Barnet attackers, namely Idris Kanu, Lee Ndlovu and Callum Stead. Behind those three sat Ryan Glover and Rhys Browne who added another layer of intensity, both working just as hard as the forwards and winning challenges in high areas of the pitch. York were pinned into their own half and they couldn’t find a way out.
Barnet’s high press came to fruition early on in the game as Lee Ndlovu put goalkeeper Harrison Male under pressure and won the ball off of him which deflected into the path of Rhys Browne. The midfielder had a open goal staring at him but somehow he dragged his shot wide. This was a huge early let off for York as thousands of Barnet fans held their heads in their hands, but it was a lesson that City wouldn’t learn from.
The first goal came after 16 minutes and unsurprisingly, it was Barnet who scored after totally dominating the early stages of the game. A corner was kept alive by striker Lee Ndlovu, who ended up getting the assist as defender Adebola Oluwo prodded the ball past the keeper to make it 1-0. The goal sparked wild scenes in the Legends stand as the importance of this game was understood by everyone in attendance. It wasn’t looking good for York who had hardly threatened the Barnet defence for the entirety of the first half, they responded by taking off midfielder Daniel Batty for a bulky target man in Josh Stones in an attempt to try and find an attacking outlet, as it was clear they were not going to beat the Barnet press. They had to find a plan B.
Lee Ndlovu was causing York City all kinds of problems, the powerful forward used his strength and movement to bully his way past defenders time and time again. He was the man to double Barnet’s lead six minutes into the second half, the goal came from a classy move that typified Barnet’s all round fluid and effective attacking play. A long ball sent forward was cleverly flicked on by Callum Stead straight to the feet of Rhys Browne, who quickly laid the ball off to Ryan Glover, before he sent through a ball that sliced open the York defence and fell into the path of the onrushing Lee Ndlovu. Ndlovu finished from a tight angle and celebrated by sprinting over to the home supporters and embracing them. It was a goal that his performance more than deserved.
A third goal came six minutes after the second, captain Anthony Hartigan whipped in a dangerous looking free kick that ended up going all the way into the net to give Barnet an unassailable lead. Belief and optimism swarmed out of the Hive as chants of ‘We are top of the league’ and ‘The Bees are going up’ echoed across the three stands. Some of the away supporters had seen enough, their side had still barely threatened the Barnet goal and a game that was dubbed as a clash of the best two teams in the league had turned into one-way traffic.
Barnet didn’t manage to score again despite having a host of chances. On another day they could’ve had five or six. The York fans who stayed saw their side muster their only attacking flurry of the game in the last five minutes, and they managed to score a consolation goal through Malachi Fagan-Walcott after a deep cross wasn’t dealt with by the Barnet defence. Overall though it was a hugely underwhelming performance from York City who never got going, I had been looking forward to seeing Ollie Pearce’s goalscoring exploits first hand, but his team created no chances for him whatsoever and as the game wore on he was forced to drop deeper and deeper to get any touches of the ball.
On the final whistle Barnet’s 3-1 win was confirmed and they gained three valuable points in the race for the title. It was a truly top performance from the home team whose perfect blend of attacking football was too much for York to handle. It was hard to choose given how well Barnet played but my personal man of the match went to Ryan Glover who I thought was excellent from start to finish, impressing not only with his tenacity but also his composure and vision on the ball. Based on what I saw at the Hive on Tuesday night, Barnet would not look out of place at all in the football league.
Despite the defeat York City fans shouldn’t be too downbeat, they are still in a strong position with two games in hand on Barnet which if they win would see them go just one point behind the Bees. It is still all to play for but that win will be a massive psychological boost for Dean Brennan’s men, and the performance levels show that Barnet are not here to mess around. If they can continue to replicate that level of performance, then they will surely be a League Two side come August. This was my first experience of the National League and I have to say it was thoroughly enjoyable. It is a league that goes under the radar but when you really delve into it you notice that it’s filled with some great clubs, quality football and passionate fans.
Written by Joe Horne
