Back from Saturday's local derby

Was at Barnet vs Wealdstone yesterday. My second visit to the Hive, the first being five years ago when City won 5-0 with a very strong u23 team in the Checkatrade Trophy. It’s my most local ground, I walked from Kenton, only took 25 minutes. Wealdstone used to own rights to the ground but the company building the stadium went under, leaving the ground half completed. Barnet stepped in via some shall we say “interesting” dealings with Harrow Council leaving the Stones around £400k out of pocket and many years of work and planning down the drain.

Barnet now play in the ground having moved from Underhill, but the Hive is soulless, the mute home support numbered 700 maximum despite the official attendance of 2248 of which 850 were away fans. Although they may stay in the conference this season – as a club they’re in real trouble if my visit yesterday was anything to judge them by.

This was a huge game for the Stones playing in the ground that they should have been using. I think the game was closure for the fans, they won easily enough, visited the ground for the first time and can now move on in their new home in Ruislip where they are attracting new fans from.

As regards the City connections, Aston Oxborough is on loan at Barnet after an excellent season at Wealdstone two years ago. He didn’t have great game, and should have prevented the Stones first. From social media comments he’s not pulling up any trees at Barnet, but of course he missed most of whole last season due to a very nasty achilles injury. The Barnet right back was one of their players who impressed, Jordon Thomas who was part of the City u21 before leaving at the end of last season.

Posted By: KentonCanary, Feb 13, 21:22:18