Barnet
This guest page in our otherwise second division
pub guide will be briefer than most. You see, I’ve never been to Barnet. Never even
been near it. Never been through it. Barnet, where London finally peters out into the
bland anonymity of the ghastly home counties, is not the sort of place you go to, unless
you actually live there. Except when your team happens to play there. As it happens, we
haven’t done that since 1993, and I moved to London in 1994. Before then, I
considered Burnley to London as simply too far to travel, ironically enough, given that
I’ve done the reverse return journey too many times to think about.
I’m not even sure if Barnet is in London.
If it is, it’s North London, and this suburban town hardly fits the typical narf
London profile. Travel there by taking the desperate Northern Line to its very last stop.
Now you know you must be in the middle of nowhere. This is probably the sort of place
where the station doesn’t even have ticket barriers.
Emerge from High Barnet station onto the High
Street, a short distance north of Underhill, and take your chances. All guides describe
Barnet as football-friendly, which sounds encouraging at least. In case of any
difficulties, I will remind people of this site’s support of the Keep Barnet Alive
campaign (see below). There are probably the usual chain pubs to be found. The place has
at least two Wetherspoon’s that I know of, so perhaps it is North London after all,
as that group has taken beer into what was previously an aleless desert. Wetherspoon's
are, well, alright, but they're sometimes a bit funny about football shirts.
The more interesting sounding Wetherspoon’s
is the Railway Bell, which is listed in the new 2000 CAMRA Good Beer
Guide. However, for this hostelry, on East Barnet Road, you need New Barnet railway
station rather than the tube, on the line that goes out from King’s Cross and
Finsbury Park. Apparently from there it cannot be missed. This is some trek from the
ground, by the way.
There are a few other pubs in the CAMRA bible,
but as I’ve never been to any of them, I don’t feel qualified to recommend them.
I look forward to an afternoon’s post-match research.
The Keep Barnet Alive campaign
is a reaction to the fact that Barnet’s Underhill ground has been declared unfit to
stage league football. Unless they can find a place to build a new ground, they are
therefore living on borrowed time, and there’s not a lot of that left. They are, of
course, frustrated at every turn by NIMBYs and the politicians who suck up to them. It
therefore presents a classic story of how grassroots football is being encouraged to
expire at a time when the game at the higher level is richer than ever and hyped out of
all proportion. A worthy cause.
Firmo
Last updated 30 October 1999
Disclaimer
