This season is Alfreton’s fourth in the Conference National following their promotion, as champions, from Conference North in 2011. The Reds, who play at the North Street ground, finished 15th, 13th and 11th respectively in their first three seasons at this level.
Alfreton were formed in 1959 out of Alfreton Miners Welfare and Alfreton United and first played in the Central Alliance Division One before joining the Midland Counties League in 1961. The club were champions in 1970 and 1974 and again in 1977 in the expanded, Midland Counties League premier Division.
In 1982, the Midland Counties league and Yorkshire Leagues were merged into the Northern Counties East League and Alfreton, who had finished as runners up the previous season in the Midland Counties League, were placed in the Premier Division.
In 1987, Alfreton were champions and were promoted to the Northern Premier League Division One where they generally struggled for the first few seasons but in 1996 they won promotion to the Northern Premier League Premier Division after finishing runners up. However, the club struggled in the higher division and after narrowly escaping relegation straight back in 1997, successive relegations saw them tumble back into the Northern Counties East League by 1999.
The next couple of seasons saw the club fare better and in 2002 they were promoted back to the Northern Premier League Division One as champions and the following season, they repeated this feat by winning the Division One title and gaining promotion to the Premier Division.
This time around, the club were much more successful and after having finished 4th in the Premier Division, Alfreton were elected to the new Conference North, an amazing turnaround after the dark days of the late 90’s. The club took a few seasons to really consolidate their place in the new league but in 2009 and 2010 they finished 3rd and making the play-offs in both seasons before going up as champions in 2011.
Alfreton are managed by Nicky Law who took control in 2007 and has taken them to the top level of non-league football for the first time in their history.
Barnet and Alfreton Town met for the first time ever early last season at North Street in Alfreton and the home side won 3-1, Barnet’s goal coming from Curtis Weston.
The two clubs met at the Hive in the first home game of 2014 and the Bees won 1-0 with a brilliant goal from Dani Lopez.
This season, the two clubs met in a Conference match at the Hive and Barnet won 2-1 after going a goal down with late goals through Charlie MacDonald, from the penalty spot and Luisma Villa, whose stunning free kick has been voted Bees' goal of the season.
Players who have played for both Barnet and Alfreton include Nicky Deverdics who joined Barnet from Gretna in the summer of 2008 and made 51 appearances for the Bees, scoring 2 goals before being released in 2010. He had a spell at Alfreton in 2012 making 6 appearances.
John Akinde, voted Bees' player of the year this season, joined Barnet last summer from Alfreton. He has scored 30 goals for the Bees so far this season. Akinde joined Alfreton from Portsmouth and scored 18 goals for Alfreton last season.
Barnet also signed Alfreton winger, Dan Bradley in the summer but he failed to settle in London and Bees' manager, Martin Allen allowed him to return to Alfreton.