Barnet entertain last season’s League One Champions, Charlton Athletic, tomorrow night for this season’s only pre season friendly at Underhill. And, of course, in all likelihood, the last pre -season friendly at this Underhill anyway.
Of course, new Bees’ head coach, Mark Robson has connections with the South London club having coached there and Barnet new boy, Freddie Warren arrived from the Valley. There have also been a number of players who have played for both clubs including Gary Breen, Dean Sinclair, Aswad Thomas, Josh Wright, Barry Fuller, Adam Gross, Garry Poole, Colin Powell, Nicky Bailey and, of course, leading scorer at Underhill for the last two years, Izale McLeod.
Nearly three years ago, the last two, Bailey and McLeod scored for Charlton in their 4-1 home victory over the Bees in the 2nd round of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy after Barnet had gone ahead through John O’Flynn. The following season, the two clubs met in the 1st round of the FA Cup at Underhill and played out a goalless draw and Charlton won, rather fortunately, if truth be told, the replay 1-0 at the Valley, with McLeod making his Barnet debut as a substitute.
The two clubs first met in 1992 in the 3rd round of the FA Cup with Charlton winning 3-1 at Underhill, Mark Carter scoring for the Bees in their first ever league season after winning the Conference title in 1991. Three years later, the two clubs met in the two-legged 1st round of the Coca Cola (League) Cup, Charlton winning 2-0 on aggregate.
Tomorrow night will give Barnet fans who have not travelled to the away friendlies the chance to see the new signings including the two most recent ones, Jon Nurse and Anthony Edgar who both scored twice on Saturday. The likely scenario is that only three players, Jack Saville, Mark Byrne and Ricky Holmes, who played in the Burton Albion match at the end of last season will start for the Bees against Charlton though Clovis Kamdjo is likely to play at some point in the game. It will also be a chance to more fully access the new signings and how the team is gelling against much tougher opposition than the players have hitherto played against so far this summer. Kick off is 8pm.