Barnet travel to St Albans City for their next pre season friendly tomorrow afternoon. St Albans city, now in the Ryman Premier League, are managed by the team of former Bees, Dave Howell and Ken Charlery. This fixture is a regular one most summers, but the two clubs have also met before in competitive fixtures, though not for league points.
These have mainly been in the Herts Senior Cup and the last occasion was back in 2008 when the Saints won 3-0. It was a rare win for the side from Clarence Park and the first since 1976 when goals by former Arsenal double winning star, Bob McNab and John Fairbrother were not enough to stop St Albans winning a 2nd round County Cup match 3-2.
The only non County Cup competitive meeting between the two sides was back in 1977 in the 3rd qualifying round of the FA Cup at Clarence Park with Barnet winning 4-2 with goals from Fairbrother, Gary Williams, Dennis Brown and one, Jimmy Greaves.
Most of the Herts Senior Cup meetings were in the early rounds with the exception of the one in 1993 which was in the semi-finals and the Bees won 2-1 with goals from Pat Gavin and Tony Lynch. Barnet went on to beat Watford 4-2 in the final.
St Albans have signed former Barnet star, Richard Graham who played such a large part in the Bees’ 2005 Conference title success. ‘Tricky Dicky’, who joined the Bees in 2004 from Kettering Town, made nearly 100 first team appearances for Barnet, scoring 8 goals before moving to Dagenham & Redbridge in 2007. I’m sure that he will get a welcome from travelling Barnet fans who could see two other former Bees in action; Ryan Watts and former Bees’ captain, Micah Hyde.
Barnet head coach, Mark Robson will include a number of trial players again and Bees’ fans will be looking out for a chance to see new striker, Jon Nurse in action. Barnet won a behind closed doors game against QPR at the Hive in midweek 1-0, the goal coming from Ricky Holmes.