For the Athenian League’s second season, there were three new clubs; Hastings & St Leonards, Luton Clarence and Metrogas. Metrogas are still around and currently play in the Kent County League, while Hastings are an early predecessor of Hastings United.
Barnet & Alston opened up their Athenian League season with a goalless draw at home to TufnellPark. The Barnet side that day was; W Bowden, H Vinson, T Saggers, A Sawyer, A Maydell, AG Howell, P Chandler, G Godfrey, A Puddephat, S Hayes, G McQuire. The line up was quite changed from the previous season with only Saggers, Maydell, Howell and Chandler having been regulars from the previous season. Walter Allen missed the game as he had been chosen to play for the Athenian League against champions, Catford Southend. HE Smith had a badly poisoned leg and missed out as well and some other players were not available due to ‘restrictions’ made by WestminsterCollege.
However, Smith returned for the Herts Charity Cup Semi Final against HertfordTown, of the East Herts League, which B&A won 4-0 with two goals from Percy Chandler and one apiece from S Hayes and Smith.
B&A progressed through the Preliminary Round of the FA Cup by defeating Luton Trinity 3-0 at Underhill and a fortnight later beat CheshamTown 4-0 with Percy Chandler scoring a hat trick in the 1st Qualifying Round.
After winning an early trophy, by defeating St Albans 5-0 in the final of the Herts Charity Cup (Chandler grabbing another hat trick), B&A took three matches to dispose of Page Green Old Boys, an Edmonton based side, before finally winning 1-0 at White Hart Lane, Hayes grabbing the winner. However, the next round saw B&A go out of the FA Cup at the hands of fellow Athenian League club, Luton Clarence who won the 3rd Qualifying Round tie 3-2 at Luton.
B&A also were playing in the London senior Cup and they were drawn to play At home to Kingstonian in the 3rd Qualifying Round. The game ended in a 3-3 draw but the Barnet club made amends with a 2-0 win in Kingston with goals from Chandler and Hayes.
In the next round they met Athenian League champions, Catford Southend but went out 3-1 after having drawn the original tie 1-1 at Underhill. The defeat took place just three weeks after B&A had defeated Catford 2-1 at Underhill in the Athenian League with goals from Smith and Hayes.
Barnet were not performing particularly well in the Athenian League, the win over the champions being a rare one interspersed with defeats at the hands of Grays, Chelmsford and Luton Clarence, the latter a heavy 5-1 loss early in the new year. Athenian League games were not frequent though with most of the first half of the season being taken up with cup matches.
The week before the defeat at Luton Clarence, B&A played their opening FA Amateur Cup game at Underhill against Slough who played in the Great Western Suburban League. They progressed comfortably, winning 5-0 with Godfrey scoring 4 goals. This was despite the fact that they began the game with 10 men, Percy Chandler missing his train. However, he did arrive at the game and came on after 10 minutes to take his place in the side.
A fortnight later, Chandler scored the winning goal in a 2-1 win against the 2nd Coldstream Guards at Windsor, maybe an ominous meeting given what was going to happen later on that year. In the 3rd round, B&A defeated Cardiff Corinthians 3-1 with goals from Purvis, Chandler and Smith and were drawn away against the Royal Army Medical Corps in the 4th round. Unfortunately they went down 3-1 with only a Percy Chandler goal to show for it.
B&A struggled in the Athenian League and spent much of the season in the bottom half and, at one point, were in danger of finishing at the bottom. Defeats to RomfordTown, Grays (who completed the double over B&A) and bottom club, CheshamTown (with midfield player, Purvis playing in goal) saw them tumble down the table. Home and away wins over Hastings & St Leonards and a 2-0 home win over Chelmsford (after the original match had been abandoned with B&A leading 2-1) were followed by three straight defeats against leading sides Tufnell Park (the eventual champions), Luton Clarence and Metrogas. However, the club ended the season in better shape winning four out of their last five league games to finish a respectable sixth in the Athenian League table. The main problem had been a lack of goals. They had scored only 32 league goals all season and only bottom club, CheshamTown scored fewer. They needed a regular goalscorer. However, the events of June 28th were to make these problems redundant as the world was plunged into the horror of the First World War. Athenian League football was suspended and did not return until 1919.
We will look at some later date at the period between 1914 and 1919, but, at this point, we will briefly touch on Barnet’s membership of the United Senior League of 1919 when the club, Barnet & Alston, finished 7th out of 8 clubs in a competition which included clubs such as Hampstead Town, Catford Southend, Tufnell Park and Wimbledon.
In the next part of this series we will look at season 1919/20 following the resumption of the Athenian league after the First World War when the club had dropped the Alston part of their name and had become Barnet FC.