Alberto7 Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Hi all, I was in London a couple of weeks ago and caught the Barnet vs Wrexham game(league 2) on Saturday March 4th. I thought I would share my impressions of the game. Stadium: Underhill stadium (near the High Barnet tube station) looks like it was built in the 1930s and upgraded somewhat. Very old metal roof on the covered parts. Four stands. One main standing stand and one main seated stand(that includes a family section) on the sides of the pitch(both covered). Behind one of the goals is the away supporters stand (all seated and uncovered) and behind the other goal is a small uncovered standing only stand. Capacity is listed at 4,057 (according to Footballsquads.com) but I can't see how they would get that many in there. Attendance was 2,127 and we were pretty packed where I was standing. Pitch is very close to the stands and in very good shape. Some of the stands back onto backyards of a row of houses. A hard kick could easily go over the stand and smash a window or two! Overall impression. Really crappy decrepit stadium. Hardly worthy of League football in England. Cost: 17 pounds for the main seated stand. 14 pounds for the family section. 13 pounds to stand in the main part and 11 pounds to stand behind the goal. OK but the quality of the stadium leaves a lot to be desired. Fans: A bunch of lunatics(and I'm being kind). Seriously. Everyone we talked to was very friendly and helpful but boy do they ever scream and yell about every little thing. They scream at every call that goes against their team. They scream at every move made by the opposing team. They scream at the ref for basically existing . They scream at their players for not playing well or for muffing a chance here and there. They swear non-stop and yell at all the players. We found this quite humorous and tried not to laugh but there was one moment where I did not laugh one bit when a fan behind me said some very derogatory remarks about the Welsh supporters(Wrexham is in Wales, in case you didn't know). You simply would not get away with that sort of thing in Canada at any sporting event in this day and age. Overall-Very spirited bunch with a couple of a**holes who spoilt it by saying racist things. The game and the players: Very good level of soccer, especially by Wrexham. Excellent pace if a little uncreative(too many long balls for my liking). Barnet players went up 2-0 pretty quickly but were very lax defensively and allowed Wrexham to tie the game. The second goal by Wrexham was a direct result of a Barnet defenseman not covering his player very closely. I would compare the level of play to what you see in the USL Divison 1. I'm sure the Impact could have beaten Barnet but they would have had a fight on their hands against Wrexham. Overall-good soccer, especially the pace. Final thoughts: the team is a little disorganized. We arrived 10 minutes late(my fault for not realizing that the distance to cover by tube was greater than I thought)and could not get into the seated areas since they had closed(we had to go to three sections of the stdium before someone told us this). We had to therefore go to the main standing stand. This was ok as we had a great view of the game but my legs got tired after standing for 90 minutes on concrete. Enjoyed the soccer and most of the fans but was very disturbed by the few racist idiots. Vedict: thankfully it only cost me 13 pounds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaku_bert Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 are you a fan of either clubs or was it just the only game in town for that day? thx for the story! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alberto7 Posted March 15, 2006 Author Share Posted March 15, 2006 quote:Originally posted by shaku_bert are you a fan of either clubs or was it just the only game in town for that day? thx for the story! I am not a fan of either team. This was one of only a few games to be played while I was in London. I could have gone to see West Ham in the EPL but I was stunned to see just how much the tickets cost. I don't really follow one team in England so going to see Crystal Palace or Millwal in the CCC didn't interest me. BWA(Blue and White Army) let me know that this team was playing so I went there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alberto7 Posted March 15, 2006 Author Share Posted March 15, 2006 quote:Originally posted by shaku_bert are you a fan of either clubs or was it just the only game in town for that day? thx for the story! I am not a fan of either team. This was one of only a few games to be played while I was in London. I could have gone to see West Ham in the EPL but I was stunned to see just how much the tickets cost. I don't really follow one team in England so going to see Crystal Palace or Millwal in the CCC didn't interest me. BWA(Blue and White Army) let me know that this team was playing so I went there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alberto7 Posted March 15, 2006 Author Share Posted March 15, 2006 quote:Originally posted by Sigma Thanks for posting your thoughts of the game. You would be stunned how much a ticket costs for the CCC as well. At least Leicester City offers 10 pound tickets for students, but even then I don't go too often. Yeah, I did some research before I left and saw the high prices for the CCC teams so that also influenced my decision. The other thing is that I travelled with a friend who is not a soccer fan and I could not ask him to pay a steep price to see a game and I certainly was not going to pay for two tickets at those prices. As it was, we enjoyed what we saw at Barnet and paid a reasonable amount. I don't know if it is clear from my report, but the game ended in a 2-2 draw. One final bit of fun I forgot to mention. At one point Barnet kicked the ball out of bounds near where we were standing. The Wrexham player picked up the ball and was going to throw it in when the ref signalled to him to move closer to the corner as he was too far from the spot where the ball went out. The fans were screaming and yelling at him to pick up the pace so he picked up the ball moved over and turned around to look at the fans and mimed "is this where I should take the throw in" before throwing it in. Well, the fans wents nuts swore at him and called him every name in the book. I don't think he did it sarcastically but the fans would have none of it and let him have it. I had a good laugh with that one. I found some good pictures of the stadium at the following link: http://www.duesselhopper.de/barnetfc.htm Trust me, nothing has changed in the way it looks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alberto7 Posted March 15, 2006 Author Share Posted March 15, 2006 quote:Originally posted by Sigma Thanks for posting your thoughts of the game. You would be stunned how much a ticket costs for the CCC as well. At least Leicester City offers 10 pound tickets for students, but even then I don't go too often. Yeah, I did some research before I left and saw the high prices for the CCC teams so that also influenced my decision. The other thing is that I travelled with a friend who is not a soccer fan and I could not ask him to pay a steep price to see a game and I certainly was not going to pay for two tickets at those prices. As it was, we enjoyed what we saw at Barnet and paid a reasonable amount. I don't know if it is clear from my report, but the game ended in a 2-2 draw. One final bit of fun I forgot to mention. At one point Barnet kicked the ball out of bounds near where we were standing. The Wrexham player picked up the ball and was going to throw it in when the ref signalled to him to move closer to the corner as he was too far from the spot where the ball went out. The fans were screaming and yelling at him to pick up the pace so he picked up the ball moved over and turned around to look at the fans and mimed "is this where I should take the throw in" before throwing it in. Well, the fans wents nuts swore at him and called him every name in the book. I don't think he did it sarcastically but the fans would have none of it and let him have it. I had a good laugh with that one. I found some good pictures of the stadium at the following link: http://www.duesselhopper.de/barnetfc.htm Trust me, nothing has changed in the way it looks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheeta Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 Great story. Sounds as though you really enjoyed yourself. The ticket prices may be a bit scary with the exchange rate and what not, but I'm quite sure at 13 pounds the locals can easily live with the price. What's a Lynx ticket? 15 bucks or so? How about for the 'Caps? Probably more. It's all relative I guess. Sort of lets you know what a value some of those Impact tickets really are. Grassroots footie the way it was ment to be. Affordable tickets, locals passoniately supporting their lads and the venue as a support for the attraction and not as the attraction. Great stuff. That being said there really are a lot of so-so grounds out there. Usable but certainly not up to modern expectations. But a surprising large number of grounds have been improved over the last decade or so. Sometimes in a helter-skelter fashion, especially the smaller venues, but improved all the same. That has to say something for those communities and the way the people who live in them identifying with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desigol Posted March 16, 2006 Share Posted March 16, 2006 Arsenal's Reserves play in Underhill! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue and White Army Posted March 18, 2006 Share Posted March 18, 2006 Alberto, sorry I didn't reply to your email sooner. Hope you enjoyed the occasion! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alberto7 Posted March 20, 2006 Author Share Posted March 20, 2006 quote:Originally posted by Blue and White Army Alberto, sorry I didn't reply to your email sooner. Hope you enjoyed the occasion! No worries. I had a very busy time in London and enjoyed every second of it, including (as you can tell from my review) the Barnet game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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