By Adam Blenford

Underhill's sloping pitch is proving problematic for Barnet

The champagne should already be on ice at Underhill.

Four years after being relegated from the Football League, Barnet are closing in on the Conference title and a return to the big time.

Paul Fairclough's free-scoring side have led from the front this season, and head into the Easter weekend 16 points clear of second-placed Halifax Town with just eight games to play.

After losing form - and three games in a row - during February, the Bees have bounced back with three successive league wins, the last a 7-1 thumping of strugglers Farnborough Town.

But behind the scenes the club and supporters are fighting the latest chapter in a decade-long battle to upgrade or replace their dilapidated Underhill ground.

New league regulations effectively require the club to flatten Underhill's famous slope within three years or find somewhere else to play football.

But correcting the slope would force major rebuilding work at Underhill, judged unsuitable for redevelopment because of its protected Green Belt status.

Years of efforts by the club to build a new stadium within Barnet have so far amounted to nothing.

Plans to redevelop Copthall athletics stadium were quashed by John Prescott, while a scheme to build a new ground on land adjacent to the current site was scotched when the current local Conservative-controlled council was elected in 2002.

In late 2003 the club announced plans to redevelop Underhill to meet minimum criteria demanded by the Football League, in return for council help finding a new permanent home.

But even though local residents have backed the plan, Barnet approach promotion still uncertain about their future.

Bees fans are not entirely happy - despite the success of Paul Fairclough

On Saturday, even as they celebrated their 7-1 win, about 1,000 Barnet supporters picked up banners and placards and marched in protest through the centre of the town.

Marshalled by the Keep Barnet Alive campaign, a vocal fans group that accuses the local council of "playing politics with football", the supporters delivered a passionate message to the local politicians they strongly suspect have never quite liked having a football club in their back yard.

"This means that the council can't ignore us because we have had enough," said KBA head Janet Matthewson, who organised the march and delivered a letter from fans to the local Conservative association.

"Barnet FC is a community club that has been in the borough for over 100 years. All we are asking for is an end to the continual mistreatment of the club by local politicians to help secure our future."

Other fans were equally quick to defend the football club's position as a community asset.

"It's a shame that while most councils support their local football clubs this one does not," said Mark Lipman, a Barnet fan for over 15 years.

That is a view backed by club chairman Tony Kleanthous, who has watched fellow Conference clubs build new, modern stadiums with an eye on the future.

"Stevenage Borough had their whole stadium paid for by their council. Burton Albion, Northwich and Gravesend are all building new grounds," says Kleanthous.

"When we were in the Football League we watched all the clubs pass us by and that is still happening here in the Conference."

Officials at Barnet believe that Underhill's limited and outdated facilities conspire to keep attendances low despite achievements on the pitch.

For me the sun hasn't shone here since we were relegated Barnet chairman Tony Kleanthous

But they deny reports that designs for a new stand on the south edge of the ground include plans for a pub, hotel or nightclub on site.

And they stress that time is fast running out: a �400,000 grant towards the cost of the stand has been approved by the Football Trust but cannot be released until the club has planning permission from the council.

After two failed planning applications, the club has been reluctant to submit another without some kind of guarantee.

The council, by turns, insists no plans can be 'pre-approved', leaving both camps reluctant to make the first move.

A series of meetings have been held with the club in an effort to come to a compromise.

Conservative councillor Brian Salinger feels the two sides are nearing a short-term deal.

"I think we can find a solution, it just needs Tony Kleanthous to play his part too. The council can't determine a planning application it hasn't got," says the councillor, also a long-serving Bees fan.

He objects, though, to suggestions that the council is obliged to help the club find a site for a new ground.

"Looking for a site suitable for a football stadium in a borough like Barnet is difficult. The football club is a private organisation. It's not the council's responsibility to find them a site."

Representatives of the Conservative and Labour groups marched with Barnet fans on Saturday, raising hopes among supporters that a deal can be done.

Chairman Kleanthous wants to look forward to a second stint in the Football League, rather than back to four years of fighting over the stadium issue.

"I can barely find the words to sum up this season," he says.

"For me the sun hasn't shone here since we were relegated."