The return of one-time Barnet goalkeeper Mark Halsey as a Football League referee tomorrow - seven months after being diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer -- has lifted the Bees' game in hand against Accrington Stanley into the national media spotlight in a midweek of top European football.

The 48-year-old ref, a native of Hertfordshire who turned out for the Bees in the 1980s during 12 years of playing non-league soccer, has undergone intense surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy but has now recovered and passed the fitness test for professional officials and has officiated at three reserve games.

Halsey trained with the Bees at Potters Bar to keep himself prepared for top flight games earlier in his refereeing career.

Former Tottenham Hotspur manager Peter Shreeves, back with Barnet helping manager Ian Hendon, will welcome meeting up again with Halsey at Accrington. They first met when Shreeves was the youth team coach at Spurs and Halsey was a young hopeful goalie.

Shreeves had to tell Halsey, like hundreds of other youngsters hoping to make the grade at White Hart Lane, that he should pursue his career elsewhere.

"He was a smashing lad", said Shreeves today. "Now he is a smashing man".

The pair have met regularly when Shreeves has been performing a match delegate role with the Premier League working with top officials.

Lee Harrison, Barnet's first team coach, knows Halsey from their years as members of "the goalkeeper's union".

Tomorrow's game at Accrington is Barnet's match in hand over rivals just above and just below them in the bottom half of League 2. Victory could lift them two places in the table above Lincoln City and Hereford United, next Saturday's opponents.

The Bees drew 2-2 at Accrington in the second round of The FA Cup last November in front of a crowd of 1,501, 130 of them from Barnet. Accrington won the replay at Underhill 1-0, then repeated that victory 2-1 earlier this month in a League 2 fixture.

Dennis Signy