In the normal course of events to achieve a swift amicable resolution issues between employees and employer are best handled internally rather than in a public forum where it is possible to sometimes question the motives of those inflaming the situation.

Due to a recent mischievous and misleading press article, there is now however a need to clarify certain points to supporters of Barnet FC who naturally expect their club to have high standards in all its dealings; be they internal or external.

At The Hive site there are now some 200 staff employed through various companies and in order to keep a record of the comings and goings on at the facility a “clocking in and clocking out” procedure has been introduced.

When it became apparent that recently for a period of three days this technology was not fully operational the Chairman of the Barnet FC and other Group companies took the decision to pay in full those who were due to be in work at these times.

This we believe is the response of a fair employer.

On one single occasion there was an instance of a Barnet FC employee failing to “clock-in” and this person was deemed to be absent. This person was subsequently paid in full when it became clear that they were actually in work on the day in question; although the individual did subsequently apologise for not following the appropriate procedure.

When confronted by the media we have been unable to assist them with regard to the specific queries they have made since they declined to inform us of the names of the individuals they were apparently enquiring on behalf of.

We can understand them not wishing to reveal their source, but in return we would hope that it could be appreciated that we are bound by the Data Protection Act and cannot, or do we wish to, reveal names and employment details of those working at the facility to outside agencies. Indeed, we at Barnet FC would not be privy to this kind of individual information ourselves.

The tone and headline of the reporting has also been unfortunate with the suggestion that the Barnet FC Chairman had gone away on holiday whilst a situation reportedly raged out of control at The Club, which was subsequently changed to The Hive, with the Chairman not aware, or worse still, indifferent.

The hours put in by the Chairman this year on the stadium building project at The Hive are truly phenomenal, including bank holidays but with perhaps the occasional Sunday off. Eventually he took his first breather for a considerable time – a short break of less than a week.

Again this is information that perhaps is not necessary to appear in the public domain, but we feel that a position needs to be defended. Furthermore making public one’s holiday arrangements can have domestic security ramifications which is very regrettable.

We hope this article draws a line under this unfortunate incident and look forward to focussing on the football this Saturday.