John Doolan

John Doolan, the popular former Bees midfield player also played for Rochdale, Barnet's FA Cup 1st round opponents on Saturday. Doolan was released by Rochdale last summer and joined Blue Square North side, Southport as Player-Coach. Doolan joined Rochdale from Blackpool in January 2005 and made 90 first team appearances for Rochdale scoring 5 goals. Disappointingly for John, he was not included for Rochdale's side in their recent League Two play-off final at Wembley.

Doolan began his career at Everton but failed to make a first team appearance there and moved to Mansfield Town in 1994. He spent over three years at Field Mill before signing for the Bees in January 1998 for a fee of £60,000. He made over 150 appearances for the Stags, scoring 14 goals. He also helped Mansfield make the 3^rd Division play-offs in 1994-95.

Doolan joined Barnet halfway through the 1997-98 season which ended with the Bees making the play-offs. Doolan missed the two games against Colchester United, which Barnet lost 3-2 on aggregate, because of injury. However, he played in both matches in the 1999-2000 play-offs against Peterborough United. Sadly, Barnet lost again this time by 5-1 on aggregate.

The following season, Barnet were relegated back to the Conference. However, Doolan stayed with the club, though he missed much of the first season through injury and also missed out on the start of the following season, though he soon re-established himself back in the side as midfield general, scoring the occasional goal, such as the equaliser in the home game against Morecambe where he hit an unstoppable drive into the bottom left hand corner of the goal from outside the penalty area. He scored similar goals in the home games against Burton Albion and Scarborough, which was to prove his last goal for Barnet as he moved to Doncaster Rovers for a small fee in March 2003. His last match for Barnet was in the 3-1 home in over Southport.