Barnet loanee David Hunt says he joined the club because Martin Allen wanted him and believes his promotion-winning experience can help the Bees return to the Football League.

Hunt signed on loan from Oxford United until the end of January last Friday and made his debut for the Bees as a substitute in Saturday’s dramatic 2-1 victory at Welling United.

Asked why he had dropped out of the Football League to join Barnet’s promotion push, he simply replied: "Because Martin Allen wanted me.

"As soon as I got the phonecall [I wanted to come here]. I have never had the chance to play for the gaffer [before] now and I have not been getting a lot of game time in the last month or so and straight away he said: ‘Come and be part of what is going on here’, so I jumped at the chance."

Hunt has won three promotions in a career which has seen him feature regularly in League One and Two, but most notably lifted the Conference title with Crawley Town in 2011.

The full-back opined: "Hopefully it (title-winning experience) will help a lot. I have got some good experience of some of the teams in this league and from what I have seen here compared to when I was at Crawley, it seems very similar. With the standard of the players I have been very impressed.

"I think you need that [promotion-winning experience], especially to get out this league. It is tough – there is only one automatic spot – so you need to all be on the same page.

"There is not a huge amount of difference between the top four or five teams in this league and those in League Two and I think it is proved that in who goes up and down all the time," Hunt added.

Though he has never worked with head coach Allen before, Hunt already knows several members of the Bees’ squad.

"I know Chaz (Charlie MacDonald), Togs (Sam Togwell), Cooky (Lee Cook) and Curtis (Weston), I am on a level two coaching course with, so I know him well as well," revealed Hunt.

"I did not speak with them about the club but I keep in touch with them anyway and keep an eye out in every league and see how my mates get on, so it wasn’t really a hard decision to make."

Newly-appoint coach Gary Waddock is another familiar face for the former Brentford defender, and Hunt believes the Bees have made a good appointment in the former Aldershot boss.

He explained: "That speaks for itself. We had Gary at the end of last season at Oxford and unfortunately his time did not work out there as it should have done but I have got great respect for him and the way he wants to play football."