Barnet skipper Charlie MacDonald insists winning trophies and medals is a greater priority for him than earning as much money as possible and will be leaning on the experience of two previous promotions to help the Bees over the line.

A pair of 1-0 victories against Dartford and Nuneaton Town over the Bank Holiday weekend kept Barnet at the Conference summit and with three games to go it is Martin Allen’s side who are in pole position to take the single automatic place back into the Football League.

The 34-year-old returned to the fold for the success against relegation-threatened Nuneaton on Saturday – his first start since February – and speaking afterwards explained what the possibility of promotion meant to him.

“It is brilliant [to be involved a promotion battle],” MacDonald said. “As a professional footballer all you want to do is be successful.

“People talk about wanting to earn as much money as you can and playing at the highest level but the main thing is winning trophies and medals.

“Luckily for me I have had two championship medals. One in the Championship with Charlton Athletic, I did not make that many appearances but I still got myself a medal, and winning League Two with Brentford in 2008/09 was fantastic.”

The striker added: “They will always be in my memory and it is in our hands. To finish the job off, it would be great for me to have a hat-trick of promotions for the boys in there, it would be a memory they will never forget.”

As one of the senior members of the squad MacDonald has played a key role off the field as well as on it this season and the former Brentford hitman sees parallels between two promotion-winning sides he was part of earlier in his career.

Asked what the attributes needed in order to secure promotion were, the Southwark-born forward said: “The attributes: hunger, desire, never-say-die and that bouncebackability when you have a little bit of a disappointment you come out fighting. Those are the qualities for championship-winning sides.”

And MacDonald, who has scored eight goals in a stop-start season, eulogised about the quality of players available to head coach Allen.

He said: “I think the ability in this dressing room, for this level, is frightening. There are a lot of players in here – I have played in the league for a long time – who could easily step up and play league football.

“I think we have a great group of players with great ability for this level. I think that is credit to the gaffer because he has brought a lot of players in and constructed his own team.”

After playing an hour in the defeat of Liam Daish’s Boro, MacDonald was forced into a watching brief for the trip to Kent on Monday after suffering a minor reaction from the knee problem which plagued him earlier in the campaign.

It is typical of his luck and MacDonald has not been fully satisfied with his first season at The Hive.

“It has been stop-start,” he said. “I am disappointed; obviously, I started the season off really well and had a good partnership with John (Akinde) and built up a great little relationship with him.

“The injury set me back eight weeks or whatever it was. Then I got back in, started to get some momentum in games and then thought [on Saturday] I had done my knee again – a different part of it – but luckily for me it was just the top of my calf which took the strain.

“I have still got a bit of fluid on my knee so I have still got to be careful with it. I am just happy to be back in for the final part of the season and to see us over the line,” the Bees striker added.