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Bleak
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The future's bleak, the future's amber.
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By:
Eric Hitchmo
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19/09/2012
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This article has been viewed 2616 times.
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"Rarely do I have anything new and original to write on this site unfortunately, rather I recycle old moans and groans and apply them to the latest defeat. I apologise that I am unable to bring anything else to the table in this respect, so if you are looking to read something a bit different from what has been on here before, then please look away now.
I imagine though that many of you will have carried on reading, right? The truth is that an overwhelming number of us are feeling the same way. Whether you and I disagree on the finer details, such as who is to blame, where we are going wrong, etc is neither here nor there: the point is that we are all suffering at the hands of the club we have associated ourselves with. We are sick and tired of this continual cycle. We are sick and tired of this feeble attempt at maintaining a Football League club (not even a progressive one). We are sick and tired of being laughed at by everyone else. It isn't nice to have to rant about it to your work colleagues, or between your fellow Barnet fans, and it is especially not nice to have to argue and bicker with other Barnet fans. In the end, we are all feeling the pain, and the continued association is becoming ever more weary.
As an individual, I have been attending Barnet games for over eleven years now and I have never known it to be so bad. I have only known the club in the fourth and fifth tiers of English football, however there are people who have seen us far far lower than this telling me via Twitter, e-mail and face-to-face conversation that they have never known it to be this bad. In my view, the club is far removed from what made me fall in love with it all those years ago.
It was the sense of community that made me feel so welcome at Barnet. It was also the atmosphere of the East Terrace and away games. There are so many reasons why we all got so hooked up in it. I'm sure we all have our own reasons, there might have been one goal that did it for you, or one special moment, anything could have triggered it. My point is that nowadays, the triggers and the moments are non-existent. I don't know what it is that would get someone hooked on Barnet FC at the moment, and for those of us who are already hooked, it is a painful decline from ""the good old days"" we once knew. I sit at Underhill in complete and utter indifference. I can no longer justify the time or money spent on travelling to away games. I just don't enjoy it anymore. In fact, I've not been to a league away game yet - which at this stage of the season is pretty much unheard of for me. The worst thing is, I don't feel remotely bad about that fact.
Rightly or wrongly, a number of people have said that they cannot support Barnet if they play in Harrow, as it wouldn't feel like the same club anymore. That is a separate issue, however a question I'm asking myself right now is whether THIS feels like Barnet Football Club? To me, it feels like a completely lame entity, steadily declining to a miserable end. The thought that this could ever happen to my football club would have been alien some years ago, but to me it's a reality. I don't think I'm alone in thinking this either. Have you heard the atmosphere around Underhill on a matchday? Have you seen how many people are turning up? Have you seen how few bother to follow us on the road?
We have been continually promised that we would not have to suffer this again, but we are doing so. Despite the complete inevitability that has been the state of affairs on the field, nothing appears to be changing. No one was expecting this so-called philosophy of the club to be implemented and working overnight, but let's face it, it was never going to work. What we have left is a desperately bad squad, with little to no hope of surviving in League Two. This is almost undeniable. The promises are not being fulfilled. Fans are walking away. Things must change, but what is that can be done?
Is it time for people to start voicing their disapproval in person, rather than penning articles such as these, or writing on message boards, or tweeting about it? Is it productive to do so? Are we still of the mentality that we would rather remove any negative vibes from matchday, rather save them for when we are safely behind our keyboards? Let's face it, I'm not hearing any positivity from the terraces and quite frankly, enough is enough. How long will it take for people to lose their cool and begin shouting, or chanting their views? I'm not justifying it or saying it must happen, I'm saying that there is a distinct possibility of it happening. The rumbles of discomfort are more than clear, it's only a matter of time if things carry on this way. People can no longer put up, shut up and watch their team suffer in this manner. Remember Wimbledon last season?
The future therefore is unequivocally bleak. Not even the most positive of supporters can deny that all signs are pointing towards the Conference. Like I asked last week, are we supposed to follow the club blindly to its temporary new home outside the borough boundaries when there is no sign that we are going to see any improvement to the football? The move is causing more than its fair share of ructions, now we are giving people even more of an excuse to shrug their shoulders and call it a day. Conference football in Harrow in next year's prospect. It's hardly inspiring is it? Or are we going to be asked to carry on the charade with ridiculous phrases such as ""keep the faith"" or ""let's keep on getting behind the team"" - it doesn't wash one bit with me.
So I've pretty much given up, as you can tell. If there are any of you out there who absolutely disagree with me and still hold some sort of positivity, please do tell me. I'd be quite interested to hear how you are still in this mindset. Unfortunately I've gone full circle. I might have been a bit like you once upon a time, where the thought of leaving a game early repulsed me, where I would always get into the ground early and try and get the atmosphere going. I guess that's a bit of youthful enthusiasm for you, but everything has changed now. Again, this is not the club I remember.
I don't know how much longer we're going to have to wait around for things to get better, but I get the impression that we're going to have to plunge even further (apparently this is physically possible) before it gets better. I do wonder though how many more will have jumped ship before the tide begins to turn. What is it going to have to take for changes to happen, because at the moment, nothing seems to work, and no one seems to have a clue how to fix it.
More misery next week, probably."
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