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The Next Nail Into The Coffin
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Inevitable.
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By:
Eric Hitchmo
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09/03/2011
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And so the next nail is cast firmly into the heart of the Barnet relegation coffin. Yet another grim evening at Underhill has spelt out what many of us have feared and even known for some time: we are going down. Every glance at the league table makes that fate seem all the more inevitable. It has been said that we need not to worry about other teams' results, only our own. It doesn't really add up though when every other sod is winning and we aren't.
Our season summed up in a nutshell. How many times have we controlled a game of football and let a silly goal slip to leave us behind? Yes we were unlucky to see a good header saved and the rebound hit the bar and arguably cross the line, but there's only so long you can rely on the bad luck line. We are in this situation because we have not taken or created enough chances when we are in charge and defensively we are so poor that pure lapses in concentration like we saw last night are commonplace.
Wycombe were flicky and fancy, they could clearly play a bit of football. However we were on top of them. We managed to keep them at bay relatively comfortably and were showing decent signs going forward. As early as the first minute we could have taken the lead. The aforementioned save and bar rebound followed and Mark Byrne had a low drive well saved. There was nought but a little scramble in the opposite goal to keep Jake Cole entertained and warm. But then they struck. Oh it was absurd. A complete shambles in defence. A corner floated in to a completely free man, who powered his header into the corner of the net, past an unguarded post. Two absolute schoolboy errors. Two things you don't do at a corner. And that's us doing them. And that is why a second relegation to the Non-League is upon us.
I can barely bring myself to be that annoyed or upset though. I'm sure come the day it happens, whichever game in April (you don't think it'll last until the final day do you?) it is, there will be tears aplenty but for now my faith in Barnet has been drained so much so that I'm not even that worried. Does that make me a bad supporter? I've missed more away games this season than I have in about eight seasons combined, can anyone blame me for not wanting to go? Barely 1,000 Barnet supporters rallied together to watch the game last night, despite the chairman's message on the OS. Can you blame them for staying away?
It's all too little, too late. We have barely had a crack at putting together a side capable of getting out of this league in the right direction. This is over our six year spell I might add, not just this year. In fact I am pretty confident in saying that this year's team couldn't even challenge in the Conference.
We have not seen a good enough balance between on-field and off-field investment and we are going to pay the price if the suggestions about our infrastructure are correct. What happens to Barnet FC if we can no longer sustain The Hive, the one place that looked like it would give us a bright future? We've been told before that if we were to go down, The Hive would go to. Why does this bright future now look oh so bleak, or maybe more pertinently, why has our bright future been ALLOWED to look so bleak.
Paul Fairclough has been given an impossible task. It was clear from almost the beginning that the squad we had assembled were not nearly good enough to let alone sustain a promotion push (yes, these words were quoted in Pre-Season) but not good enough to stay in this league. A relegation battle was on the moment we lost 7-0 at Crewe, which was the third league game, by the way. Results, particularly away, have improved under Fairclough but it isn't going to be enough unfortunately. He has inherited the worst squad I've ever seen at Barnet FC and you can only add so much to that. It speaks volumes that a player like Sam Deering, who cannot get into a mid-table side in our division, steps into ours and instantly looks one of our more lively and able players. Mark Stimson built an awful team, and he was given far too long to try and get it right. Maybe we are in a culture where fans require success too quickly, but everyone could see that Stimson's reign was only going to spell disaster. He was removed too late, and we are going to pay the ultimate price because of it. He posts the worst managerial record seen at Barnet FC, aside from Gary Phillips who of course had the reasonable excuse of having to build a squad from scratch to take on a higher division after every player was released. Doesn't really compare!
For now though, we must suffer on through the last 11 games. For those of you still travelling away, there's either got to be something the matter or you really are that dedicated. Either way, fair play to you. To continue doing this to yourself is an interesting way of spending one's time.
Still. Onwards and upwards, we've got a Herts Senior Cup final to look forward to because Michael Stone knows how much it means to the fans. Hmmm.
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