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A LOOK BACK - 2003-2004 - Part 1
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A detailed look back at the amazing 2003-2004 season, starting with how it began.
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By:
Max Bygraves
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25/06/2022
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This article has been viewed 688 times.
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The last article I wrote harking back to the summer of 2003 rebuild that turned the club from the seeming abyss to a promotion challenge back to the league, got me taking an extended wander down nostalgia lane. Over the next few weeks, the story of that season will be re-told here. It’s not the obvious season to choose, especially from that era, but it’s one of many good memories for myself and I’m sure several other readers. For our younger followers, I hope it’s insightful. And for those of you that can’t think of anything more boring or irrelevant, I’d stop reading here…
For the full context, we’ll begin a little further back, in the final throes of (what felt like back then!) a miserable, mid table Conference campaign…
Tuesday 18th March 2003
It would be fair to say that Peter Shreeves was fed up.
Just 769 souls turn up to witness the first match of a future four more times Barnet manager’s, managerial career. Barnet 3-1 Southport. Only our third win since Boxing Day and indeed, one of just four from 26th December until the season’s end. The direction attendances were heading was hardly a surprise.
That afternoon, it had been announced that Peter Shreeves, something of a high-profile appointment for Barnet in the Conference, had tendered his resignation. After an initially fantastic start the previous March, securing 5th place in 2001/02 (the final year before the Play Offs were introduced), the 2002/03 season had promised much with a talented, very football league looking squad. However, it had gone on to peter out into a very drab, inconsistent affair.
Shreeves had generally kept the fans’ backing despite mixed results and a conveyor belt of departures. Over the previous few months, several first team players had taken their leave as the relegatees from 2001 that remained mostly got returns to the football league, but not in black and amber*. It has transpired since that Shreeves and Kleanthous’ relationship was a rocky one and he felt promises made hadn’t been kept. His last match saw an incredibly cobbled together team somehow take a point at Morecambe. Even a man who’d coached at the highest level felt he couldn’t take the club, in its current guise, any further.
*Despite the cheap and nasty O’Neills kits that season, there’s an argument that was the most ‘amber’ we’ve been this century.
So, into the breech stepped Shreeves’ assistant. Former Premier League midfielder Martin Allen had been the Welsh manager’s right-hand man for the previous 12 months and was now going to be given the chance to audition for the main part. He had 7 games until this forgettable season could be forgotten about and was working in a difficult situation to make much of an impact, with a few more key players; Lee Harrison, Wayne Purser and Greg Heald, all leaving the club during his first week at the helm.
The Run In 2002/2003
Giving the paltry Underhill crowd that chilly March night something to cheer about was a good start. This was followed, more impressively, with a 2-1 win over play-off chasing Hereford United the following Saturday. The sun shone and for the first time in many months there was a bit of an atmosphere in the ground. Allen was his usual exuberant self in the post-match reaction, citing what a ‘special’ day it had been.
There were to be no more of those before the close of the campaign, however. Barnet failed to win any of their remaining five fixtures. Lowlights included losing 0-2 at home to Kettering Town - who had one shot on target all game - and a sorry end to cult hero Frazer Toms’ Barnet career with a terrible leg break at Gravesend & Northfleet on the penultimate weekend of the season.
Those that bothered to turn up were left pulling the same face after the Kettering at home debacle.
Barnet finished the campaign with a 1-1 draw at Northwich Victoria, securing an 11th place finish. At the time, this did ensure LDV Vans Trophy qualification, during the short period where the sides that finished in the top half of the Conference joined Division 2 and 3 clubs in what had originally been called the Football League Trophy. Joyful chants of “Leyland DAF, Leyland DAF, Leyland DAF…” echoed around the away end at Wincham Park, perhaps surmising well just where we were as a club at the end of 2002/03.
Despite the poor finish, Kleanthous decided that Mad Dog was the man to take us forward. The team that finished the 2003 season was a real mismatch of loanees (does anyone remember Matt Langston?), the final products from the now closed youth academy (Oshitola, Pope, et al) and the few Football League quality players playing well below their level (Agogo, Gower, Doolan). It wasn’t Allen’s team and he must have convinced the man upstairs that, given the chance, he could do better with very little. And so, an exciting summer began…
Pre Season 2003
OUT: Lee Flynn, Mark Gower, John Doolan, Junior Agogo, Danny Brown, Neil Midgley, Frazer Toms, Jason Soloman, Craig Pope, Toby Oshitola, Ade Olayinka, Ben Wiper, Chris Cashman, Keith Rowland, Matt Langston & Guy Butters
RETAINED: Ricky Millard, Danny Naisbitt, Bai Mass Lette Jallow, Lee Pluck, Ben Strevens, Ismail Yakubu & Guy Lopez
IN: Mark Rooney, Simon King, Ian Hendon, Chris Plummer, Danny Maddix, Mark Williams, Giuliano Grazioli, Tony Taggart, Joe Gamble (loan), Liam Hatch, Lee Roache, Soloman Henry, Marc Cumberbatch & Luke Smith
In the pre-social media days, but well into the internet era, the club website and Netbees Fans Forum were the go to places for information. That summer, it felt like it was worth checking on a daily basis. Throughout the close season, new names and faces continued to appear. Some were known, some unknown, but there was a real air of positivity in every announcement and the countdown was very much on to the first pre-season ball being kicked.
After a midweek away game Weymouth to start proceedings, the annual Underhill curtain raiser against Arsenal drew even more attention than normal. In the first of many stunts to follow, Martin Allen auctioned off a place in the squad to the highest bidder. Steve Pankhurst, local man and founder of the Friends Reunited website stumped up an undisclosed fee for the experience which in terms of game time, entailed the final few minutes and being allowed a dribble up the slope past Martin Keown in the final seconds before the whistle was blown. Otherwise, a creditable 0-0 draw against a side that would go on to complete the following Premier League campaign unbeaten.
Trialist Yaya Toure misses a sitter. What happened to him?
There was no doubt that there was some good feeling building up around the club, even at this early stage. Mad Dog’s programme notes for the Arsenal game included the tale of the now famous house party at Chez Allen where the entire squad stayed over and had to all find a place to sleep at the end of the evening. Simon King waking up in bed with Danny Maddix was some introduction to first team football...
The rest of the pre-season results were something of a mixed bag. With many new arrivals it wasn’t yet clear what the first team would look like come the season’s beginning and as we’ll go onto see, Allen was not shy in bringing in new blood as and when he saw fit. With no one really knowing what to expect, except perhaps a few quirks, the season began.
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