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Looking Back And Moving Forward
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What's just gone, where we are and what next?
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By:
Max Bygraves
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09/06/2023
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This article has been viewed 613 times.
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This sort of end of season review has been on the agenda since the final game finished but it’s taken some time to sit down and pen it. A break does everyone good. There’s plenty to read here, to warn you. It’s been put together in a few instalments. Very much your summer long read on your lounger, if you will. Aside from actual real-life responsibilities, something has to fill the close season void...
The Story of the Season
Last year, I wrote ‘Not An End of Season Review’ having barely seen a game, so it feels right to start with some acknowledgement of the most important stuff first.
August 2022 does now seem a long time ago. Purchasing a season ticket on Friday 5th August, the final day of the Buy One Get One Free offer, less than 24 hours before the first game kicked off, did feel a big gamble. I knew it may take a while to work out what I really thought of it all, but I recall a bit of a buzz coming away from that Halifax opener and thinking maybe this might be a decent idea.
Within the first half an hour of the season starting, I had fallen in love with a Barnet player to a greater extent than any other for well over a decade. Sean Shields, we hardly knew ye. Strong Tricky Dicky vibes and one who had caught the eye when signing due to his Barnet links as a youngster, attending games at Underhill. He was so exciting to watch on that opening day and through the first month of the season, culminating in a box office display on BT against Eastleigh. With a jinking winger and a seemingly re-born (on statistical, pre-Barnet form), confident and industrious new striker in Nicke Kabamba helping propel us to the top of the league for the first time in far too long in those first few weeks, all was looking rosy. Spotify streams of Alice Deejay’s ’Back in My Life’ were through the roof after that midweek win at Yeovil.
As the weather began the Autumnal downward turn, so did our form. We saw a glut of goals, a reasonable amount of entertainment and a fair share concerning points over a dubious few weeks. Losing 0-1 to Dorking Wanderers on a Tuesday night was a ‘what have you done buying a season ticket’ reality check whereas farcical 5-4 and 7-5 defeats on the road at Dagenham and Wrexham respectively raised a wry ‘that’s Barnet’ smile and shrug.
What felt like a potentially monumental turning point of woe was a 0-5 hammering at home to York City. The game kicked off late due to a lack of medical staff, the tannoy system wasn’t working to communicate any of this, the bar service and beer was horrible and the team on the pitch were worse than all listed before. It felt like the honeymoon was over.
Following a brief revival against the likes of Maidstone, Maidenhead at home and an impressive midweek win at Bromley (my attendance at that scuppered by a mid-afternoon flat tyre - a bittersweet victory in those circumstances!); a 0-3 at home to Southend where we were lucky to get nil on 1st November felt like a sign of the winter months ahead. Outclassed, outnumbered by a vociferous away following and lacking answers to all the questions. There were more than a few Brennan slanders in the ground and online in the aftermath.
What happened next, even the greatest optimist would have struggled to have called.
From a poorly attended FA Cup tie against Chelmsford on 5th November, until February 14th, Barnet would only go on to lose once - in the FA Cup 2nd Round at League One Accrington Stanley at the end of November.
Foundations were built with solid results and performances at Altrincham and Oldham and as confidence bloomed, momentum gathered. A comfortable 2-0 win over local angry folk, Wealdstone, on the first weekend of December felt a big moment. That was the day when I really felt back in it. A bit of atmosphere. Big goal celebrations. Maybe we were going to do something this year...
A disrupted end of 2022 followed with the usual pitch hell due to poor weather. However, when we avoided the freeze, we were still picking up results.
Saturday 28th January was a high point in the season. Nicke Kabamba had been in fine form up top and ahead of our game with (now fellow) high-flying Chesterfield, it was rumoured the visitors were keen to take him off our hands, having just lost their number nine. Cue, perhaps, the perfect script. Kabamba notched his first career hat trick in fine fashion as The Spireites were comfortably dispatched 3-0. It was a complete performance from Barnet. Sam Woods. Samuel John Woods. All of a sudden, we weren’t just talking about making the Play-Offs, but that 3rd spot to avoid the initial round was looking a possibility.
We followed this scintillating home display with a ludicrous six consecutive away games due to fixture backlog. Even more ludicrous was the first 10 days of this run which saw 4 consecutive away wins. Control at Eastleigh, domination at Scunthorpe, accomplishment at Halifax and know how at Torquay. Play-Offs now looked all but guaranteed and an FA Trophy Quarter Final place had been booked, with all the other big hitters already gone in that cup. We couldn’t, could we?
After a bit of a late February wobble which included a humbling result (if not performance) at Notts County, the month ended with a 4-1 victory at home to Aldershot on the weekend Barnet and football remembered John Motson. If that one was for him, it was a fitting tribute to the great man.
The first three weeks of March were my favourite as a Barnet fan since my youth. Managing to attend three terrific away games in a heady 22-day spell with brilliant outcomes.
A spirited, battling 0-1 win at Southend on a Friday night in front of a bumper Roots Hall crowd got the month off to a flyer. Just eight days later, in dramatic fashion via penalties, we grabbed a place in the FA Trophy Semi Final at Maidstone. Laurie Walker the hero. What an afternoon, what an atmosphere, what a fun train journey back to the capital. A decent performance and point against Notts County at home followed, before a comfortable 0-2 win at Wealdstone on BT Sport with a very healthy, noisy away following. Everything felt right in the world.
April began with a huge trip, in every sense of the word, to Gateshead for the FA Trophy Semi Final. I sadly couldn’t make the this one but over 400 Barnet fans of various vintages did, looking to finally end the Wembley hoodoo. 3-0 down in the first half, it very much appeared to be the same old sad story. BBC Radio Newcastle’s commentary for that felt an equally cruel endurance test as the journey those that had headed north had made.
An everything defying comeback, capped by a Harry Pritchard equaliser on 90+12 forced penalties. Sadly, there was to be no repeat of Maidstone, with Barnet missing two of their first three attempts. Gateshead were deadly and it was The Heed who set up a Wembley tie against Halifax in May. Questions would be rightly asked about the team selection as yet another Wembley possible escaped us. Maybe, just maybe, the biggest miss of them all since our last day there in 1972.
A miserable, hungover display at York ended in defeat just over 48 hours after this in the league, but solid showings at home to Bromley and Wrexham and the worst game ever (0-0) at Maidstone sandwiched in between all resulted in draws. With three games to go, a win against Solihull in front of a standardly sparse Tuesday night Hive would secure a Play-Off berth.
A Harry Smith header (a regular feature of the latter part of the season following his early February arrival on loan from Leyton Orient) was enough to dispatch our Midland counterparts 1-0 and ensure that there would be at very least one further game played after the end of the regulation season. Smith also went on to score an obscenely good long-range header the following Saturday in a draw at Maidenhead.
5th place was secured with a game to spare and following results on the final day, Boreham Wood were confirmed as our Play Off Eliminator opponents, at The Hive. It had been the classic, archetypal Barnet stumble into the Play-Offs - but we were there, nonetheless.
Despite an electric atmosphere in the early stages and a bright start, Barnet did what Barnet do in the Play-Offs and fell at the first hurdle against Luke Garrard’s side. It was hard not to walk away from the 1-2 defeat feeling an opportunity had been missed, but with the hindsight now of 107-point Notts County going up at Wembley, maybe we avoided a lot of undue hassle and further upset by calling it a day in that first eliminator game.
It wasn’t the greatest season in our history, but it was certainly memorable and had the feeling of an important one. Dean Brennan deserves an incredible amount of credit and respect for the spirit he has engendered within the club. Everyone connected to Barnet FC needed a year like that.
Where are we now?
So, does the success on the pitch mean we’re back in every sense? I really wish that was the case, however, as the season drew to a close, the usual frustration came back to the fore. I drafted something about the April BFCSA minutes with the chairman at the time, but decided it wasn’t the time for an article of that tone, just before the Play-Offs.
It may not be agreeable to all, but a fairly strong argument can be made to say that Barnet fans have very low expectations and arguably pretty limited standards for what constitutes efficient running of a football club. We are far too used to having to look the other way. The most recent communications made public between the person running the club and the supporters’ representatives showed little more than familiar contempt. I’m doing it my way and I don’t care how many times I’ve got it wrong; I know best.
There was so much to unpick from the chairman’s responses to the BFCSA.
TK reached a point where he doesn’t think promotions work. TK was hoping Barnet fans would bring a mate using BOGOF deal. BFC saw little to no impact from the BOGOF deal last summer.
As part of the little to no impact squad, it is a shame that others didn’t jump on like me. However, whilst I hadn’t been for a long time, I wasn’t a brand-new fan. I had an affiliation with the club and took a gamble. Would I have done this at any other club on a whim? Who in their right mind is going to commit to a £200 season ticket to watch a team they don’t support already? A ticket for a team that finished 22nd and 18th in the preceding two seasons, by the way. If you had no prior association, would you commit to this? This is coming from a man who has owned a football club since 1994. Which planet?
TK believes that the club’s marketing is only going to keep improving, but supporters have to go and get supporters themselves as well.
Come on everyone, pull your collective fingers out! How many of you have tried to entice mates along? How many of you have been rebuffed when sharing that it’s £22 for the only option? The marketing has been ‘going to improve’ for as long as I’ve been going.
The other key headlines were that there will be no new stand behind the goal for next season. No scoreboard (not a priority, apparently) - the one from the Far East unsurprisingly never coming to fruition. Spending being done sensibly isn’t a negative, but quite why the decision was taken to remove the standing element of a 5th tier football ground without a set next step has to be questioned. Imagine the fun the Amber Battalion could have had in a terrace. Those kids are being robbed of proper rite of passage football bundles. The scoreboard is the first question I get from every first-time visitor I bring along - I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Tinpot.
This state-of-the-art facility that we have been sold the dream of time and time again is looking tired, incomplete and without the most basic of things. The fact that even with this, he’s putting a chunk of the responsibility on you rather than the club to do marketing shows very little has changed with how the club is run or the way supporters are viewed. The matchday experience still leaves a lot to be desired - we are very easily pleased at what we deem to be improvements.
The heat has been off him recently thanks to the luck of the Irish in the dugout (luck for the chairman that he’s a good manager, that is). Yes, he appointed Dean Brennan, but this is something like 26th time lucky. Success on the pitch masks any club’s failing off it. Look at the current lack of Norwich scarves at Man United or how Stan Kroenke seemingly no longer exists at The Emirates. Conversely, Daniel Levy wasn’t such an issue for Spurs fans when they were in the Champions League Final. Dean Brennan has made things a lot easier for him, but it would be naive to think a better eleven players on the pitch has altered much upstairs.
I will wrap up this particular segment soon, but finally: season tickets and marketing. We have just had our best year since 2015. Many disengaged fans returned. Attendances were up by 400+ on the last campaign. So why on earth was nothing mentioned about season tickets until the final week of May? Yes, we didn’t know for definite which league we were going to be in, but is this as a valid reason not to publicise these and try to get people to commit early?
We must be in a minority of clubs that don’t do something like this. There were never promotions, but in times gone by, as a youth I used to buzz about securing my season ticket in the March of the season before the next one. Being married to a Watford season ticket holder, she had hers submitted and sorted well before Easter for the new campaign at an Early Bird price. This is also not helpful for leverage when it comes to fixtures on the same day next season!
What I don’t understand, this time more than any other was not trying to capture the feel-good factor of making the Play Offs. Surely you stand much more chance of capturing the impulse buyer, in the live, when things are rosy?
The Wrexham game saw a capacity crowd in mid-April. Now, whilst we have already established that our esteemed leader doesn’t like promotions, it is hard to fathom how a very gimmicky ‘flash sale’ or similar of season tickets for the following campaign available only for a short, early time that weekend wouldn’t have been worth a shot? Play Offs were on the horizon, hope was in plentiful supply. Now, you have to wait until 1st July when other than being keen to see some football again, you are not caught up in any kind of heady optimism. He’s the businessman, not me, but the whole thing is baffling.
For what it’s worth, my season ticket cost will increase by £160 for the next campaign. The value in the BOGOF was exceptional and not sustainable; I wasn’t expecting that again by any means. The BFCSA suggestion of £299 for one or £500 for two season tickets was a very reasonable, but sadly was dismissed. £360 could be worse - although the club can fuck off with the ‘10% off for 10 years at The Hive’ mention in the promotion of it. Have some decorum.
I will be renewing, by the way.
Granted, this has not been the most positive of interludes. Long term, however, it’s hard to believe the club will ever be able to do so much or be what it should with him at the helm. It’s a miserable sentiment but I can’t see past it. I should just ignore it at this point, but looking the other way isn’t always an option...
The Spirit of 2004
Anyway, let’s try and finish on a positive. Last year, I cited some very optimistic (what, at the time, felt far-fetched) hope that it could turn out to be a summer akin to the 2003 rebuild Allen did. It ended up being very much a parallel to that turning point nineteen years before. Brennan found his own band of "misfits and rejects" (Allen, 2003) who, like Mad Dog’s side, came together with an ‘us against the world’ attitude and exceeded everyone’s expectations.
Lots of people have said for a while now that we’re 12 months ahead of schedule - which is fair. But let’s not make that an excuse to stand still. I would love nothing more than this to subsequently be a replica to the summer of 2004, when Paul Fairclough had just arrived, and we hugely kicked on. We need to go for it. There is an opportunity there.
The two biggest hitters have gone up, it looks as if we will keep most of the key players in the squad (loans excepted) and we’ve already done some early business. Football geek, yes, non-league talent spotter, no - so I can’t offer any insight on the two new signings but I fully back the manager’s judgement given what’s gone up to now. The chap from Maidenhead is hopefully another Pritchardesque bit of business. And the centre back Collingesque, in the interest of fairness.
We used the loan market to great effect in the second half of last season. Whilst it looks unlikely any of Potter, Cropper or Smith will return, we shouldn’t be averse to Brennan going down a similar route on season-long deals if possible.
No bold predictions will be made now, but last year the hope was mid table and being competitive. Given we came 5th and were there for the majority of the season, in the name of progress under a manager who appears to be able to offer this, there has to at least be aims of the same or better. It’s exciting how exciting it could be.
There’s a lot to be positive about on the pitch. The biggest shame at the moment is how long is there is to wait for it to all properly start again. Roll on August...
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