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Dominance
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A stroll in the park...
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By:
Max Bygraves
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05/03/2025
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This article has been viewed 530 times.
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This is getting silly now. We’ve said a few times this season and in the best spells of the last couple of how unlike Barnet some of the good times are. This is another level.
I’ll start with a testament to the current heights of these highs. At half time, a very smiley(!) Steve Percy stated that this is the best Barnet squad he’s ever seen. A smile and a statement to this degree. These are very significant times we are living through.
A developing rotten cold and a busy work schedule meant staying at home might have been the sensible choice for this one. However, after a busy day and not feeling on tip top form, despite a rushed journey this was just the tonic.
For the first time this season, all four of us in our row were actually there at the same time in our season ticket seats. 18th home game lucky. The long awaited return of The Secret Season Ticket Holder added to proceedings. What better way to spend a Tuesday evening?
Only 1400 other Barnet fans felt the answer to this question was rhetorical. Let’s not go over old ground. More than it has been midweek but quite the drop off compared to the last home game on a Tuesday night.
It became apparent fairly early this would be another good one. Total and utter dominance. Yeovil barely got a kick. The only surprise was it took 18 minutes for Ryan Glover to open the scoring. He followed up well after an initial excellent save from their keeper.
An incredibly fun fact. Ryan Glover was born in Yeovil. Yeovil Town - The Glovers. So much to enjoy there. Just me?
Callum Stead made it 2-0 with a cool finish on 37 minutes. His enthusiasm paired with now unwavering consistency and end product make him such an asset.
And if we’re talking consistency, captain fantastic himself, Anthony Hartigan, dispatched a goal of the season contender just before the break to kill the game as a contest.
3-0 up at half time. On the back of winning 0-3 at Oldham. A week after winning 0-4 at Rochdale. That, after comfortably seeing off our title rivals York 3-1. The mood in the bar at the interval was one of excited disbelief. It’s a feeling we’re getting quite used to, although the disbelief remains in spite of this.
We knew we had a good team this year but to be absolutely steam rolling the league at this stage of the season is just absurd. In title winning seasons of the past, we’ve generally had one talisman who scores the goals and has got us over the line. In this team, there’s an argument for so many to be labelled ‘the main man.’ The quality is just so abundant and there simply isn’t a weak link.
By this end of proceedings, games tend to become tighter and more hard fought. We’ve now won nine in ten with the lowest margin of victory being 2-0 in that spell.
We made a double substitution in the second half bringing on Harry Chapman and Dominic Telford. Just obscene.
Whilst the tempo dropped a little, the total control and possession didn’t. Utter domination and Yeovil were lucky to keep the score down. They made what appeared was their first pass in our box on 71 minutes. Prior to this, the only recollection of the ball that close to our goal was when our sweeper keeper was nutmegging their forward late in the first half. Running out of adjectives, here.
In the closing stages, two penalties awarded in quick succession gave the score a deservedly more convincing feel.
Harry Chapman stepped up to slot home the first one. This was followed by an impressive front flip celebration which you’d imagine Mr Brennan wouldn’t have enjoyed too much given Chapman’s injury record. Some very over-exuberant celebrations ensued from one young fan in particular, too. We’ve all gotten too excited at football at times although a bit of an example being made of this individual may help to deter others. Not very helpful. Ben Coker very much taking the senior player role in the situation to remove the young lad from the equation.
Dominic Telford was given the job for the second one, rolling the ball home to make it 5-0. This prompted the first airing for many moons of the Hawaii Five-O theme tune. Go and search it on YouTube, kids. A real East Terrace treat on the very few occasions it could be aired back in the early part of this century. Our younger supporters may well need to learn it ahead of future games this season, given our form.
York City 1-2 Altrincham and Halifax 2-1 Forest Green really just put the sweetest of icing on our cake. There must be a pancake day pun to be had here. Flipping marvellous.
This is Barnet and we mustn’t jump the gun but if you don’t believe this is going to happen now, you never will.
We are 9 points clear of York who have a game in hand away to Rochdale in three weeks time. Forest Green also have a game in hand sooner, but sit 12 points off. I think for them it’s probably over and York are now clinging on by their finger tips.
Forest Green and York meet on Saturday in an evening kick off. They could begin the game 15 and 12 points behind respectively if we do as expected against a struggling Dagenham.
My only genuine worry at the moment is that we get ourselves in a position where we can win it against Wealdstone on the 12th April. Both me and the editor of this establishment are booked on a long-arranged (pre fixture release!) stag weekend in Germany that day, departing on Friday 11th. Let’s please either have a very early party at Braintree the week before or make Good Friday an excellent one v Eastleigh.
6 more wins puts us on 97 points. York need to be not far off flawless to catch that. At the moment, it’s hard to predict us doing anything but winning. Better start looking at alternative flights, hadn’t we?
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