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Moving On Swiftly...
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It had to happen at some point. It's fine.
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21/10/2026
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This article has been viewed 270 times.
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by Max Bygraves
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After a month and a day since the last game at The Hive, there was a lot of collective anticipation to finally watch some League 2 football for those of us not able to travel away with the regularity we used to or at times, would like. A fine few weeks on the road saw us go into this game in a frankly ridiculous position; two games in hand with a five-point cushion in the automatics. Impossible to say out loud to someone without letting out a little laugh and a big grin.
October 20th finally the date to give it up and dig the big coat out of the wardrobe. Always a disappointing moment in the calendar. After a hurried post-work dinner amidst the usual Tuesday night game rush between picking up and dropping off children, changing out of work attire and then trekking to our temporary North West London outpost, I’d made it in reasonable time. A win I will take from the evening was an exceptional bit of very tight parking in that narrow little road outside the Camrose Avenue entrance. Flawless so far this season even if you feel the need to breath in constantly whilst driving down there.
A fun little stat for you before we begin. This was the 7th time we’ve hosted Swindon (4 at Underhill, 3 at The Hive) and we’ve never played them on a weekend. This was our sixth Tuesday night visit from The Robins since their first in 2007. The only daytime fixture was on a Monday - New Year’s Day 2018, when they ran out 1-2 winners. Do you care about that? Is that remotely interesting? Look, the way the rest of this goes, a bit of barrel scraping will help pad this out.
Just before kick off, there was some chat that this did feel quite like a potential banana skin given the two teams’ form and raised expectations for us. We’re not new Barnet fans, us. After about thirty seconds, the first slight alarm bells rang when Lakin made a real mess of a short corner. Hmm. Lightning soon struck twice but the second time, we were left frazzled. Pretty much from the poor short pass, Swindon’s right back (no idea why he was on the left hand side) went on an unchallenged but very powerful run near enough the length of the pitch before confidently dispatching past Cox. 0-1 after 8 minutes.
We never looked at our best throughout the game, but after such a wobbly start, we did begin to find our rhythm and exert some pressure. More corners were won - a shout out at this juncture to the small number who gave it an audible ‘bees bees bees,’ to win midway through the first half. That’s our thing and we mustn’t let it die!
A mad two minutes in the Swindon penalty area pretty much wrote the rest of the script for our evening. On 28 minutes, Tshimanga was given an opportunity that we all thought he’d take. He was denied not once but twice by an inspired Conor Ripley in the Swindon goal. It felt like we were waking up now and that the goal would come soon. From the resulting corner, the whole ground was asking how this stayed out? Maybe calling Ripley ‘inspired’ in the visitors’ goal is downplaying it slightly. A ridiculous triple save, each one better than the previous, somehow kept the scores at 0-1. Pinball between our players and their keeper’s hands.
Five minutes later, we were made to pay for this. No individual mistake this time, but a painfully easy move saw Swindon double their lead in very simple fashion. Whilst we may be getting a reputation for second half comebacks, this was now looking like quite the mountain to climb.
Slightly shellshocked at the second goal, it’s hard to really describe what happened less than a minute later. This time the usually flawless Danny Collinge the culprit with a terrible giveaway. You knew the moment they got the ball what was going to happen, yet it did almost seem to happen in slow motion to really compound what you were viewing. 0-3 down after 36 minutes.
If I can clamour for a bit of positivity at this difficult point, it would be fair to say the way we’ve played so far this season, you’d have been hard pressed and downright miserable to write the game off as lost already. We did respond with a search for a goal back but couldn’t find one before the break. Brennan had a big talk ahead. The conversations in a fairly smooth-running Legends Bar were pretty measured, if a little frustration filled, from my experience. There was a consensus that an early goal would have us right back in it.
It was perhaps a bit of a surprise not see substitutions at half time. But understandable. Only 5 of the allocated 7 substitute places were filled, alluded to by Brennan in the pre-match the previous day that we were short. Numbers couldn’t be swelled by youth as the kids were busy in Middlesex Senior Cup action at Ashford Town (Middlesex) - isn’t it weird they have brackets in their actual name? They lost 5-1 by the way, with the Barnet goal coming from the first-team suspended Jack Maskell. We could have done with him off the bench in this one.
Nothing really happened in the first half of the second half. Ajayi, Knowles and Reeves were brought on midway through but failed to really have any impact on the game. Myles Kenlock being the final throw of the dice, as the only other outfield player available, on 82 minutes perhaps summed up our threat well. Swindon never really looked like scoring again but they didn’t need to. They were organised and defended well enough, but we were not at it. On 60 minutes, on our row, we decided this definitely could be classed as ‘one of those days.’
In the 90th minute, Tshimanga grabbed a consolation goal. Good to add to his personal tally in the top scorer race and it kept our goals run going, despite the 18-game unbeaten league stretch now at an end. Mid-March to mid-October is still some going. There wasn’t enough time after the goal to have any real hope and it came as a bit of a relief all round when the whistle went.
Pleasing to report there was no irrational nonsense at the end and the team and manager were duly applauded from the pitch. It was an off night but the run and everything else so far this season deserved positive acknowledgement. In any successful season there are games like this. See Maidenhead away in 2024/25, Tamworth at home in 2004/05 or York at home in 1992/93. Put it down as bad one and look to the next. Brennan has said in several interviews that we will lose at some point but the reaction is key. It’s only a few days to wait to see what that looks like with the visit of Oldham. A quick chance to put things right.
I’m away this weekend on a nostalgic Nottingham weekender. Saturday afternoon will be Hucknall Town v Belper United in the United Counties Premier Division North for me rather than The Hive. This immediately raises personal optimism of a Barnet win, given the recent record when I’m not in attendance. Still 2nd, four points off the top with two games in hand and a game in hand on 4th who we are two clear of. It’s all good.
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