Are we gracious in defeat?

It doesn't go your way every week

The Hive London, home of Barnet FC

A week’s a long time in football, 90 minutes to the next is a long time too and boy don’t we know it. We’re eight games into the season but for some the way it’s going you’d think Barnet FC are in a relegation scrap with eight to play instead of perching at the right end of the table.

‘Timehop’ on Facebook reminded me on Wednesday morning that a year ago I was at Chesterfield to watch the Bees lose 4-2 in a game they should have been 4-0 down after 20 minutes, as poor was the performance in a side where most of the players arrived late in pre-season and unfit for purpose.

That farcical Harry Kewell situation, and you can’t call it anything but that, was shorn of it’s position soon after that defeat and where we are now eight games into the season, last year we finally gained our first win. Today after the same amount of games we’re in 9th place with 13 pts, a difference a year makes but for some it seems it’s not enough.

We’ve had a neglected football club for two years minimum, more if you go back further. May – July was the first summer of stability since Darren Currie came through a pre-season and we walked into a new season with a big majority of players who actually pulled a shirt on the season before.

Although Dean Brennan brought in 12 players this year 11 others were already on the books last year, a little bit of stability is something we’re not used to and the players coming in were on the whole of a better quality, something again we’ve not seen for a while, quite frankly the recruitment was some of the worst it’s ever been, give a crap budget and you go shopping at Aldi.

My expectation for us this season was somewhere between 12th-16th, anything more was a bonus. Why? Because we don’t have a budget to compete with the current top four nor a few others in this division as well. Those clubs as well have stability of playing staff, most of them the same manager as well, funnily enough it goes a long way, even in the pandemic year the top seven had that stable environment.

Has the excellent start to the season raised expectations? Possibly yeah, but we haven’t turned into world beaters or title challengers on the back of the opening six games before the two recent defeats, there is no divine right to win 46 games in this division, there’s no divine right to win from one week to the next.

As supporters we want to see a team that puts in a shift and leaves it all on the pitch, we can stomach a loss like that, not the lazy attitude we saw all too often last season.

On paper Aldershot and Dorking should have been six points in the bag, no disrespect to either side, one bottom of the table before kick off the other with such a depleted squad Barnet should have had enough to beat them, but this game throws up a funny every so often.

Some of the comments I saw on social media were surprising, disrespectful and unfair. Now that’s my opinion just like you all reading are entitled to yours, there’s no need to agree with everything I write and I don’t expect you to.

Dorking still played the same way, their game and it was effective despite missing so many players, they stifled Dale Gorman in a way Solihull won’t do on Saturday, that’s just one example. They deserve credit for that, they weren’t crap or poor and realistically nor were we.

Ignore the missed calls by the referee, granted they can change the result but just think for a minute. We created chances, we didn’t finish some nor hit the target with others, we didn’t test Dan Lincoln enough for my liking but had we not created any of these chances I’d be more worried, another day we’re 4-0 up before they score.

Some called the performance embarrassing, have we forgotten some of thumping’s we got last season? They were an embarrassment, while this was frustrating and disappointing we’re not going to be the only side on the wrong end of a result like that this season.

Have we forgotten how poor we actually were at times last season because we’ve won a few games this time around? Only one player did I see on Tuesday evening that looked like he should have been elsewhere, you know who I mean from that.

Remember when Dean said back in July’s Beespod interview there will be times he gets it wrong, it doesn’t go right on the pitch? We seem to have short memories at times, we’re overachieving in my eyes so far, this club mentality isn’t going to change in a few months, a few more need to find their way from the club that brings in better players, it’s a long process that has been made necessary after the drivel of the two previous years.

I’m not here to blow smoke up Dean’s ar**, I might get more information than a lot of you and I’ll use what I can to share but I would be one of the first to say if I thought it’s not right, he knows that, not saying he has to listen mind.

Maybe we’re not used to highlights of winning games, but we’re not too graceful in defeat so far this year. We improve this year on last, we upgrade again the playing staff and that’s what makes the club move forward.

Now while we had all that on the pitch we had food off the pitch! I was shocked almost to see the tea bar open outside Legends and offering burgers and chips, well overdue and not the greatest tasting offer but that along with the crepe and baguette food at the tea hut just by the turnstiles maybe we’re turning that corner a little bit.

But we counter that good work by not offering anything to away fans, kinda becoming the laughing stock across the National League when it comes to food, I also saw reports we didn’t staff that bar particularly well but not completely sure it warranted too many staff in there with a small away following.

Praise or some where it’s due for us, but it goes negative when I read we can’t have the same consistency across the stadium, while I remember the beer seems to need sorting out as well, the same old issues do keep rearing their ugly head, just don’t get me started on scoreboards or floodlight bulbs.

I would to love to know your opinions now the dust has settled a little on Tuesday’s defeat, has it made anyone have a rethink on thoughts they had then? Different opinions are what makes the game good, we all see things differently and at different times too, but one common goal we want the club to be successful, it just might not be as quick as we want it…….