Keep on bee-lieving

The rebirth of Barnet FC

The National League table as it stands

So you wouldn’t believe what happened at Barnet FC, or would you? Tuesday night’s hard fought win over Solihull Moors confirmed the Bees place in the play-offs, wholly unexpected at the beginning of the season and a welcome relief after a torrid two and a half years at The Hive.

Given a schedule that no other team had faced plus a run to the FA Trophy semi-finals, Barnet have pushed, plundered and played their way into the end of season party since the early days of the campaign.

It’s been a ride; it’s been a journey and at times we’ve fallen off the bike but got straight back up on it and heading in the right direction to where we are now with two games of the season left.

My pre-season prediction was 12^th-16^th, an improvement on the 18^th place finish the year before, my belief it would take a while for us to put down some foundations and build properly, a two year if not three for a project to happen.

The players we signed over the summer raised a few eyebrows, not liked at some other clubs, many already playing under Dean Brennan at previous clubs, jobs for the boys would be the reference many would stick them under.

Slowly though, there were some additions that had no connection and then Ben Wynter arrived from Torquay. Now as I follow a lot of non-league at all levels and with this and other blogging both paid and free running alongside a full time job, it’s impossible to keep tabs on so many players, but the name did ring a bell, consistency I think was the word I thought of when he was announced.

A few people sat up and took notice, Scott Loach who still keeps in contact with a lot of Bees fans and the club from afar, rang me and said ‘Barnet. That’s a signing mate, you and Woking dark horses for this season for me’. So before a ball was kicked I was there thinking, maybe eh, just maybe. I still went for a mid-lower table expectation but with the optimism we could be sniffing around the play-offs if all went well.

Most of you know I’m quite close to the management team, I’m lucky, it gives me a superb insight and more knowledge than most, privileged is maybe the right word, sometimes thought you have the answer to some uproar on social media but the lips have to stay sealed.

The opening start to the season was hot, it even tempted me to drive from Littlehampton to Chesterfield after a lucky half day at work (yes, that’s around 7 hours driving for me door to door) in late August for a top of the table clash and a catch up with Loachy after the game.

I didn’t expect us to win given the gulf between the two sides last season and their squad being put together over 2-3 years, but we went toe to toe, small margin at 2-1 down Dale Gorman clips the post, ball fires out for a throw in, Chesterfield break from there and within a minute of being 2-2, it’s 3-1.

But, that night even after four games I thought we’re actually onto to something here, I could be embarrassed at what I predicted to happen before we kicked a competitive ball. Granted we dropped off a little, a tweak in tactics was needed after we became too porous at the back.

That opening phase of the season set a few expectations, and when we hit the sticky patch, some went on the turn. ‘Sack Brennan, he doesn’t know what he’s doing’, ‘bring back Allen’ were the cries, a loss of perspective from just a few games earlier for a new squad still finding their feet, the cries that if listened to would have returned us precisely back to October 2020, the building of a club on quicksand.

I’m sure Dean won’t mind me sharing that he actually did fear for his job, he was worried Tony Kleanthous would pull the trigger, there was however no danger of that happening. Luckily, he has a very good and loyal team around him and things began to turn around, we couldn’t concede if we tried, we were still scoring our fair share and this was the point where people sat up and really took notice.

It only took one or two personnel charges and off we went, three months unbeaten, points at time where people were not just beginning to notice but returning to The Hive, becoming invested again, of course a winning team always helps but Barnet a lot of the time as a club can leave you sceptical.

Belief then starts to build, where can we go? How far can this team take us? Well, on Tuesday night we got the first answer, a place in the top seven guaranteed. The target was 80pts, 65 minimum. We’re on 73 going into the final two games, we could be one short, one solitary point from a group of players who largely came together last summer, and are the foundations for next stage, but they built some walls as well, Barnet are not the pushovers of last season as Wrexham found out on Saturday.

24 consecutive away games we scored in (thanks Downhill Second Half for that stat), 51 games before we drew 0-0 (and again), a goalscorer in the top five in the division, a huge run of clean sheets, it’s almost as if someone took Barnet FC overnight from the scrapheap and gave it a lick of polish and put it pride of place on the mantelpiece.

I can remember blogging early on and through this season the recruitment of players who can play 30 plus games has been the backbone of where we are, for some of them who will be close to 60 by the season end is remarkable given the heavy fixture congestion we suffered since the turn of the year, five of them have completed 50 so far (thanks DSH again).

If you remember it was persuasion and pay cuts to get players to come to Barnet last summer, this year players see what we’re all about, a club with standards that want to improve and not stand still.

Not every player has worked out and as Dean mentioned at the Awards evening, there will be 6 or so coming in, which means the same or slightly more on their way out of the door. If you want the best and progression you keep upgrading, had we kept some of those people wanted to at the end of last season we wouldn’t be sitting in 5^th, you have to evolve.

We know our first XI is very good, the supporting cast not so. We will upgrade on them and those in the current line up will face a battle for a place, competition is healthy, you don’t improve otherwise.

A lot of players arrived here on trust, those already here who haven’t featured much and one or two who didn’t fulfil what was needed are the reasons why we didn’t see much squad rotation, expect that to be the change made this summer.

I’ll refer back to the Beespod interview with Dean back in July I think it was, he said then ‘I’ll make mistakes, it won’t be perfect every week’. Even the experienced managers aren’t immune, look at Gary Johnson at Torquay a struggle all season, Alan Devonshire’s Maidenhead were safe a few games ago and now fully dragged into the relegation mire, the constant change we experienced is why we haven’t seen anything this good for a while, stability is key.

And again that points to the recruitment where we brought in about 12-15 players every season for the past three attempts, half that out the door shows we’re somewhere near right.

The budget isn’t the biggest, we’re outdoing some big hitters around us, but credit has to go to Tony for backing Dean wherever he’s needed it, not always as quick as we wanted but he’s done it, Harry Smith, Jordan Cropper, Finley Potter, even David Moyo and Manny Fernandez when bodies were needed. We have balanced the books in most cases with one in, one out, keeping to a strict flow compared to the likes of some of the squads in this division.

In two weeks’ time we’ll be competing 12 months in front of ourselves, exactly where I expected us to be next season, now the expectation for that period will be increased as well, but if you don’t want to thrive then no point being in the game is there!

We’ve been disappointed not to make Wembley in the Trophy, we’ll be disappointed if we don’t make the Play Off Final at the same venue, but for context remember what you’ve just read, next year COULD be even better, but it’s not over yet…….