Positives returning, but more to come
Off the pitch, on the pitch improvement is starting
Almost two weeks on from the last posting here, it was a rocket up the backside of the club brought on by some shall we say ‘choice wording’ when the Supporters Association met with Barnet FC. I wasn’t alone in voicing my opinion and I continuously state when something is good they get the praise and when something is not right, they will get the criticism.
Since we last met on this very blog site, well we’ve had some things corrected and we’ve had some wins so the mood quite rightly is in a more calmer surrounding.
Finally we had a ‘supporters update’, very pleasing to see and quite well written too, the communication was clear and in some cases a timeline for things to change or be made better.
Now we have had these delivered before so the proof in the pudding will be action taken, it’s going to be a measurement and almost a tick off list. You can forgive many saying ‘the jury’s out’ because we’ve seen this all before and not just once or a couple of times, it really does have to be delivered.
But let’s get some praise in shall we. The hand dryers actually worked in the gents toilets in the Legends Bar, tick number one, new bar manager in the same said bar, tick number two, although improvement in service times etc. must happen as a priority over the next couple of home games.
The catering firm whose efforts were worse than a Beadle picked eleven two years ago were dismissed forthwith, rightly so, how to turn a club into a laughing stock on social media, no tick though for that until we’ve seen a new caterer in place, I believe however that won’t be long in coming.
Floodlights update, scoreboards update, there was no end to being told enough of what we asked, the question is however why did we just not disclose all the information sooner? None of it contained trade secrets at all and it would have stopped a lot of sniping and bitching which social media can produce, Nick Patel and I sat down with Dan Martin after the Maidenhead game and he explained the exact problem with the scoreboards, I pointed out just tell everyone that, communicate it, doesn’t matter if they don’t like the reason, what did we achieve by most of the silence apart from getting everyone’s back up for months on end???
My mates and I have moved our matchday experience away from The Hive until it improves, if it happens quickly then we’ll be back I’ve no doubt, if they move as quick to remedy some of these other fixes then we might actually be able to persuade other people to come and watch and enjoy because the football is actually pretty good so far and that brings me onto the pitch.
Three wins on the bounce, another game on Friday evening, another game on Tuesday evening, it’s coming thick and fast. We’re still punching trust me, one point off the play-off’s as I write and a chance to go 6th or 7th for a few hours with victory over Scunthorpe Utd, I still think for some however that’s not enough.
Granted we could be even higher and that would be superb but, and I know I constantly refer to it, we are a work in progress. Remember where we were 12 months ago, because there are some short memories out there! We’re not there as a group yet, but we have an honest bunch of lads, some here who actually want to be playing for Barnet FC, not 12 months ago were we saying that.
As supporters we want a team who might lose but put a shift in, you can stomach that. We have a manager and a backroom staff who are invested in the club, want to be here and striving all the time to improve, if you don’t think Dean Brennan is right, please chuck some names at me I’d love to hear them.
We seem to be having a plan B or even C that’s developing, substitutions in the last two games have changed proceedings for me and won us six points out of six, it takes time to develop a consistent team and ethos, not over one summer, not over six months but you can see it all coming together.
If you follow me on Twitter you’ll know Nick and I had 10 good minutes with the chairman after the Maidenhead game, not planned, he was just outside the bar.
We asked him a fair bit while we could, he was livid about the catering, quite rightly as I said they went, no one had told him about the simple thing of non-working hand dryers, maybe a little more focus is needed sometimes?
He agreed we need another centre half; he wasn’t as forthcoming on a striker. Dean knows he needs to get a couple out before incomings, Tony doesn’t want a bloated squad, we’ve all seen that a lot over the years so I appreciate where he’s coming from here.
The striker issue I agreed with until I spoke to Dean on Wednesday morning, Tony doesn’t want to pay out decent money for someone to effectively sit on the bench, lets be honest, they’re not going to be in front of Nicke Kabamba, so what do you look for? A loan for a one month so our top goalscorer doesn’t have to complete 90 minutes every week or an older journeyman happy to do that role?
Now I agreed with Tony, Wednesday changed my mind. Nicke worked his socks off on Tuesday night, but he did look like a few 60-70 minute games would suit for a month, agreed with Dean on that, we run him into the ground and then what?
I fully appreciate the business and budget side, but also the footballing side and I would hope that after Tuesday night Tony would want to see what he can do to keep us where we are. I still think we’re punching, but we’re punching with good reason, one or two more keeps us there.
And to Tuesday night! I was prepared for us to get a point, no more, their record at Hayes Lane fantastic. We outplayed them first half, had to weather a 20 minute storm, but we came back and outfought them again with a magical six minute spell you have to pinch yourself when the final whistle blows.
Sure we had a few moments where one or two slack passes can undo you, it’s a work in progress remember, next season we’ll upgrade on some, not all, of these players, we’ll get many more bumps in the road all through this season, we’re not at that consistent level but we make moves to get there, enjoy when it goes well, support harder when it’s not, that’s when we’re needed fully.
Two huge home games, six more points will make people look up at Barnet FC again, they did after four, five, six games, we want to talked about for the right reasons, not dodgy hot dogs and blanket cheese………..