So then, 5th place. A play off appearance albeit a short one and semi-finals of the FA Trophy. Pretty decent or a bit disappointed? Well I can understand both sides of that, BUT, if you were offered that in August 2022 before we kicked a competitive ball, we’d all be laughing wouldn’t we?
As I sit down to pen this piece, the retained list has been released this evening so I will attack that a bit later, but we have nine months to digest. Settle in, get your thoughts ready to respond and grab a beer, read on.
I had us around 12th-16th, an improvement on last year and another foundation stone, maybe 10th if we pulled a few results out along the way, quite a few thought the same and some were worried about relegation once again.
The signings I believed gave us a good base to be solid and a lot known to Dean through previous clubs, others not liked at previous clubs and if we believed all they said then we were off on the wrong foot from the start.
We started well, we raised expectations maybe a little more than we realised and I think even at that early point we forget the previous couple of years too easily, this wasn’t fixed within a month.
Then calls for DB to go after leaking goals left, right and centre, I think I did put in a different blog through the year he did fear for his job at that point, Tony Kleanthous had no intention of sacking him, wasn’t even close.
What should have been remembered around that time was we had a stable summer and manager for the first time in years, a new squad again coming together but a manager who hadn’t yet completed a full year at this level and managing at the highest level he has been, previously with Wealdstone but only for a few months.
It was all about evolving, changing, learning about who he was, the division, finding out which players had fully bought into it and which ones hadn’t. And then it clicked!
It coincided with one or two losing their place in the team, making us more robust but not losing the cutting edge up front, the previous months seemingly banished as that evolving process was underway.
Even the wet weather for almost two solid months didn’t derail things, oh, and we beat that lot down the road with every player well up for that one, we beat that lot up the road too over Xmas, we seemingly couldn’t drop out of the top 7 if we tried.
We had acquitted ourselves well, supporters were returning to watch, believing in what was happening on the pitch, things improving in small spurts off it too, then came the challenges.
Six successive away games in the league and trophy yielded four wins, running out of legs by the final game. Hardly surprising, while the 1st was away at Eastleigh the rest were long northern distances in the majority, not just the 90 minutes to play but the travel, late returns to home, and a disruption of schedules from the norm.
That begin a relentless testing time where the team played Saturday-Tuesday- Saturday from the end of January until 22nd April where the only week off was for the England C international which was no week off for Ryan De Havilland!
But the team punched, fought, competed, eventually ran out of steam and no doubt cost us a few points and a place at Wembley, once, maybe twice, we’ll never know.
What we know is this was far beyond what we could have imagined back in those August summer days, something to remember but a standard now set for the club going forward.
Granted, DB made mistakes, he said as much back in a July Beespod interview that will happen but it’s being big enough to make the changes and finding results. It’ll happen next year and for the rest of his career, can’t be perfect every week even the top managers aren’t.
Now, to the retained list. Not many surprises were there, pretty much as we expected. There are one or two under contract who haven’t worked out and I’m sure we’ll look to move them on if there are any takers, let’s be honest they aren’t going to be near the first team if the summer recruitment steps up a notch on last year.
I won’t hide my delight in seeing Daniel Powell leave the club. I saw him pre-season, he was ready to go, but I’d love to get inside his head to find out what the hell his brain has been doing for the last two years.
Even with chances this season he hasn’t taken any and I can’t see a huge line of clubs picking him up, clear before he joined us he has talent, clear he didn’t show more than 10% for us, that might even be generous.
Now I know a lot of you will be disappointed that Rob Hall hasn’t seen a new contract come his way, a lot of debate around this one. Here’s my take on it, go back to last season when some wanted Harry Taylor and Wes Fonguck to stay, I argued that if you wanted to finish 18th again we keep those kinds of player.
Before you all jump off on one, I’m NOT comparing Hall to those two players, far from it, but here is the situation. Rob can do a job yes; can his knees do up and down the pitch to protect his full back or chase back through midfield? No, not in my opinion.
Can he do 20 or 30 impactful minutes from the bench? Absolutely, but then you’re down to picking only three other outfield subs if you choose a goalkeeping option, and those three will need to cover the rest of the pitch.
There is no doubting his talent in that left foot, but let me also tell you there are 1610 players out of contract from the top of the Championship to the bottom of the National League total, half of those aged 20-30. That’s some shopping list to find a quality replacement for Hall and I expect us to do it.
You see it’s easier to attract players when you have the season we’ve had, players talk, they hear what it’s like under our management team and how tightknit the group are, to progress you upgrade every season.
What I expect to see is further upgrades on those who we signed last summer from those we have released this time around; it’s how it should work and finally we’re there.
We used the loan market very well, again they didn’t all work out but the success rate better than 50%, Tony backed Dean when he needed another body and it paid off more times than not.
Now for us to continue moving upwards the challenge comes from the boardroom to back Dean to take us on to the next level, not massively, not silly investment, but enough tools to do the job and be in the title conversation.
Yes I said, ‘title conversation’. If Notts go up as well then it’s achievable if we add correctly to the group we have. We know how they recruit, it’s not all about footballing ability, they’re on the list for that already, it’s everything else they do, no more unsociable ones I hope, but another Marvin Armstrong gem will do nicely.
This season I’ve met a fair few of you and rekindled some friendships from yesteryear, Rob(@hayhive), Ian (@JWTBee) Dave (@DSM58) Andy (@andymcteare) to name a few, Howard Gunstock, Duncan Young, Nick Patel, Lee Crocker, and the many of you across Twitter and Facebook, still be plenty to read across the summer and I promise you a Dean Brennan interview in the summer months.
Been a pleasure to sponsor Dean and Harry Pritchard alongside Nick and Lee, we had a great day earlier in the season with the staff and the players, they’re all human beings funnily enough like you and me and every one of them (well nearly) very approachable, I hope a decent price gets a few more of you involved next season, I’ll share the message and picture we got personally from Pritch in the next few days. Oh, did I forget to mention we beat them up the road again for the double, course I wouldn’t forget that…….
Light the comments up with your views, no opinion is right or wrong, we’ve all got a view, look forward to reading them!
Fantastic review. You can feel your passion for the club. Great work this season Trev!
Now having read that upbeat review, I'm feeling proud of what the club achieved last season, especially when older family members and their equally elderly friends start saying "Ooh, I see Barnet are doing well". In fact, without wishing my life away, I'm actually looking forward to next season. Was 2022/23 our 2003/04, meaning will 2023/24 be our 2004/05, or even our 2014/15? We'll have to wait and see but at least we should know the names and faces of most of the Starting XI in August! COYB