We're off and underway.....
Welcome to a brand-new blog just for Barnet FC fans. Well, I say just for them but of course everyone can read it, after all it’s FREE! Yes, that’s right not a charge for this one, ramblings aplenty no doubt and I’m hoping for a pile of contributions from those supporters and even those of you’ve made the trip to The Hive or have a general opinion then please send it into me and I’ll happily review it for inclusion.
So, then this is a blog for the fans by a fan and the idea came from Machel St Patrick Hewitt who began his own blog on Bromley FC earlier this season and that gave me the nudge to think surely, I can do something similar. Mach has guest contributors as well and it makes for a great read, go and have a look for yourself, after all its National League and one of our rivals, the link is:
From Bromley with love | Machel Hewitt | Substack
It's not been a bad start has it for the opening month, one defeat from the first five games, who predicted that? It’s a far cry from what we’ve been used to for almost three years, resigned to a dour battle in a stadium and surrounding facility that should be hosting Football League games.
On paper it sounds right but we know full well that the game isn’t played on paper, you have to earn that right to compete. That’s been lacking from the top to the bottom of the club, but something appears to have changed over the summer.
I’ve made no secret of my hashtag #TrustTheProcess since about February last year but why? That was when after sitting down with Dean Brennan, John Dreyer, Dave Anderson and Kirk Rayment that I knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel to come, but we still had nearly three more painful months to endure.
At times that was tough trying to convince everyone it would improve, and I could understand everyone’s frustration it won’t get better, we were used to losing, being downbeat and downtrodden why would you expect things to improve, there were no signs.
Maybe not as many as we expected departed in the summer, but through sheer hard work and lot of time and effort on his part, butting heads with agents and the chairman quite a few of Brennan’s targets did arrive. It was levelled at him early on that ‘he’s only signed players who’ve worked with him before at lower levels’, well after the lack of effort from some last year why wouldn’t you bring in players you trust?
Some have a point to prove, some have taken a pay cut to come here and not because they couldn’t get a deal elsewhere, there is a respect for the manager which this season you hope is repaid often.
Did I think we’d start this well? Absolutely not! While I think we have a squad maybe one or two players short of giving good competition across the pitch there is already evidence the players believe in each other and themselves, can you honestly say we had that last year or the year before?
There’s a buy-in to this process and there really isn’t a place for any player who doesn’t get that, it seems quite simple to me and one that will breed a good culture and turn the place back into a football club that players want to come and play for again.
Our lack of efforts over the past couple of years have seen us as a last resort for players to pitch up at, we know we can’t compete budget wise with the bigger boys unless Tony Kleanthous wants to throw some seriously silly money at it, but we can be clever with the budget and the bonus scheme to entice players.
Correct me if I’m wrong but what we want as supporters is players who care enough to put 100% in and leave everything on the pitch, we can stomach a loss with effort, Dean believes that’s the minimum required, Simon Bassey would say the same.
I love seeing the buy-in from fans now that I knew was coming, I’m not silly enough to believe we’re the finished article nor am I going to say we’re winning the title or making the play-offs, it’s one game at a time and we see where we go, but it’s actually beginning to be exciting being a Barnet fan once again……..
Thank you very much for reading this opening article, please feel free to share it around amongst your friends, family and anyone else who likes a non-league read.
Please subscribe as well, I’ve no plans to charge for these and as I mentioned above, I’m all ears for any contributions to publish, by subscribing I can track visitor and engagement numbers more easily and you will also get each piece delivered straight to your inbox.