Memories of Barnet away..

Underpar at Underhill

I’d just spotted that it cost £5 to park, so was just pulling out of the car park on Barnet High Street when I saw the charge didn’t apply on Bank Holidays. My shorts-wearing mate only spotted it at the fourth car park he got to, but he still got there and had time for some beers before we took our seats at about 3.03.

We’d missed an Aarold header, apparently, and the chance to sit for extra minutes in pretty parky weather, but not too much else. I could see from there that the pitch sloped both from end to end and from side to side, so that the Bees right back was quite a bit higher above sea level than the Rovers right back.

They had Dean Brill in goal, and their top goalscorer Izal McLeod who has done a tour of the lower divisions and is keeping them afloat at the moment I think. They also had Danny Senda, but I didn’t recognise him easily from where I was, and a bloke named Hector, which isn't very footballery.

We had a new goalie, the amusingly-named Poke, whose banana yellow boots clashed horribly with his baby-sick fluorescent green strip, and who is about a foot shorter than Bevan (who isn’t, I suppose), but who seemed to cope very well with various bits and pieces in the air.

Aarold was upfront, with Zebra and Muzzy on the sides, and loads of players winning the ball in mid-field. We got loads of decisions from the ref, as Barnet didn’t seem to be able to get on the pace of the ball. They were truly dreadful.

Not many chances flowed, though, and the best was probably when Bolger, looking like the giant albino Silas out of the Da Vinci Code, came running in unmarked to head a corner but contrived somehow to completely miss the ball. It must have been the leg iron, I guess.

There was one main tactic though – push it down the wings and pump it across to Aarold in the middle, or Aarold, Bolger or the new loanee Downes if it was a corner. Someone said we were playing 4-5-1, to try not to lose, and they probably have a more nuanced view of football than I have.

In the last five minutes of the half we had 3 decent chances – a header, a shot by Aarold, and a rocket of a shot by somebody (I’ve rarely seen a ball struck so hard) which was excellently tipped over the bar by Brill. Finally, after 40 minutes, we had some football to get excited about.

It was still 0-0 at half-time though. There was a group from Shadwell, East London, near me, who couldn’t have been more than 5-6 years old. They were ‘neutrals’, they told me, but had come to see Scott McGleish as he had coached their club team last year when he was at Orient.

They obviously thought very highly of the bloke, and I was glad when he came on for the start of the second period, although confused that he had replaced Aarold who was, not unusually, one of our best players, as well as the centrepiece of our one attacking tactic.

The second half was a continuation of the first, until a long bouncy ball came between the defence and Poke, and McLeod popped it in. Alan Hansen would have been at his most damning – 'terrible defending', indeed.

It didn’t get much better from there. The ref booked us twice for taking free-kicks when everyone in the stadium, and probably most of the Borough of Barnet, was ready except for him. Lunacy.

Zebra had a great run through, beating everyone for pace for the umpteenth time, but his shot lacked a clinician’s finish (McGleish, I think, would have buried it). But I think he’s a winger rather than a striker.

Barnet took a couple of long shots, each time seeming to be playing crossbar challenge, but using the top of the stand instead of the bar as the target to beat.

We seemed to lose our confidence, and they gained some for the first time, and they scrambled a second while our defence stopped for a break when they got a corner. Then we truly fell apart – just hoofing hopelessly, while they interrupted by passing it a little bit.

Anyanswers came on, but didn’t have any answers at all. Carayol had had a good first half, but faded badly in the second. McGleish barely saw the ball, and when he did it was some distance above his head. Bolger likes defending, but nothing that involves his feet and a football, I think.

Stanley was quite effective for the first half-an-hour or so, then disappeared before he went off. Poke looked OK, and Downes was interesting apart from his defending.

Richards looked cultured when he touched the ball, but it wasn’t anywhere near often enough (I think he’s a Peter Beardsley-like attacking midfielder rather than a striker, but many would disagree). Dorman faded in and out, and Zebra looked good on the wing but lacked a final ball.

Overall, I thought Barnet were terrible, but they beat us 2-0, and there were few Rovers chances or players who had a good game. The bit that sticks it all together, the spirit and understanding and management, just isn’t there it seems.