A rare Sunday game and not a cup final either took me to The Hive for the final time this season as FA Trophy finalists Bromley were the visitors, the curtain coming down on yet another interesting if not under achieving year for Barnet FC.
With safety assured a few weeks ago and the side having reached Dean Brennan’s target of 50 points it was in all honesty a nothing match with absolutely just pride on the line.
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So many injuries meant Brennan was picking from literally the same 16 players although with Serhat Tasdemir AWOL for over week just four made the bench, a sign it’s time the sorry season was over.
No doubt there were a few appearing in Barnet colours for the final time and in due course we will find out which are retained and which are heading for pastures new, some deserved and some not good enough to keep.
Despite little to play for, both sides seemed intent on trying to attack hard, both almost playing on the counter trying outdo each other and the Ravens had the first effort inside five minutes, a header which Aymen Azaze comfortably tipped off.
The Bees took the lead 11 minutes in, Daniel Powell chipping Ellery Balcombe from inside the left hand side of the penalty area, some feat really given the height of the Ravens keeper.
However, the lead was to last all of a minute as Bromley equalised immediately, Azaze spilling a shot into the path of ex-Bee Mason Bloomfield and the striker netted against his old club.
The sides traded chances throughout the remainder of the half, Azaze pushing a Bloomfield effort past the post while Teddy Howe was unlucky with a curling effort wide of Balcombe’s goal, a further smart save from Azaze saw Chris Bush unable to give Bromley the lead and sent the sides in level at the break.
Bromley certainly had a good half time talk with the Ravens coming out with more purpose in the second half and it wasn’t too much of a surprise to see Louis Dennis turn sharply in the box and slide the ball into the far corner to give the visitors the lead.
Barnet were then carved open far too easily five minutes later, a slick move ended with Ali Al-Hamadi slotting past Azaze to extend the Ravens lead. With the game looking to be beyond the home side, slightly shell-shocked with the start to the half, Brennan made a couple of chances to try and claw something back from the game, Louis Walsh replacing Wes Fonguck and Sam Granville replacing an injured Rob Hall.
Granville certainly put himself about a bit, biting into tackles and actually looking fairly interested in the game. Just a minute after the young midfielder came on, the Bees were back in it.
Ryan De Havilland’s perfectly flighted corner found the head of Ben Richards-Everton to reduce the deficit to one. The Bees did pour forward in search of an equaliser and came close on a couple of occasions but Bromley sealed the points nine minutes from time Michael Cheek firing in from an acute angle to leave the Bees with another defeat.
Despite the result and some going through the motions there were a couple of bright spots, De Havilland was the pick of the bunch as he has been a fair few times since coming into the team, pretty impressive given he was really here to play next season. Richards-Everton also had a decent game whilst Teddy Howe looked a lot more in tune, still much more to come from him.
Steady performance from Harry Taylor if it was to be his final appearance in a Bees shirt, there wasn’t much happening much else around those four to be fair, don’t expect to see the loan signings return, most are out of our price range.
On reflection you can look at this season in a few ways. We all knew Harry Kewell was a poor choice, sitting below a man who could easily do the job and ended up doing so, the summer signings were late and the rest that followed unfit and lacking time to get up to speed.
Points wise, the season is an improvement on last year but the team did get thumped on too many occasions, some of those down to lack of availability which in turn leads back to the point above.
Don’t get me wrong we’ve had some bright points this season, the mini first run under Dean, this little run bar Sunday’s result, putting six in the net ourselves, out-Boreham Wooding with a Boreham Wood performance. I think Sunday summed up our season perfectly, good for the first 30, poor for the second 30, good for 20 and then poor for the last 10, too inconsistent which is one of the reasons why we finished 18th.
I know I’ve been harping on about #TrustTheProcess for a while. I trust what Dean is wanting to achieve, he cares that’s clear. That process started last November, was streamlined in February and he’s spent the last three months getting as close as he can to the target’s he wants, he’s done his due diligence to give the supporters a team to be proud of, that onus now falls on Tony Kleanthous, no one else, just him, but I’ll go into more detail in another blog as to why and where it can fall down.
Great as always to have the company of Nick Patel and to see so many faces that I’ve gotten to know over the last few years and indeed this season, despite the football it’s lovely to see these people, even managed to catch a beer with former boss Rossi Eames before the game, these managers and ex managers are hard to pin down at times!
So, bar the play off’s for six teams that’s it for the National League for another year, not the end of games for me yet, a trip to Wembley awaits this coming weekend alongside another cup final next Wednesday, both involving Littlehampton Town where I live, live on BT Sport ko 12.15 if you’ve nothing better to do this Sunday……..
