If you’re a football fan Easter is a great time to get more than one or two games in with so much going on and also some leagues staggering when they have the games arranged for.
Having headed to The Hive on Good Friday, it was Barnet in action again on Easter Monday, this time on the road to Maidstone Utd, a side they met only a few weeks ago in the FA Trophy at the same ground and the Kent side since relegated back to the National League South after just one season in the top division.
Barnet have stuttered a little in recent weeks, the punishing schedule now catching up with the injury-hit squad but at the same time sides below them unable to take advantage and the Bees were sitting in 5th place still heading into the game.
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With the emphasis very much on getting the required points to be sure of a play off spot, this was a game Barnet were expected to win given their opponents lowly position.
Chances in the first half were few and fair between, Barnet having an effort cleared off the line and Idris Kanu sending the ball flying over the bar whilst  Laurie Walker made a brilliant save low down on the half hour mark to keep the Bees on level terms going into the half time break.
With the interchangeable weather not helping proceedings either the second half wasn’t a much different pattern to the first, Walker the busier of the two keepers early on.
Dean Brennan tried to liven things up with a couple of substitutions, the lethargic Dan Powell replaced by Manny Fernandez and Marvin Armstrong taken off for Courtney Senior.
The Bees possibly had the better of the final ten minutes, Kanu and Senior involved in penalty shouts, the former not looking so clear cut, the latter a good shout but the referee not interested at all, in the end a game very much lacking in quality and good moments.
Whilst Barnet looked ok from back to front, the quality bit was just not there at the top end of the pitch but when you’re missing two excellent strikers in Nicke Kabamba and Harry Smith it’s hardly surprising.
Certainly, there are a few of the supporting cast shall we say not up to the standard of those in the starting XI, something that we knew at the beginning of the season and wasn’t going to be ironed out until this summer, just not possible to change the ethos of the last three years in one easy hit of a pre-season.
Still, four more games to come with the visit of Wrexham this coming weekend, an early kick off in front of the BT cameras for the 4th time this season, unbeaten in the other three games, which way is this one going to go?
