"""...how shit must you be, we've scored two goals!""...rang out around Vale Park in a glorious moment of self mockery. For us long-suffering Barnet supporters, it was finally a moment we could indulge in and have a good time. And that we did, the handful of us in the away end made a fair old racket throughout the match, countered with apparent deathly silence from the highly discontented Vale faithful.
And right they were too, their team were very comfortably beaten by a side who had previously lost ten away games in a row. As good as we played, Vale were horrendous. They were absolutely awful. Not often would you see such a lifeless display from a home team, comfortably our worst opponents of the season. But let's not let that get in the way of our play yesterday. It all seemed to work, and John O'Flynn took his goals well.
We defended stoutly too. Clovis Kamdjo returned to the starting line-up and played very well. Alongside Gary Breen, with Devera moved to right back and Lockwood on the left, the defence looked more solid than it has done all season, away from home at least. Jake Cole didn't appear to have a serious save to make. In front of them were a solid midfield four, with Livermore looking unbeatable with a combination of strength and hard-tackling. Micah Hyde put in an excellent captain's shift, Adomah was getting back to the form we know he can produce and Jarrett was dangerous, supplying a lovely cross for the second goal.
It was a great moment where everything came together. Finally this run is broken and now we can crack on. First priority is getting to fifty, though I severely doubt Grimsby or Darlington's ability to reach that number, and then look for a top half finish. Playoffs are surely a distant pipe dream. The confidence that should now be flowing should make things interesting on Tuesday, especially as Bournemouth failed to beat Macclesfield yesterday, and then for the tricky visit of Bury next Saturday.
It does however mean that the end of the season is likely to be very boring. We're most likely not going to have anything to play for from maybe April onwards, like has been the case in many recent seasons. You want something to care about when you're going to the game, not just a runaround where the only purpose is to complete the formalities of a league season. Remember 05/06 when we flirted with relegation? Horrible, but at least it gave us something to care about and get a little bit excited. Depends what you want from your football experience, I suppose.
Even with this in mind, as well as the lack of form, we were in very jovial spirits yesterday. How much this had to do with the copious amounts of alcohol that a good few had consumed before the game is up for question. Even after that, in the concourse it looked like they'd managed to sell more pints of beer than there were Barnet fans at the game. We do not mind a drink and a sing, us lot.
This fuelled a fine atmosphere, helped no end by the fact we were winning. The vast repertoire of songs reverberated around a stand which was conducive to amplifying drunken voices. Port Vale fans were able to offer little, if anything in return, but as I say, it's certainly very not easy to stay in a good mood when your team is so bad. Just look at our atmosphere at home. The ""how shit must you be"" song was spontaneous and witty in its delivery. You can always trust football supporters to come up with such moments. I think it's important to do such things, to be able to make light of these situations, otherwise you'd just go a little bit mad. That said, I'm not the footballers themselves would see it that way.
But a classy performance it was, signs of the early season. Perhaps we're in for a decent end to the season making it decent on the outside and awful in the middle, much like a shit sandwich. One of my better metaphors there.
Meanwhile, the rivals article we recently mentioned is almost done. Limited web access has stunted updates of late, but bear with us. It probably won't be worth the wait, but it gives us something to do!
See you soon."
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