And it's yet another sad night in this depressing chapter of Barnet Football Club's history. Almost everything that could have been wrong about it was so and it leaves us in severe danger. That said, we are seven points clear of Grimsby and they have just four games left against our five. Anybody else would consider themselves safe. Not us. It's a level of cynicism driven so strongly into some of us by this season's performances that we cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. Say we do stay up. What happens next year?
We turned up in Dagenham having put away several pints in the glorious London sun throughout the day. It was superb. At least summer is on the way. Yet again it was the day out that was the large redeeming feature of the whole experience. Any regular readers will know that enjoying the day regardless of the result is what we try to aim for, and at least this was the case. Though the result was one of those that really stings. Not as many of us as usual out during the day though, it appears no-one's that interested in coming. This is advocated by the very poor but not entirely unexpected away turnout. Just 338 Barnet fans made it. That is awful, but the stayaways are more than justified in doing so. £20 for that? Hmmm.
In one of many examples of Dagenham putting us to shame last night, I entered the ground early and stepped into a lovely little bar area under their brand spanking new stand. The downside of course being that they have reserved the best area in their ground for away supporters, but that's an advantage for us of course. Not much going in there, but still an example of how you can milk plenty of extra money out of people before a game, and at half time. A high proportion of the away support were in here at some point putting more cash into the Dagenham coffers. So it begs the question, why haven't we got this under our new stand? Weren't we supposed to have something like this? They've thought this through haven't they.
What's next on my list? Ah. The football...
Now then. It was yet another abject showing from this Barnet team. An early penalty put Dagenham in the driving seat. I couldn't really see the incident from the other end of the ground but it was another decision that on the night didn't go our way. Blaming the referee and his assistants is not the way to go here, we did not perform well enough and deserved a pasting, however the officials had a pretty average night as well. Nothing seemed to go our way. To be fair, we kept them at bay during the large remainder of the half with some decent defending, but they did exactly the same to us. There was barely a chance to speak of, no drive, no invention, no passion, no desire to get back into the game. Lo and behold though, once chance, one goal. A nicely taken header by Jake Hyde on the stroke of half time sparked some good celebrations amongst the small contingent and got us in at the break with some barely deserved parity.
The support had been pretty good in the first half. A few had become impatient, but the noise from the back of the stand wasn't all that bad. I suppose that was a positive, and it carried on into the second half where it was all going to shatter in front of us.
It was more a case of both sides cancelling eachother out. Daggers had the upper hand, clearly, however they were rarely troubling our goal. Skip through to the 67th minute and a second penalty. The home striker was put through and hauled down pretty blatantly by Leach, despite earlier suspicionsof handball and the penalty was given. Leach was then sent on a very small march back to the dressing room having been shown a rather harsh red card. 2-1 then, and this is where it all starts turning the wrong way.
Barnet collapsed after the penalty and yet again we have to thank Jake Cole for keeping our goal difference over Grimsby intact. Despite them scoring two very easy goals, Cole saved a significant number more and was the only player on the pitch, again, who really performed on the night. He must surely win player of the season. Paul Benson and Josh Scott rubbed salt in the wound for a 4-1 win which was a bitter pill to swallow. It summed up the game pretty well, but it just deflated everyone and left us frantically checking the Grimsby v. Chesterfield score. P.S. Thanks to Jack Lester on that one.
We escaped the ground unscathed after a most unintimidating showing from the young Daggers crowd who position themselves just next to the away supporters on the left hand side. The police presence, of which must be the lowest and least hassle for any London 'derby' was enough to keep them away from whoever they were targetting with their very threatening chants. Fortunately, we were able to sneak away from this warzone and get a lift home.
So we move to Bradford next. Grimsby have a massive game against Torquay, who made themselves practically safe by beating Aldershot last night, following on from that 5-0 smashing of Rochdale on the weekend. In a perverse way, I almost want results to go against us and for it to come down to the Grimsby away game on May 1. It would be absolutely horrible, yes, but at least it'd be something to be interested and passionate about. That said, do I really want the Blue Square Premier staring me in the face? It doesn't look good.
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