Barnet fans witnessed the most extraordinary own goal on Saturday. Thankfully, it was scored by Hereford to ensure a convincing 2-0 Bees win. First of all, let me apologise for a mistake that I made on the match report of the game. I said that it was Michael Townsend who scored the own goal, but in fact, it was their fullback Ryan Valentine. I thought it was Valentine, but instead I went and consulted the BBC website to double check. In the euphoria of the Bees fans around me I thought there might have been a very slim chance of me being wrong. The man who does the minute by minute analysis of the game, said it was Michael Townsend. So I consulted the official Barnet website, who too said it was Townsend. Then I went on Hereford Mad and yes, they said it was Michael Townsend too. So foolishly, I went against my instincts and after a lot of fussing and flapping about, I said it was Michael Townsend who scored the own goal; when it was actually Ryan Valentine. Profuse apologies for that. I am never going to consult that live text guide again, I promise.
It was very pleasing on Saturday to see the team grind out a good result and our second win of the season. Now there is a sizeable gap between us and Hereford. Again, I think we will just have to hope that there are two teams in the division worse than us. If Hereford is one of those teams, who will the other one be? Bradford are now second bottom, but surely, with their 12,000 strong crowds and a large wage bill, they can’t get relegated. Let’s just hope the result on Saturday can bring the team confidence for our next few games. Over the past few weeks, with the exception of the Wycombe game last week, Barnet have been playing really well; just not getting good results. Against Hereford we played the poorest I’ve seen us play for quite a while now, yet we got 3 points on the board.
Charlie Taylor, the striker who we signed from Sutton United, looks lazier on the pitch than Dimitar Berbatov having a strop. Until he got substituted, he made Steve Kabba, who was the best player on the pitch, do all the hard work. That has got to stop if he is to play more games for the Bees. My cousin is a Dorchester Town Fan. He says that when Phil Walsh played for them, he was very standard. However, since he joined us on loan, we look threatening whilst on the attack. Mark Marshall down the wing just loves playing at home, he scored another goal in the first half on Saturday, a goal which of course has been overshadowed by the freak own goal by Ryan Valentine. We looked the most solid defensively with Anwar Uddin not in the side. Grant Basey looked good on his debut and almost grabbed a goal for himself. It is a shame that Glen Southam won’t be fit for the game tomorrow against Southend in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, but injuries are part and parcel of football nowadays.
Come on you Bees!