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Y'all been warned about them killa Bees on the swarm
- Arlene Finnigan
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Ugh. Lunchtime kick offs are shit. I guess they’re even shitter if you got up in the middle of the night in order to be in north London for midday. Thoughts and prayers with you poor bastards.
And it all started so well at the Hive, didn’t it? We started on the front foot, as we’ve been wanting the players to do all season, and had a decent chance in the first minute, when Pett played a good ball into the box and Garner went down, but the referee was having none of it. Bizarrely, the match ball had to be replaced in the third minute as it was already flat. A grim harbinger of the deflation we’d be feeling later in the afternoon.
Another foretelling of what was to come later was Drummond being tripped as he chased down Hudson’s long ball up field. The assistant referee’s offside flag meant that the referee didn’t have to be brave enough to show a red card in the 4th minute. I said just after that I couldn’t see the game ending 11 vs 11. Both teams were pretty feisty, Woods especially looked well up for it (no wonder Shelton didn’t start), and Collinge was booked for flattening Jack Stevens 6 minutes in.
We took an early, and fully deserved, lead after Garner cleverly won a throw in, taken by Caprice. Garner held the ball up and played in back to Pett, who put us 1-0 up with a lovely curling shot on his left foot.
We were well on top, and their keeper Slicker was keeping Barnet in the game. He made a great save from Drummond and had to tip Daniels’ header onto the bar. There was a goalmouth scramble from the resulting corner, and Slicker got them out of jail again. We could, and should, have been 3-0 up, and it was inevitable that our missed chances would come back to bite us on the arse.
It was such a crappy equaliser to concede. Hartigan whipped the free kick into the box, Hudson saved Collinge’s shot, Glover tapped in the rebound and our players appealed in vain for offside. So sloppy, so disappointing, so against the run of play. So grimly predictable.
Tshimanga was giving us problems with his pace and tenacity, and we couldn’t complain about Daniels being booked for a clumsy challenge on him. He was gifted the opportunity to get his first goal for Barnet when Pett inexplicably blocked a free kick with his arm. Hudson had no chance with Tshimanga’s shot, which he belted into the roof of the net. How in the name of fuck were we going in 2-1 down at half time?
Barnet took the opportunity to bring Shelton on to have a good laugh at us after the break, and he played well, the Beavis lookalike little prick. It looked like we might be getting the last laugh 64 minutes in, however. Drummond had been scaring yet another defence shitless with his pace all game, and it was a clear red card when Tavares brought him down when he was through on goal. Five minutes later, we made the advantage count. Garner was the provider again, laying it off to the returning Jack Stevens, who equalised with an excellent calm finish.
Alas, we didn’t press on. Hawkes came on for Drummond in the 81st minute, and while it’s great to have Hawkes back – and even better to see him having learned his lesson and wearing proper shinpads – we immediately missed Drummond’s pace and were under more pressure. Suddenly, it didn’t look like it was 10 vs 11. And what a shitty way to lose the game.
If we’d scored it, I’d be saying it was an amazing ball into the box that caught everyone off guard, and what great striker’s instinct and positioning to put the ball away when it bounced back off the crossbar. But we didn’t score it, they did, so it was a horrible jammy fluke and a lucky bounce for a tap-in. Fuck off.
In a desperate last-ditch attempt to get something from the game, we brought on Taylor for Stevens, and Quigley for Garner, which I’m sure everyone was delighted about. We almost clawed back a point in the 90th minute when Hawkes’ shot was cleared off the line. Five minutes into stoppage time, Fondop held the ball up near the halfway line and tried to pass it to Quigley, who showed something approaching aggression for once in trying to beat his marker, so of course the referee gave Barnet a free kick. And that was pretty much that. Fuck’s SAKE.
Micky Mellon was understandably gutted after the game, and at something of a loss for words: “nothing I say now is gonna make anyone feel any better.” He said it was our best performance for a long time, but we needed to be more clinical. He called the penalty “ridiculous” - not the decision to give it, but the “crazy” handball – and admitted that we should have defended the free kick better. The one consolation was that “We have an opportunity on Tuesday night to go and be more clinical”. Ah well.
Fair play to Tom Pett for facing the media after the game, despite being visibly devastated at the result and his own mistake. Showing up to apologise is true leadership, and he also described his handball as “ridiculous”. He was also grateful for the chance to put things right on Tuesday: “as a player, you don’t want that to drag throughout the week.”
All of which made it all the more unfortunate that Storm Chandra put paid to the trip to Barrow. Probably for the best, though.
Thank fuck for our women’s team, who beat Lymm 4-2 in the quarter-finals of the Premier Division cup. Here was a game where we could enjoy a team coming from behind, with Lymm taking a 1-0 lead before we equalised with an own goal. Goals from Liv Newton, Paige Stopford and Ruby Crossman saw us through to the semi-finals in style. They’re away to Hindley Juniors in the third round of the Open Age Challenge Cup this Sunday. Best of luck, girls.
📸 Oldham Athletic
[HASTILY ADDED PARAGRAPH] At 6pm last night (thanks lads), the club announced the signing of a pacy young forward that we've been crying out for. Fábio Jaló was at Wembley last June cheering on his mate Vimal, his highlights reels look very promising, and his name is an absolute dream for making puns on. Welcome to Boundary Park, Fábio. [/HASTILY ADDED PARAGRAPH]
(I'm publishing this at 10.30pm on Friday night. If we've announced Calum Kavanagh in the meantime, tough shit, I'm not re-editing it again.)
A tough game at home to Cambridge United today. They’re currently third in the table and haven’t lost in the league since last October. So, they’re long overdue a beating. Think we’ve got no chance? We had no chance against Liverpool in the FA Cup 13 years ago last Tuesday, either. KTMFF.
Written by Arlene Finnigan
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