Fans of the Ramones always knew what they were going to get. The band’s stated philosophy of “Second verse, same as the first” encapsulated their approach and left no room for doubt.
Fans of Barnet are in a similar position. For the last three years we’ve been put through the grinder on the last day: in May 2010 a last-day victory at home to Rochdale was necessary to ensure survival, even if in the event Grimsby’s defeat against Burton sealed their own fate; in May 2011 it was a final day victory at home to Port Vale that sealed an utterly improbable route to survival as the Bees woke up for the last eight games of the season and Lincoln imploded; and then this year it was a desperately tight victory at Burton that kept the Bees up as both they and Hereford won their last two games.
The plan for next year is clear, then: don’t bother looking at the fixture list for the first 45 games of the season, but rather focus straightaway on the final game.
2012-13 will by definition be a critical season for the club, as the Underhill saga looks to have ground to an end, probably 30 years too late, and this is the last year it will host professional football. I’m probably in a minority here but I will not be sorry to leave it: certainly there have been some history-making moments there and the place retains a certain naive charm, but realistically it has not been fit for an ambitious, professional club ever since Barnet gained promotion to the football league 20 years ago. We have to move, and if the move takes us outside the borough, so be it. Facilities count for more than postcodes.
Of course, there are even more urgent questions for Tony K to deal with. A manager with a strategic plan for the next couple of years needs to be appointed, key players need to be retained, and decent recruits identified and persuaded to sign. Every year we have renewed hope and every year this is dashed as results fall away and our league position becomes ever more perilous: what I’d really like to see, just once, is a bit of stable mid-table mediocrity. Is that too much to ask?