So the football season has ended with yet another case of a team seemingly in safety going into meltdown and a team that had been wretched for most of the season dragging themselves to safety at the last possible moment.
For once, the death spiral wasn’t coloured amber and black. Instead it was Lincoln who took only two points from their last eleven games and allowed what had been a eleven point lead over the Bees with seven games left to play to be whittled away. In the end the Bees were good value for their survival, though. In the last two chaotic months of the season, marked by the brief but spectacular reign of Martin Allen and the unexpected but very welcome promotion of old Underhill hero Giuliano Grazioli to the hotseat, the Bees managed four wins and two draws, with the only two defeats being entirely respectable ones at Bury and Accrington. The goals started to flow and every 50-50 ball started looking at least 60-40.
All eyes are now on chairman Tony K to see what changes the summer will bring. The overwhelming desire among fans seems to be for stability and solidity, with an early appointment of a good permanent manager, the confirmation that the quality players will stay, and an early and targeted recruitment of next year’s squad. Whether this will be possible is uncertain because of questions of resources and availabilities. But we’ve had two seasons in a row where the spectre of relegation has been hovering over us right until the final minutes of the final game, and a quiet season of mid-table stability and building for the future surely isn’t too much to hope for.