Away the Gas
By Darren Stobbs
If you still had the ‘The Wonder Of You’ song in your head over the weekend after Port Vale, then you weren’t alone!
It was a quick turnaround for our next away trip to Barnet. We have only ever won twice at Barnet and that was at their old ground, Underhill and we weren’t going to increase on that statistic this time around.
We set off from The Mem at 1:20pm and decided to stop at Reading services for 45 minutes. Despite getting to the M25 before the main rush hour, we were still held up in a lot of traffic (I don’t think there is a great time to avoid traffic on the M25!).
However, we arrived at Barnet’s Hive Stadium at 5:30pm and were directed by the very friendly stewards to our parking space. We weren’t going to get away with a parking charge for two games on the bounce though, with it being £25.
We as a Supporters Club believe that there should be no charge for organised away travel coaches, as we don’t charge away coaches at The Mem. However, we are making note of which clubs charge us and look to charge the same for the reverse fixture at The Mem, which we think is only fair.
When asking the steward at the ground about options for pre-match food and drink, I was told ‘We have bars everywhere for everyone!’ A friendly welcome to North West London and so we went into the mixed fans bar on the side of the ground.
Despite not having any real ales on offer, there was still a decent amount of other choices. Although, it certainly lived up to the phrase ‘London Prices’ at this venue.
Burgers and toasted sandwiches were on offer along with bottled soft drinks. I couldn’t quite believe that a football venue was also offering a choice of pot noodles as well – that was certainly a first!
I decided to see what was on offer inside the ground and this time it was burgers, hot dogs and chips. Although I couldn’t see a list for hot drinks, I settled for French fries at £5. Not the best, but it was enough to fill me up, before the journey home. The prices of their food seemed to trend their drinks, and I got the feeling they were trying to keep up with the Jones’s, so to speak. With their big North London rivals, not too far away and likely to be not much dearer!
There was also a large modern bar area inside the ground for away supporters with TV’s on display, which I could remember from our last visit there seven years ago.
Barnet’s ‘new’ ground, has certainly a modern feel to it, whether that be the approach to the ground or once you are in and around the stadium.
On to the match and we were hoping not to beat an all time club record of nine straight league defeats. I have to say that I was confident of salvaging something out of this fixture to build on.
It was a game that we struggled to get a grip of from the beginning.
We were 1-0 down with a cross from the left and then a free header. A long shot then beat Southwood for 2-0.
In the second half we had a lot of possession for 20 minutes but not troubling them, as Barnat soaked up anything that we attempted to create.
Barnet were then given a penalty in the 78th minute, which was converted. They then wrapped the game up with a fourth goal with an easy side footed shot inside the box. We rarely threatened the Barnet goal throughout the match. The manner of the defeat was the most alarming thing, with no fight from start to finish.
It was really hard to give a man of the match to anyone, as it was that bad. However Fabrizio Cavegn showed a lot of effort with hardly any service and chasing lost causes most of the time. I actually think if he was put into a decent team, he will be scoring goals regularly. It’s a good job he is under a decent contract.
Attendance: 2,157 with 414 Rovers fans.
It’s interesting that before hearing Darrell Clarke’s post match interview, I also used the same word ‘diabolical’ for the performance we witnessed throughout.
We left The Hive Stadium at 9:50pm and went straight back to Bristol, firstly dropping off fans for Kingswood at 12:20am.
It’s a real shame that Darrell’s return as manager, has endured this terrible run of form. Even after all this, there was no collective chants against him. Yes, there were some shouts come the end of this fixture, but most of the anger is being directed to the players themselves, along with the owners.
I feel as though the players are badly letting Darrell down and if his time at Rovers was up, I am not sure who could turn this around.
It’s going to need a massive change of attitude and collective effort from all the players involved, whoever is in charge of them.
You wouldn’t believe it was the same group of players that brought a decent amount of form at the end of August and into September. But to lose nine league games in a row and only scoring three goals in the process, Darrell knows that things are on a knife edge. The other thing to consider though is, will the owners want to dismiss and pay up another manager, especially if they are looking for new investment at our football club in the near future?
Bringing back a previous manager, a lot of fans would have thought is a big risk. It certainly doesn’t always bring back the glory days. Whatever happens though, Darrell will always remain a hero to myself, and to other fans, for our double promotion and array of great players we had at that time. Who knows, if Darrell hadn’t been in charge at that time, we might have been struggling in the Conference for many a season.
Keep the faith. UTG.
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