Borehamwood 0-0 Barnet, Wednesday 1st January 2020

Borehamwood 0-0 Barnet, National League, att. 1,401

Welcome to ...

Over the last couple of years I've often marvelled at the National League and the results of Borehamwood, a side with crowds of around 600 punching well above their weight.  I was almost developing a soft spot for them.  And with my team Barnsley having their New Year's Day game at Derby moved so the nation can see Wayne Rooney make his £80k/week debut for the Rams (paid for by a betting company, while DCFC themselves fail to pay their own players on time and sack the ageing, injured captain for getting hurt in a car driven by his younger, drunker, more saleable teammates who didn't get sacked...don't get me started).  Anyway, suffice to say that I have no interest in bankrolling Derby's players at £31 a pop.  No, let's go Wood.

The Main Event

Perfect timing too, New Year's Day, local derby, big crowd (but not a sellout...hopefully).  And no, it wasn't a sellout.  Probably for any number of reasons that start and end with the admission.  £20?  For a non-league game?  To stand?  (It seemed to be £20 all round, but who wants to sit in the cold?)  Dearie me.  Having made my way there, I coughed up, under duress.  Still, what a game I had on my hands, local upstarts v the big (non-league) club from down the road.  It was truly terrible.

I could have simply stared at the back of the stand for 90 minutes.

I s'pose being up all nite following a NYE party didn't help, nor the hair of the dog beers at whatever time we got to the pub this morning, but, my god, what a terrible game.  I vaguely remember a couple of long range potshots, but other than that, I struggle to fathom how two teams can spend 90 mins in the middle third of the pitch.  And as for the buzz of a derby....23 'yoof' in the home head either chanting 'We are The Wood, we are The Wood, we are, we are, we are The Wood' or else besmirching Barnet as 'just a bus stop in .....' (I forget where; somewhere in the Herts hinterland.)  Or else there were the Barnet hordes, who surely made up more than half the crowd, yet made no noise that made it as far as these ears.  Perhaps their lack of a roof didn't help.

What a great des-res.

In fact, so bad was it, I nearly fell asleep (twice) while leaning on a crush barrier (not that there's much call for those around here).  Or maybe that was my lack of sleep in the preceding 36 hours or so.  I tried to liven myself up by queuing for a burger I didn't want.  Thankfully, service was so slow, I decamped back to the terrace unserved as the second half began, my mood not helped by having thoroughly read the programme (another two quid) in approximately 120 seconds while stood in line.  That's a pound a minute.  I wouldn't mind so much, but it actually covered two games, 'printing deadlines' and all that over Xmas.

The North Bank...is there a theme here?

All of this was a shame, cos it's a tidy little ground, easily reached, 10 or 15 mins from Elstree and Borehamwood station.  There's a newish stand down one touchline, and a covered terrace behind the goal for the home fans.  A more elderly stand on the other touchline gave the ground character, while at least the away fans could stand on a terrace, as open as it was.  Capacity is a decent 4,500, with 1,700 seats, more than enough for present crowds, yet big enough to suggest potential.  A shame then that it appeared emblazoned with Arsenal FC here and there, a result of said women's team playing here.  In that case, why aren't they Borehamwood Women?

Time to go home and get some sleep.  Finally.

Eh?

The Damage:
£20 ent
£2 prog

The Tunes:
Laura Mvula with Metropole Orkest
The Rough Guide to Indian Classical Music (Various)
Music in Exile (Songhoy Blues)
Tales From Turnpike House (St. Etienne)

Borehamwood v Barnet panorama.

A 1st sighting of the stadium.

The view from outside.

An old exit.

All stands should be camouflaged.

The best seats in the ground acting as segregation.

The stand with the trees behind it.

Same again.

The home end...eventually.

The view from the corner flag.

The Tree Stand.

The Main Stand.

Actual real life action.

A packed home terrace for the New Year;'s Day derby.

Will this game ever end?

Barnet 1-3 Wycombe Wanderers, Saturday 8th November 2014

‘We’re the famous Barnet FC and we’re off to Wembley.’

Welcome to The Hive!

I missed out on my intended match today and it wasn’t even my fault.  After turning down the opportunity to go and see Barnsley v Burton (the good folk of Barnsley can’t be ar5ed to turn out for cup ties, so why should I?)…it turned out someone couldn’t make it so I was going after all.  So, up early, showered and sat there in my Reds’ shirt eating breakfast, I got the call: Andy didn’t have the spare ticket, he’d already given it to Phil;  A quick internet search and a single to Sheffield (Andy had the return, don’t ask) was £71.50.  No thanks.  Back to Plan A – Barnet v Wycombe.

The all-in-one football facility.  Perfection for Barnet?

When I saw the draw, I thought this looked tasty – top of the Conference v top of Division 4.  And it turned out to be good nourishment too, end to end, and were it not for the referee, it could have been even better.  With the score at one-all and into first half injury time, Sam Togwell (scorer of the fastest goal I’ve ever seen at Oakwell) got his marching orders seemingly for making a perfectly good tackle.  Cue chants of ‘Cheat cheat cheat’ against a referee who’d already made himself unpopular with a penalty decision best classed as ‘dubious’.  Up stepped ex-Barnsley penalty poacher Paul Hayes to send the keeper the wrong way, just like he used to do with every penalty he ever scored for us.  They look soft, but he knows what he’s doing, always seemingly having the bottle to wait for the keeper to dive before despatching it the other way.

I'll have that one.  No, that one...

Till then, Barnet had been leading 1-0, Akinde beating the offside trap to run clear and round the keeper.  Another one-on-one chance was spurned for Barnet and Wycombe struggled with the ball over the top.  And the one through their defence.  All in all, they were lucky not to be at least a couple down till the penalty decision when (Troy?) McClure did or didn’t dive – and it was right in front of me.  Lots of arguing before Hayes did the biz.

Hayes 'doing the biz'.

2^nd half, Barnet put up a fight, but once Wycombe went ahead (a header off a corner…which possibly wasn’t a corner…it wasn’t their day) it was over.  To further rub salt into the wounds, Wycombe then waltzed down the right and chipped a beautiful ball over the keeper for a teammate to knock into an empty net.  1-3 and yet still time for the Barnet full back to see red for a late lunge.  Bit needless, getting sent off in the closing moments with your team out, but there it is.  And did I mention a disallowed Barnet goal at 1-2?  A outswinging corner went out of play before being headed in at the back stick.  Why can't professional footballers keep a corner on the pitch?  Careless.

Part stand, part exec box, part clubhouse.

With the rain lashing down I decided to pop into the clubhouse afterwards and what a fantastic place that was/is.  It’s large, full of comfy chairs and sofas, has a variety of beers on tap, endless TV screens, pool table, 3 of those racing car computerised thingummyjigs you get in amusement arcades and has a view of the pitch (but presumably not during a game).  But that makes me wonder: at what grounds CAN you drink beer within sight of the pitch?  At Dulwich you can, at Barnsley you can’t.  But where would Barnet stand?  Yes, cos they’re ‘professional’, or ‘no’ cos they’re non-league?

I’d fully recommend a trip to Barnet and their new stadium (‘opened by Fabio Capello, England manager’ no less; whether that brings back good memories or bad, who’s to say?).  It’s also only about 5/10 mins walk from the nearest tube (Canon Park, Jubilee Line) and you can’t miss the ground, since you pass it on the train.  I don’t know the ins and outs of the ownership of the ground (and surrounding football fields) but it looks to me like Barnet have dropped on lucky with this one, given their earlier stadium tribulations and the ramshackle nature of Underhill.  They have a 10 year lease on the stadium, albeit their wish is to return to the London Borough of Barnet.  Understandable, but, like Wimbledon before them, does the council care enough to have them back?  The stadium itself is very smart, one large seated stand, (East Stand) holding a couple of thousand, two small covered terraces and the ‘executive’ side, with a few hundred seats in front of the clubhouse.  Tidy!

Attendance: 2410.  Highest of the season?

Damage:
£17 ent (standing)
£3 programme
£4 hot dog (overpriced)
£4 Estrella

Metal terracing, metal barriers.

Tunes:
Today, I was digging into the letter ‘R’.  Like Sesame Street, but with headphones.
Radiohead – Kid A
Rachel Unthank and the Winterset – The Bairns
Röyksopp – Melody A.M.

A minute's silence for Remembrance Day.