Another Bad Hair Day in Barnet

Barnet (A) - EFL League 2 - 11th April 2026

The Hive London is a football centre near Edgware, London, offering football pitches for hire, conference and banqueting facilities, an on-site gym, cafe, bar and more. It was built on the former site of the municipal Prince Edward Playing Fields in Canons Park in the London Borough of Harrow. The stadium is home to EFL League Two football club Barnet, London Bees of the FA Women's Championship and formerly Tottenham Hotspur F.C. Women of the FA WSL from 2019–2022.

At the heart of this facility is a remarkably cavernous away end bar serving a range of alcoholic beverages to supporters who have travelled large distances to follow their sides. If the Grimsby away bar was a two up two down terrace, this was a Persimmon homes newbuild, clinical and soulless but they did serve delicious cold Asahi and there was plenty of space even if you did have to squint to watch Soccer Saturday. "London City Airport departure lounge", "a speed awareness course" or a "Coronavirus test centre" were my favourite comparisons. Once recovered from the bafflement, a sizable bluebirds contingent made their way out to a near vertical away end in an unseasonably cool but bright day in suburban North London.

Two changes from the Easter Monday defeat against Chesterfield. Niall Canavan failing to recover meant that MJ Williams shuffled back into a central defensive berth whilst Tom Barkhuizen replaced Elliott Newby on the left flank. The fairly fragile formula that has somehow found us some positive results under Foley already being stretched to its limits in a season blighted by injuries, everywhere. Still, good news about Angus MacDonald who recovered from the ailment which left him immobilised in the closing stages of Easter Monday.

"Get it forward" is our way of playing football, an MJ Williams hoof bounced forward which wasn't dealt with by hesitant Barnet defenders, Danny Rose teed up Josh Gordon who fired confidently past Cieran Slicker in front of the abandoned grassy knoll to put Barrow in the lead after only three minutes. Pandemonium ensued in the away end, this is after all a Happy Hunting Ground for the lowly placed side with Newport winning here and Harrogate drawing here, it was not outside the realms of possibility that we could do the same.

Blocks aplenty and some wayward finishing meant that a Barnet response wasn't instantaneous. Gordon could have doubled his tally but dragged wide just after the half hour mark. This was closely followed by another glaring Gordon miss after again being set up by Danny Rose. We could have and probably should have been at least 2-0 up, it's low down on the "things that have gone wrong this season" but Gordon's profligacy has cost us several times this season with fears it will come back to bite us on the arse once again.

Oh would you look at that there's two minutes of stoppage time for no apparent reason. Oh that's a lovely cross by the Barnet player, oh would you look at that it's not been blocked, oh would you look at that it has not been dealt with, oh would you look at that it's hit off their striker and gone in. Inevitable but that's what happens when you're the nomadic Kabongo Tshimanga and you've scored 9 goals in 17 games, now 10 in 18 games. At half time we returned to our dystopian death cave where Sky Sports News from three hours ago became the Grand National and those of a non-equine, non-gambling persuasion returned to an increasingly blustery away end for the second half.

The message at half time from Sam Foley must have gone into one ear and promptly exited the other as a delicious pass by Callum Stead threw our defence into disarray with Lewis Shipley especially caught out on the wrong side of Mark Shelton who fired Barnet into the lead. Basics, basics and fundamentals, whilst the amount of effort from Shipley is never in question he is caught out time and time again by a lack of positioning, an absolute footballing basic. Whilst Niall Canavan is over the hill and Ben Jackson's soul vacated his body months ago, Shipley is simply not good enough and another nail goes into a coffin that's already covered in nails for last summer's baffling transfer business.

Anyway back to the game, Barnet blinked first and made a double change just after the hour mark. Whilst Foley introduced Jovan Malcolm in place of the largely ineffective Tom Barkhuizen (nails and coffins) just before Stanway made a wonderful save from the beaming Tshimanga just moments later. Shipley was put out of his misery around the 70th minute mark. The fact the away end did not recognise who Joe Anderson is speaks volumes about the impact he's made since arriving in January.

Where is Rekeem Harper going? The midfielder picked up the ball from Angus MacDonald on the halfway line before embarking on a mazy solo run, seeing off three Barnet players before nutmegging a fourth to slickly put the ball past Slicker in front of a stunned away end with your correspondent in particular standing motionless in a state of shock. This is precisely the sort of ability which linked the much maligned midfielder with moves to Juventus in his earlier years and was probably his best display in a Barrow shirt where he was able to get the better of Barnet's centre mids on the rare occasions we turned possession over.

Alas we're in the final ten minutes, we've responded at the pace of dial up internet to Diallang Jaiyesimi's cross which is again dispatched into an incredibly dangerous place with relative ease. This found the unmarked Callum Stead who produced a header which Stanway managed to get to but it, given the amount of power generated, didn't prevent it crashing into the back of the net. In the [redacted word] 84th minute, again, surely, not many clubs out of the entire 92 has conceded as many late goals with consequences as disastrous as ours?

Ben Whitfield was belatedly introduced in the 89th minute, whether this is down to a lack of match fitness or some hesitation on Sam Foley's part, it is objectively far too short of a window to make any difference and that's with 6 minutes of time added on. That passed by with a series of Barnet corners and the introduction of a centre half for their centre forward, there was no real response from a Barrow side who once again chucked away a game at the death. At the full time whistle there was a mixture of muted applause, some effing and jeffing and myself who chose to slump over the advertising hoardings in a Kevin Keegan-esque manner like somebody who had completely lost the plot.

Foley's formula to keep things narrow and compact in a 4-4-2 formation which garnered positive results against Bromley and MK Dons clearly leaned on a select group of players avoiding injury and maintaining form between now and the end of the season if it was to result in our survival. Jack Earing limping off after 7 minutes at Stadium MK has meant that Lewis Shipley becomes significantly more exposed which we may have been able to weather. However, Canavan's absence meaning that MJ Williams had to shuffle into defence is probably a change too far given the fragility and lack of quality of the 2025-26 Barrow vintage.

And unlike Monday where results elsewhere meant we were let off the hook, a victory for Newport at home to Harrogate combined with Tranmere somehow avoiding defeat against the Mighty Mighty Spireites (!) meant today's result was both a kick in the teeth and the bollocks for our survival hopes on a blustery afternoon at The Hive. You could still look at the league table and claim that it is very much still "in our hands" with a game in hand against Oldham on Tuesday evening. Anyone who has watched us will tell you those hands are like the knackered ones you used to see in the Neutrogena advert, there is also potentially a finger missing somewhere and they've been firmly tied behind our backs with cable ties. A municipal sports centre in a non-descript part of north London isn't the most ideal place to watch football but surely far more bleak locations will await in 2026/27 barring a miracle of sorts.

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