Nick Sandamas on a tough month for promotion-chasing Barnet FC

The outside of a stand at Stadium MK, home of MK Dons FC — Barnet will visit MK Dons in March – (Outside Stadium MK in Milton Keynes by Richard Humphrey, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

As we enter March, Barnet are still very much in the play off picture as we head into the final eleven games of the regular season, but recent results have suggested otherwise.

One challenge is that boss Dean Brennan is currently viewing proceedings from the stands as he is in the middle of a nine match touchline ban for alleged comments he made to a female referee during the match against Shrewsbury last September.

After last minute wins over both Oldham and Tranmere and a draw at Shrewsbury Town at the end of January, February began with a home draw against another play off chaser in Crewe Alexandra.

Despite January signing Kabongo Tshimanga scoring early, the Bees failed to capitalise and had to settle for a point. Then a trip to Walsall in their next game produced a great win, 3–1.

Adam Senior and Idris Kanu put Barnet two ahead and, despite Daniel Kanu pulling a goal back, Tshimanga made sure of the win with 20 minutes left.

A drab goalless home draw against Cheltenham was followed by a 2–1 home loss against promotion-chasing Swindon. Senior opened the scoring early on but the Robins hit back with two second half strikes from Ollie Clarke to take all the points back to Wiltshire and leave the Bees in eleventh place.

A trip to Colchester followed, with an awful performance seeing Barnet swept aside 4–1. Despite Nnamdi Ofoborh equalising on the stroke of half time, Jack Payne’s fine second half hat-trick swept the Bees into oblivion.

A Tuesday night trip to Accrington Stanley provided the opportunity to bounce back quickly with a 1–0 win so, as we go to press, Barnet are in a healthy position as we move towards the business end of the season with still plenty to play for. However, the absence of the gaffer from the dugout till the Cambridge match at the end of March is a bit worrying.

Hopefully the last game of the month against Chesterfield will yield a good result as March arrives with all fixtures this month being against teams chasing promotion/play offs or fighting to stay up.

That’s promotion-chasing Salford City, MK Dons and Cambridge United to come, whilst at the other end of the table the Bees come up against both Newport County and Crawley Town.

A testing month for the black and amber coming up with coaches Connor Smith and Jerome Akimo continuing to shout instructions from touchline whilst Brennan watches from the stands.

No news is bad news

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts.

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less.

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation.

Choose the news. Don’t lose the news.

Monthly direct debit

Annual direct debit

£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month. £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else. £84 annual supporters get a print copy by post and a digital copy of each month's before anyone else.