Barnet’s ‘escape’ is lucky ’n unfair

THERE are plenty of lockdown fans willing the 2020/21 season to end.

But nowhere is this feeling more keenly felt than at Barnet.

This time last year, the Bees were buzzing at the prospect of a swift return to the Football League.

In reality, a semi-final play-off defeat to Notts County, coupled with the exodus of players no longer under contract led to a spectacular collapse.

This week, an endless managerial merry-go-round saw Simon Bassey (above) become the club’s fourth boss since the start of the season.

They are currently bottom of the National League, but the saving grace is the club will still be where they are next season following the suspension of the Conference North and South.

Aydogan Ruane-Mehmet, the co-host of the Beespod podcast, said: “We’ve had more red cards than league wins.

“There’s an element of embarrassment but there’s also a lot of anger.

“A lot of our supporters feel that embarrassment because we should have been relegated.

“For the sake of fairness, we’ve been very lucky that we have been given this stay of execution.

“A lot of people will be thinking that we should have gone down to punish the chairman (Anthony Kleanthous) – he should have learned from this.

“Unfortunately his first instinct it to blame other people.

“Off the pitch, things have been brilliant, no one can complain about that. It’s the progress on the pitch that has been terrible.”