retired_edmari

Tuesday September 16, 2001
Third Division, Game 13
Barnet vs Cheltenham Town
Underhill, London

This should've been nice and easy, with the team placed bottom in the Football League coming to visit. We were immensely in control from start to finish, as expected, but by jeez, by jingo, by crikey did we leave it late to settle matters.

The first half was pretty much a non-event, with Cheltenham managing one (or half) of their attempts on Marriott, covering the suspended Hamza Brajanac, and us putting together a small handful of half-baked efforts of our own.

Fortunately, the lads received a collective kick up the arse during the break and we looked a little more alive in the second period. It took until into the last quarter of the match to finally open the scoring, and after 90 minutes had passed it remained 1-0 to us.

Barnet: Marriott 7, Duff 7, Victory 7, Arnefjord 7, Bayliss 7, Pitcher 9, Larsson 7, SANNE 9, Durie 7, Fritzdorf 8, Huckerby 9
Cheltenham: Powell 7, Cole 6, Hodson 6, Walker 7, Ellender 7, Tate 8, Bullard 7, Vink 7 (Atkinson on 77, 6), Sedgemore 5, Alsop 6 (Devaney on 60, 6), Weller 6

Final Score: Barnet 3 (Huckerby 74, Fritzdorf 90, Pitcher 90) Cheltenham 0
Attendance: 3,636

And that victory would catapult us merrily up the table. After a brief flirt with 3rd place earlier in the season, we were now in second - and next was a trip to table-topping Millwall.

retired_edmari

Saturday October 20, 2001
Third Division, Game 14
Millwall vs Barnet
The New Den, London

Top against second at Millwall, with the relegated side seeking a speedy return to Division Two, and us looking to replace them at the top of the tree.

It was always going to be difficult, and the slow start we made wouldn't do us any favours as the hosts took an early lead through Rodney Jack. David Livermore added another before a quarter of an hour had passed, and this was looking all too familiar to the match at Peterborough which destroyed our last good run of form. Fortunately we battled hard and got back into the match, but the home side were too good and should really be playing a division above.

We did well to keep the score at 2-0 as Millwall continued to press the defence for errors and try to bury our hopes beyond all doubt, but eventually collapsed in the final minute to allow a second for Rodney Jack, and a bit more sparkle on the scoreline than they really deserved. Either way, we failed to go top, instead taking the scenic route to glory and deciding to drop to third instead.

Millwall: Guéret 7, Lawrence 8, Trott 8, Flynn 6 (Dobson on 72, 7), Nethercott 6, Livermore 8, Kinet 8, Derry 7, JACK 9, Sadlier 8, Eyre 8
Barnet: Marriott 6, Duff 6, Victory 7, Arnefjord 6, Bayliss 6 (Isaksson on 35, 7), Pitcher 6, Larsson 6, Sanne 7, Durie 7, Fritzdorf 6, Huckerby 7

Final Score: Millwall 3 (Jack 5, 90, Livermore 14) Barnet 0
Attendance: 8,706

retired_edmari

Tuesday October 23, 2001
Third Division, Game 15
Barnet vs Bury
Underhill, London

Losing to Millwall was a big disappointment, so we were naturally looking to return to form, and sharpish. We had the home advantage today, and against a team stuck nearer the wrong end of the table.

But we couldn't have made a worse start. Forget the late arriving fans, I think the players had barely made it by the time Darren Bullock beat Brajanac and found the net 5 minutes in. Fortunately the offside flag ruled that one out, but unfortunately Baichung Bhutia's effort a few minutes later would count. So would Paul Barnes' strike before half hour had passed.

As half time came we were struggling, and this was beginning to look like some sort of cheap horror movie acted out on a football pitch. Luckily we still had life in us yet, and Huckerby revived hopes of a comeback midway through the second half. Claus Bech Jørgensen was thrown off the bench to help out the attack, and just as we thought we had lost again he did exactly that, neatly slotting the ball past Kevin Poole to share the points in our first draw of the season.

Barnet: Brajanac 6, Duff 7, Jellyman 7, Arnefjord 7, Isaksson 5 (Victory on 60, 7), Pitcher 7, Larsson 7, Sanne 6 (Jørgensen on 69, 8), Carlstrand 8, Fritzdorf 6 (Durie on 60, 7), HUCKERBY 8
Bury: Poole 8, Donelly 7, Barrick 7 (Collins on 17, 7), Staunton 7, Patterson 8, Wilkins 7, Adams 7 (Harvey on 47, 6), Bullock 7, Barnes 8, Bhutia 8, Sheridan 7

Final Score: Barnet 2 (Huckerby 66, Jørgensen 90) Bury 2 (Bhutia 9, Barnes 28)
Attendance: 3,720

retired_bbcarr

enjoyable stuff so far :thup:

retired_edmari

Saturday October 27, 2001
Third Division, Game 16
Hartlepool United vs Barnet
Victoria Park, Hartlepool

With Marriott injured and Brajanac erratic, I chose today to call upon Niclas Bergwall for his first start of the season to see if he could prove a more valuable asset than I'd given credit for. He'd barely played since being dropped around this time last year, so he was understandably nervous about having to live up to the expectations I'd just dumped on his shoulders.

He'd go on to play well enough, well beaten by Shaun Murray for Hartlepool's one goal in the first half. But today we were the better side, and fully deserved our equaliser just before the break. Despite controlling most of the match though we looked to be heading for our second draw of the season.

Instead we left it until late to secure our tenth win of the season, with a last gasp strike from Geoff Pitcher. Aside from adding to his hopes of retaining his position as the fans' favourite, his goal lifted us back to second, although Millwall now had a 6-point cushion on us.

Hartlepool: Heaney 8, Foster 9, Simpkins 7, Collins 7 (Squires on 81, 7), Lee 7, Murray 7, Arnison 5, Dyer 6 (Venables on 53, 7), Lormor 7, Henderson 7, Shilton 6
Barnet: Bergwall 8, Duff 9, Jellyman 6, Arnefjord 7, Isaksson 6, Pitcher 9, Larsson 6, Sanne 7, Carlstrand 6, Fritzdorf 9, HUCKERBY 9

Final Score: Hartlepool 1 (Murray 24) Barnet 2 (Huckerby 45, Pitcher 90)
Attendance: 2,742

retired_edmari

Cheers Simon

Saturday November 3, 2001
Third Division, Game 17
Barnet vs Hull City
Underhill, London

Finally some good news in terms of the squad, as Chris and Henrik returned to action after injury. This should hopefully boot the goal-shy trio of Carlstrand, Durie and Fritzdorf into touch. In other team news, a debut was given to 16 year old Ricky Porter, who looks an interesting prospect in midfield and replaced the unfit Larsson on the right.

Hull hit the post 4 minutes into this one. Diving to cover that attempt proved Bergwall's busiest moment of the match as they failed to produce another chance in the remaining 86 minutes. I'm sure he was chuffed with the clean sheet nonetheless. Porter did wll, making several good runs down the flank and offering a couple of chances to the attack. Blidberg and Andreasson though struggled to rediscover their form today, and couldn't seem to worry Paul Musselwhite too much.

Once more the day was saved late on. Terje Sanne's long range shot cannoned in off the bar to a chorus of over 3,000 sighs of relief, mine included. Another three points in the bag and we continued the chase of leading Millwall.

Barnet: Bergwall 7, Duff 7, Jellyman 8, ARNEFJORD 9, Bayliss 7, Pitcher 7, Porter 7, Sanne 8, Andreasson 6, Blidberg 6, Huckerby 7
Hull: Musselwhite 6, Warner 6, Butler 6, Forsyth 8, Cullip 5, Brightwell 6, Black 7, Mann 7, Eyre 7, Bevan 7, Bullimore 7

Final Score: Barnet 1 (Sanne 87) Hull 0
Attendance: 3,803

To provide a small pain in the arse, I was informed after the match that Henrik had been injured slightly, and will miss another three weeks. To put it sarcastically, great.

retired_edmari

Saturday November 10, 2001
Third Division, Game 18
Brighton and Hove Albion vs Barnet
Falmer, Brighton

A trip to the season beckoned ahead of a short break from league action - next week sees the FA Cup begin for us. Oh we didn't like to be beside the seaside though, or maybe we would have, but we were stuck arsing around on a football pitch racking up our 6th loss of the season.

Brighton threatened more early on producing some fine goalkeeping from Niclas, but received their reward after 20 or so minutes when Richard Carpenter put them ahead. That was enough to give them the edge at half time, but in the second half we were first out of the blocks and struck quickly with Blidberg scoring the leveller. I'd only watch it become meaningless though before the fans had finished celebrating, as Rod Thomas put Albion back in front.

We took the game by the scruff of the neck and pushed hard throughout the second half, but simply couldn't find a way through and ended up rolling towards another sorry scoreline.

Brighton: Roberts 8, O'Callaghan 6 (Hutt on 90, 6), Luckett 7, Aggrey 8, Weir 6, Tuttle 8, Briscoe 8, Carpenter 7, Zamora 7 (Hutchinson on 75, 6), Thomas 8, Cassidy 8
Barnet: BERGWALL 8, Duff 7, Jellyman 7, Arnefjord 7, Bayliss 6, Pitcher 6 (Porter on 46, 7), Larsson 7, Sanne 7, Fritzdorf 7, Blidberg 8, Huckerby 8

Final Score: Brighton 2 (Carpenter 24, Thomas 50) Barnet 1 (Blidberg 49)
Attendance: 5,891

retired_edmari

Saturday November 17, 2001
FA Cup First Round
Barnet vs Burton Albion
Underhill, London

I'd been pleased when I saw the draw a few weeks back. We were handed a home tie, and against a Burton side stuck in the depths of non-league football. Meanwhile we were riding high in Division Three with ever-growing hopes of promotion.

But you can always rely on my defence to allow a dodgy striker a bit of a confidence boost. Dale Anderson, scorer of two goals in his 16 games so far this term, managed to hit his elusive third just 7 minutes in, and another goal disallowed moments later signalled that Underhill could be the setting for a Round One upset. This wasn't supposed to happen... we gave Leeds a run for their money last year.

It was good old reliable Geoff who pitched in and spared a few blushes with the equaliser coming moments after the disallowed strike. Things were looking prettier as we finally began playing the better football as the match went on, and although it remained a close game few could argue when we finally broke through a tough defence to secure our name was linked to a numbered ball at FA HQ tomorrow. Chris Blidberg put us in front on the hour, before Henrik's stand-in Mathias Fritzdorf took the scoreline beyond the visitors. It was a nervous encounter and perhaps the scoreline didn't reflect the match truly, but will I complain?

Barnet: Bergwall 8, Duff 7, Jellyman 9, Arnefjord 8, Bayliss 7, Pitcher 8, Larsson 7, Sanne 6 (Porter on 19, 6), Fritzdorf 8, Blidberg 7, Huckerby 7
Burton Albion: Rose 6, KAVANAGH 9, Lewis 7, Henshaw 8, Smith 6, George 7, Blount 4, Perry 6, Bowyer 6, Anderson 7, Fenwick 5

Final Score: Barnet 3 (Pitcher 13, Blidberg 60, Fritzdorf 71) Burton Albion 1 (Anderson 7)
Attendance: 3,614

The win saw us into the hat for Round Two, where we were handed a home tie against Second Division Northampton. It'd be a good opportunity to prove our worth against a team in the Division we could be in next season, and left us 90 minutes away from mixing with the big teams once more...

retired_edmari

Saturday November 24, 2001
Third Division, Game 19
Southend United vs Barnet
Roots Hall, Southend-on-Sea

Born in sunny Southend, it was a return home for me as we took on the struggling Shrimpers. Injuries to Duff, Larsson and Sanne meant starts for Stockley, Porter and Jørgensen, while Andreasson returned from injury to the first team once more.

Southend never really looked the worse side in this match - their only problem was failing to find a way to beat the in-form Bergwall and get something to cross the line between the posts. Even so, we were doing a similar thing at Andy Barnes' end of the pitch.

This one looked to be heading for a goalless draw, but we salvaged all three points late on as we finally showed our class and eventually found the net when Arnefjord scrambled in after Bayliss had nodded on Porter's cross. It was ugly and a tad lucky, but we stayed 2nd and closed the gap on Millwall back to 5 points as we near the half way point of the season.

Southend: Barnes 7, Miles 6, Searle 7, Bradshaw 7, Newman 5, Marsden 7, Hulbert 7, Walker 6 (Lee on 69, 6) Olofsson 7 (Fowler on 51, 7), Tolson 7, Kerrigan 7
Barnet: Bergwall 8, Stockley 6, Jellyman 7, ARNEFJORD 8, Bayliss 8, Jørgensen 6 (Victory on 81, 6), Porter 7, Pitcher 6, Andreasson 6 (Fritzdorf on 72, 6), Blidberg 7, Huckerby 7

Final Score: Southend 0 Barnet 1 (Arnefjord 85)
Attendance: 5,308

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">********************************************* ************************************************** * English Third Division - Saturday 24th November 2001********************************************** ************************************************** ================================================== ============================================== 2001/2 Table============================================= ================================================== =Pos Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag Won Drn Lst For Ag Pts--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1st Millwall 19 8 1 1 17 5 5 2 2 18 13 42 2nd Barnet 19 6 1 2 24 12 6 0 4 20 19 37 3rd Plymouth 19 5 3 2 16 11 5 2 2 11 8 35 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4th Rochdale 19 7 0 2 20 14 3 4 3 9 13 34 5th Brighton 19 7 2 1 16 8 1 5 3 11 14 31 6th Hereford 19 5 2 2 13 8 4 2 4 15 16 31 7th Lincoln 19 6 2 1 14 9 3 2 5 8 11 31 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------8th Torquay 19 5 1 3 17 14 5 0 5 12 17 31 9th Exeter 19 6 2 1 13 6 3 1 6 12 18 30 10th Kidderminster 19 7 2 1 12 4 1 2 6 10 18 28 11th Blackpool 19 5 2 3 11 7 2 4 3 9 9 27 12th Peterborough 19 6 1 2 20 12 2 1 7 11 18 26 13th Bournemouth 19 7 1 2 17 8 0 3 6 12 21 25 14th Hartlepool 19 4 4 2 15 8 2 2 5 11 15 24 15th Macclesfield 19 5 1 3 20 14 2 2 6 13 20 24 16th Scunthorpe 19 2 3 4 22 25 4 1 5 19 20 22 17th Bury 19 4 2 4 13 14 2 2 5 14 19 22 18th Orient 19 2 3 4 16 18 3 3 4 12 16 21 19th Hull 19 3 3 4 12 12 1 5 3 7 8 20 20th Darlington 19 3 3 3 13 12 2 2 6 14 17 20 21st Shrewsbury 19 2 5 3 13 14 3 0 6 10 12 20 22nd Carlisle 19 4 4 2 14 12 1 1 7 5 16 20 23rd Cheltenham 19 3 2 4 13 15 0 5 5 8 16 16 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------24th Southend 19 3 3 4 9 11 0 2 7 2 16 14 </pre>

retired_edmari

Cheers j4m13w - christ that's a toughie to write after a few jars

Saturday December 1, 2001
Third Division, Game 20
Barnet vs Shrewsbury Town
Underhill, London

Once more it was a seemingly easy match, against some bunch struggling down near the bottom of league. Unfortunately today's occasion wouldn't be the walkover expected of us.

Three goals in as many minutes set the match alight, as Nigel Jemson put Shrewsbury ahead, before Blidberg fired us level with a superb goal a minute later. Damn and blast though. Jemson would put the Shrews ahead again before ten minutes were on the clock.

The first half continued in rather a quiet fashion, with neither us nor the visitors creating much in the way of chances. Fortunately the second half came to life quickly, and we equalised with our first chance of that second period when Pitcher beat Tony Joyce from close range.

As the match neared it's ending we'd go behind for the third time, thanks to Richard Newton's goal, but Pitcher again equalised moments later with his 10th goal in 23 midfield appearances. Somehow, but not in a way I'll complain about, we won it late, late on when Chris Blidberg notched his 11th in 16 to steal the points in the dying seconds.

Barnet: Bergwall 5, Stockley 7, Jellyman 8, Arnefjord 6, Bayliss 6, Jørgensen 7, Porter 6, PITCHER 10, Andreasson 6 (Fritzdorf on 65, 6) Blidberg 9, Huckerby 8
Shrewsbury: Joyce 6, Whelan 6, Barras 6, Hughes 7 (N. Murray on 77, 7), Wilding 7, Marshall 7, Whittingham 4 (Tolley on 57, 7), Watts 7, Jemson 8, Freestone 5 (Newton on 71, 8), K. Murray 7

Final Score: Barnet 4 (Blidberg 8, 90, Pitcher 49, 78) Shrewsbury 3 (Jemson 7, 10, Newton 76)
Attendance: 3,728