Barnet started November needing to put a run together if they were to maintain their play-off push. The team gave perhaps their best performance of the season in the first half at home to promotion challengers, Bournemouth. John O’Flynn put the Bees ahead on 15 minutes and should have scored again soon after when clean through on goal. The miss was to prove costly as despite their dominance, the Bees were unable to score again and a superb Brett Pitman goal just before half time gave the Cherries an equalizer, they scarcely deserved. Bournemouth could easily have won as Pitman squandered a second half penalty. A point wasn’t a bad result, but it should have been more. Calum Butcher and Craig McAllister made their Barnet debuts. It was to prove very much the highpoint of the month.
Barnet’s woeful away form continued at Bury on the Saturday, the Bees losing 2-0, their 6th successive away defeat in the league and the following Tuesday, Barnet crashed out of the FA Cup losing 1-0 at home to Accrington in the 2nd round replay after a dreadful performance. Dean Sinclair came on as a substitute, his first appearance for the Bees since leaving for Charlton in 2007. On the Saturday, Deano scored his first Barnet goal in over two years but it wasn’t enough to stop Barnet losing their unbeaten home league record as they went down 2-1 to Crewe. And neither Barnet nor Sinclair had a very happy Christmas. On Boxing Day, Barnet crashed 4-0 at Aldershot and two days later scraped a goalless draw at home to Northampton playing most of the second half with ten men after Sinclair had been sent off. McAllister, Butcher and Sinclair returned to their parent clubs. Barnet had slumped to 16th by the end of the year.
The New Year didn’t get any better. Former Chelsea midfield player, Lee Sawyer joined from Southend United and came on as a substitute at home to Lincoln City. A last minute goal gave the Imps a 2-1 win. Matt Lockwood returned for a second spell on loan from Colchester in time for the away trip to Morecambe. Lockwood scored on his second ‘debut’ for the Bees, but they lost 2-1, their 8th successive away defeat in the league and that became nine the following Saturday after Barnet lost 2-0 at promotion chasing, Notts County. In between, a superb Lee Sawyer goal gave the Bees a point at home to Torquay, but Barnet were in freefall. They had not won in the league since defeating Darlington in October and since then had taken just 5 points from their last 13 league matches, the club’s worse run since promotion in 2005.
Back in November, Barnet had still harboured hopes of a play-off place. At the end of January they were looking over their shoulder at the teams around the bottom of the table. The Bees had dropped to 18th, just nine points clear of the relegation zone. Instead of promotion, could Barnet be heading for the Conference?
