Barnet 0 Torquay 1

It would be stretching it a bit to call this a mugging but given that Torquay were penned in their own half for the last 20 minutes only to break away and score with the clock standing at two minutes to five, it was a bit cheeky. In fact it was very cheeky for their entire support to do that "Easy, easy" chant after such a spawny win, still, football fans eh.

All the same it's going to be another long season at Underhill. The outfield starters were all familiar from last year, and much like last year Grazioli and Hatch were feeding on scraps until they were replaced around 70 minutes. Kandol and Vieira did perk the team up a bit though, and Barnet looked much fitter as they forced the visitors back and worked the keeper a few times without really looking like scoring. Unfortunately they over-committed and fell to a sucker breakaway which seemed to be compounded by a scuffed back pass (I was behind the goal and it was at the other end).

I have been to Underhill often enough to develop an affinity with the club but the bottom line is there are a lot of teams in London and just about all of them will give you more entertainment on a Saturday afternoon so I might mix and match it a bit more this season. Arsenal should be a lot easier to score tickets for with the new stadium and it would be nice to see some genuine quality at least once a month.

Update : "'We were mugged.' That was the honest assessment of Barnet Manager Paul Fairclough following Saturday's 1-0 defeat to Torquay United." Well, that's the manager's job, stretching it a bit :-)