BEES ARE HAVING THE LAST LAUGH

On one of my visits to The Hive not so long ago one punter cracked a joke. 'Soon', he quipped, 'a bit like London rats, you'll never be more than ten feet away from a former Barnet manager'.

Well, it made me chuckle anyway And at the rate Tony Kleanthous was rattling through Gaffers back then he wasn't that far from the truth.

That was September 2021. Dean Brennan took the reins for the first time that day, initially on an interim basis. He was the fourth man to set foot in the Barnet dugout that calendar year.

Kleanthous's trigger-happy attitude to managers is the stuff of legend, of course. Brennan's predecessor, Harry Kewell, had lasted just threemonths. The former Leeds and Liverpool star was Barnet's 25th change since 2010.

In fairness, not all of them were permanent appointments. But then again, permanence is a hazy concept at The Hive.

So Brennan, who had joined as Head of Football at the same time as Kewell, was inheriting a complete and utter shambles. A side that had lost 32 of their previous 50 league games, conceding 108 goals.

Were it not for the Covid-induced abandonment of the sixth tier and below the season before, Barnet would have been relegated to the National League South. Only Dover, who had their results expunged, had finished beneath the Bees.

What Brennan has done since-overhauling the squad and playing style, reaching last season's play-offs and going toe-to-toe with Chesterfield at the summit of the National League this season with a budget a fraction of the Spireites' has been nothing short of remarkable.

Extraordinary, in fact, by the fact alone that he has managed to tame Kleanthous's erratic instincts.