STUNG BY BOREHAMWOODPLAY OFF MISERY FOR THE BEES

The scene was set for what promised to be a thrilling and decisive encounter, with the Hive buzzing long before kick-off. This was to be the 13th contest between the two local rivals, and by far the most significant in both histories of the clubs; the Bees looking to regain promotion for the first time since 2018 and Borehamwood seeking access to the football league for the first time.

From the opening stages, it was clear that no love would be lost, as a scrappy affair ensued in the first ten. Both sides struggling to string together proper passes, Barnet looked more likely to go ahead, with a succession of corners providing early pressure. On minute twelve Kanu’s corner was agonisingly close after the resulting header drifted wide.

The visitors however stood strong and tenacious, which prevented the desired opener. All quality lacking thus far was certainly compensated by the roaring atmosphere.

Against the run of play the opposition took the lead on minute 20 with a well-executed counter and smart finish from the in-form Ndlovu. With the away end in pandemonium, Brennan looked to instil some calmness and belief into his players. With the hosts coming close time and time again, it looked as though luck really wasn’t on their side in the first half. Just to rub salt into wounds, The Wood doubled their advantage, after a surging run from Ilesmani, who put it on a plate for Ndlovu to bag his brace. The Bees had it all to do.

On 56 however the hosts were right back in it, a brilliantly crafted move was lashed in by Pritchard, giving a glimmer of hope. The dynamic of the game had completely changed, with momentum on the bees’ side, as both sets of fans were right behind their respective players.

Kanu led the charge for the equaliser, as the Bees probed they came close on several occasions. The winger who impressed all night, was once again thwarted by Ashmore.

The Bees had many half chances in the last 10, a remarkable endeavour from Kanu to get to the bi-line, very unfortunate to be on the losing side. Despite good effort, it just wasn’t to be for the Bees, who really had to do more to take in to extra-time. Getting promoted after finishing fifth remains an unprecedented achievement at this level.

Post- match, Barnet coach Dean Brennan gave me his thoughts on how the team can go about preparing for next campaign after a loss like this:

‘Yeh look listen you gotta learn from this we gotta learn quick, I know who I wanna recruit in the summer, I know the ins and outs of the football club as part of the job, so we’ve got to come back stronger’.

Borehamwood then agonisingly missed out on reaching the final, losing to Notts County, who were subsequently promoted back to League 2 after beating Chesterfield on penalties at Wembley

FROM SUNDAY LEAGUE TO PRO, THE 19-YEAR-OLD HAS EMERGED AS TIK TOK PHENOMENON, INSPIRING HIS MANY FOLLOWERS WITH STORIES OF FAILURE AND SUCCESS.

Yeah, definitely. I feel like the only limits and limitations you have are the ones that you set on yourself. If you told past me, when I was sixteen playing in football college, that I’ll be at Brentford right now as a professional footballer, then I don’t think anyone believe it. So it’s pretty much just how much you believe in yourself, and you can go as far as you want.

Trent Alexander Arnold has launched an initiative called ‘The After Academy’, to help those who don’t make it pro- What do you think of this?

Yeah, I think that’s a brilliant idea, giving kids an opportunity to make it pro, like we said about the stats and how hard it is to make it pro, Trent is given an opportunity for kids to get out there and showcase their talent and I think that’s a wonderful opportunity that he’s created.

With social media being something that you value highly, with lots of following on Tik Tok especially, can this ever be a distraction on the pitch or do you feel like it’s part of you as a footballing personality?

You’ve come into this position through a remarkable amount of hard work, but given 99% of people don’t actually make it pro, do you think football clubs should be doing a bit more to help out those who just miss out?

Yeah, that’s a tricky question, isn’t it? Because you know the stat that says like out of 1.5 million people, only 180 make it pro. So, it does show that the competitive side of football and I think mostly it’s like individually because we can pass the blame onto other people, but if we look at ourselves and if we give ourselves the best opportunity to make it pro and work hard and compete, then I think we’ve got a good chance. But obviously, like you said yeah, I think there’s always ways that everyone can improve, providing kids more opportunities, considering the stats against to be a pro footballer.

From Sunday League to pro, does your journey show everyone that you can make it wherever your journey starts?

Yeah, I don’t think it’s a distraction on the pitch because obviously, like you said, anything in life, too much of it is bad for you. So it’s just all about getting the balance in between. The TikTok I do to help others and I get, like, hundreds of messages every day, people telling me how much I’ve inspired them and how they start football because of me, and how they’re not going to give up. So there are so many benefits and positives that come from social media. As long as I do it correctly and I get the balance with TikTok and football, I think I’ll be all right.

Your dad, Kevin, being a former Premier League player, famously scoring a hat trick against Liverpool, given his experience, does he guide you towards where you want to be and how helpful is that?

Definitely. My dad’s been a massive, massive part of my journey and my family. I remember when I got released from Leyton Orient, my Dad was with me nearly every day on the pitch, helping me develop, taking me under his wing. There’s so much stuff that I’ve learned from him and that he’s been able to pass on to me. He’s been at the highest level, played in the Premier League, and the experience that he’s passed onto me and my twin and my brothers has been absolutely crucial on my journey so far.

Talking of your twin, do you hope to be reunited with Kyrell at some point in your career, do you think that would be the perfect ending? (Having played together lots before)

Definitely. I think I hope that the aim is for me and my team to be in the Premier League together one day and play at the highest level, even hopefully representing our country together one day. That would be the dream. Obviously, we end up in journeys after we left Watford, but hopefully we do meet at each other at the top!

Back in March, you had great opportunity to play against the Ukraine national team. How did it feel to face off against some of the most highly regarded players in the game, all in South-West London!?

Yeah, that was a massive experience for me and the boys, like you said, the big names, like Mudryk playing against him, I even got some Tik Toks of him as well! That was a massive experience, just seeing the quality, the leadership and just the way they play football, I was able to take a lot from their game and that’s something that we can take with us in the future.

How beneficial is it to be at an academy like Brentford where you can interact with the first team and learn from them?

Yeah, definitely. I think with how close everything is, with our changing rooms right next to each other, we eat with the first team, we see them walking about. So it’s really close the B team with the first team. Like you said, in training, if the first team manager needs a player from the B team, he’ll call him over. So just being able to be so close with the first team on and off the pitch has been really good. It’s been a crazy experience as well, because when I was at Watford, the academies were completely separate and in different buildings, but being under one roof here at Brentford has been a real shock in a good way. Like, you walk in the building and we walk past Ivan, Toney, you walk past all these big players, big names, and it’s like it doesn’t feel real sometimes.

Playing under the coach, Neil MacFarlane, who’s got a wealth of experience from both playing and managing, what does he demand of you in terms of the group as a work ethic to bring you forward?

Yeah, top coach Neil, it’s the whole squad and the whole managers, everyone. Like you said, it’s the work ethic. That’s the most important thing. As long as the coaches see that you’re giving 100%, you’re willing to learn and take on information, you’re willing to run the extra mile, then I feel like that’s the beginning of a great player. . As long as you give everything every single day on the training pitch and it matches them, they’re happy and that’s something that they can work with.

What advice would you give those aspiring to play at the highest level?

So the advice I would give is you have to put yourself in the best opportunity, like we spoke about the stats before this, about the odds of how hard it is to actually make it as a pro footballer. So you have to make sure you’re giving yourself the best possibility. There’s so many factors and aspects, but you need to make sure that you’re doing everything you can possibly to give yourself the best opportunity of making a pro. You have to be willing to outwork thousands and even sometimes millions of kids, so you have to ask yourself, firstly, am I doing enough? And if the answer is no, then you have to think about plan or how you’re going to change that and do enough to make it. And so when you do get opportunity to playing front of a scout or you’re playing in front of a coach, that’s your opportunity to prove. So you have to give yourself the best opportunity, and when you do get opportunity, you take it.

Brentford at the moment in the Premier League having a great season - do you hope to potentially be playing some European football in the coming years? Is that something that you’ve maybe thought about?

Yeah, definitely. This is an amazing club. That my dream here, is to make my first team debut, to be a part of the first team squad, and that’s something that I’ll have to keep working hard to achieve and hopefully one day I achieve it.

Winning the Premier League Cup, despite the fact that you injured for the last few games, how that feel? Did It feel like a fitting end to a really promising season for the squad?

Definitely. I think that that was a massive achievement for the B team to be able to be a part of the squad, playing in games that I remember. Arsenal, Blackburn, just such good opponents, and it just shows how much quality we have here at Brentford. You know, to win that was absolutely massive. And to be a part of the squad is something that I’ll definitely take with me in my football career. And obviously, it’s one of my greatest achievements so far. It’s a massive achievement that I’ll cling on to for a long while.

Whilst you were at Fulham you played with George Best. What was he like on the pitch? And more importantly, off the pitch?

Off the pitch, he was just such a nice man. Such a nice man. It was just the shame how his career went. I got on well with him, really well with him. It was Rodney Marsh and they both turned up at the same time. George Best kind of took Rodney Marsh’s place in the side. He would sometimes not turn up for training, but when he played, you just sometimes used to think, ‘No, you can’t do that. No, you can’t do that, it’s too good! ‘; we were kind of in awe, just standing there thinking this is insane. We went away on tour once to Guernsey and had a bit of a night out, myself and George were the last two to go home, and he woke up the next day, nothing had happened - I woke up the next day, I couldn’t run!

What would you say was the pinnacle of your career?

I suppose everyone talks about the goal against Man United in the FA Cup, where we ended up drawing and We had to replay at Old Trafford. We arrived there, then the managers decided to drop me for that game, And I couldn’t believe it. I got on for about the last twenty minutes. There’s about forty odd thousand there, but that was something else just to say I walked out on Old Trafford in front of forty odd thousand fans.

How do you feel the game has changed since you played?

Everything’s different, like the fitness, the diets, the way they’re looked after. When we finished the game, we’d go over to the bar, the other side of the ground, you just have a chat and a drink with all the fans! I don’t know for sure nowadays, but they seem to be wrapped up in cotton wool. Coming from the people I’ve kept in touch with, nowadays they do everything for the players, as long as they turn up on matchday and they perform on the match day. It’s just a different world now, a completely different world. We could have a drink, have a chat with people. You see it and hear it today, ‘he was out doing this, he was doing that’; different players get caught out. Back then it was just a regular occurrence to be with the fans. Another huge difference is the pitches, you see the pitches now, when I was playing after a dozen games, there would just be a little bit of grass down the middle! Now, the pitches, they’re like carpets, aren’t they? People say, ‘could he play?’ - could George Best play now? And you just think, of course. He could because he was that good. He would get fitter and just adapt. All the modern players, looking at their control now, you see them fire the ball into each other, then the first touch now seems to be unbelievable. They whack the ball and it’s under control straight away. And then when I was at Barnet down at Underhill, it was unbelievable really, some of our training sessions (because it was semi-professional), the coach would say ‘right tonight is rolling the pitch’ so that we could play on Saturday! And we’d have to drag a roller across the pitch to get it ready. Even The Hive pitch that they play on now is worlds away from what we used to play under here with Barnet.

then it happened again after the Tottenham game, where perhaps Harry Kane was lucky not to be sent off. And Klopp again was angry. question about how concerned are you that your defense gave up so many chances to Tottenham today? I mean, it was not the hardest question as I said, I don’t think people should underestimate that these managers are successful for a reason, because they’re good at what they the world’s media and everybody expects them to behave with composure. And it’s not always that easy when people turn around and say, they’ve just been through and for some of them it is hard to be composed in the heat of the moment.

You were in this youth setup at Spurs with Glenn Hoddle and Graham Souness. What are your earliest and best memories of that time?

It’s weird because you’d come from school and in your little area, you think you’re something good, you’re a bit special, and then you go to start training, and then they’ve got boys from Scotland, Ireland, all over the country. All of a sudden you think, wow, there’s some good players around, kids like yourself. It’s kind of then you’ve got to try and prove yourself against another set of players that are a big step up from what you’re used to playing against. In terms of playing with Hoddle, bit younger than me so It wasn’t until the reserves that started playing with Glenn. And Graham Sounness was a little bit older. But we had a good side.

We used to win most of the cups, as I say, we won the FA youth Cup, which is the biggest cup of the youth teams. We used to go out to Holland and play in a tournament out on Feyenord’s ground. Teams from all over Europe used to come over and we used to win that more times than not. It’s great.I loved it. Just a shame when it comes to an end. You think when I’m around twenty oh, no, what’s happened? You’ve been given a free transfer. But from school when I was roughly sixteen up until about twenty-eight, kind of a professional. And then yeah, it was just everything I’ve dreamed of, really, I suppose. I never was good enough to play in Division One Premiership now, but we played against a lot of the sides. Just great fun, it was real great fun. I had some sad times when I’ve been given free transfers and been dropped for games when I thought I shouldn’t have been. But that’s just part and part of football.

What were your experiences with transfers?

A couple of years I first got in the side was the man, and then he would drop me for some reason or another, and then, as I say, an offer came in. He called me in the office one day and said, Leyton Orient, they’ve come in with a bid for you. And it was kind of at the time, when I wasn’t in the side as much, so I thought, oh, well, I’ll give that a go (Orient in the second tier at the time). In the cup runs, you would play against division one sides, and I used to say there wasn’t great deal of difference between the players. Sometimes it’s just a little bit of luck having good day or cutting good games at the right time when people are watching you.

Finally, how would you sum up your career? I’ve had some had some good times, really good times. And when given free transfers, you think your world’s come to an end, but life goes on and you got to try and bounce back. Yeah. My grandkids now are both playing for the U9s at Cambridge. And yeah, it’s great.

And actually, the interview began the first two questions, he was fine, and I just asked him what I thought was a perfectly reasonable third question I’ve ever asked by a long chalk and he didn’t like that very much either. And again, he stormed off in the middle of the interview! do and they’re not used to losing. And when things don’t go their way, they find it difficult to take and immediately they’re pushed out in front say, ‘well, they’re well paid, they should behave better’. I don’t think that’s got anything to do with it, because it is about the emotion of what