Barnet buzzing for 2023-24 National League campaign

The Bees have home advantage at The Hive on Saturday, having completed their pre-season campaign with a 2-0 win over Cambridge United last weekend.

And Dean Brennan’s side will be looking to make a positive start to the competitive action, with three points on offer.

“Everyone is buzzing, can’t wait for league football again,” Collinge told the club website.

“Can’t wait to put last season right in many ways [losing in the play-offs]. It all starts on Saturday, one game at a time as they say.

“I think everyone is looking forward to it and what we can do this season.”

Collinge headed home from captain Dale Gorman’s header to open the scoring midway through the first half against Cambridge.

And after escaping with only a booking for a late tackle on Danny Andrew, Gorman picked out Harry Pritchard to backheel the ball into the path of Nicke Kabamba to double the lead.

“The lads put in a good performance, clean sheet, two goals from set-pieces which is promising, so overall it was a good performance,” added Collinge.

“Still things to improve on and I think as a collective we will say we can still do better, even though we were up against a good League One side.

Overall, a good day’s work.”

Collinge was especially pleased to find the net himself and is hoping it is the first of many in 2023-24.

“It’s something I’ve been working on, something I need to contribute more to the team,” he said.

“I only scored one goal last year, two assists. It’s definitely something I’m looking to improve upon.

“What you see out here is just the result of the work on the training pitch. If I get the reps in, I hope to be scoring more goals like that here at The Hive.”

And it meant Barnet remained unbeaten in pre-season with four wins and two draws, which Collinge feels can be important as focus turns to league play.

“Definitely [good for] confidence, momentum,” he added.

“We want to raise the bar and it’s important we…