Lee has sympathy for Barnet

David Graham celebrates the crucial third goal

Torquay boss Colin Lee had words of sympathy for Barnet after the Gulls' 3-2 win at Underhill condemned their rivals to relegation.

Barnet's 10-year Football League stay was ended by a three-goal first half blast by Lee's side, though the Bees battled back bravely in the second half.

Lee said: "I feel for any relegated club that's going to be going out of the football league.

"Thankfully, I've never experienced that as a player or a manager.

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"It went through my mind about what was going in their changing room - it must be a massive blow for any football club and you can't be human if you don't feel for that club."

Lee made a late decision to play goalkeeper Stuart Jones instead of Ryan Northmore and the gamble paid off as Jones saved Darren Currie's penalty and pulled off a number of other important stops.

"My major decision - and it was a major, major decision - was to change the goalkeeper," added the former Wolves boss.

"I said to the keepers I wasn't going to make a decision until just before kick-off and at 1.15pm, having looked at the size of the pitch and discussed it with a few players, I chose Stuart and he saved a penalty band had a tremendous game.

I stayed clear of putting them under pressure

Torquay boss Colin Lee

"I hadn't seen a lot of him - I saw him play in the reserves in midweek."

Lee felt his team's success stemmed from a meeting on Friday afternoon when they decided to take a positive approach to the game even though a draw would have been enough for them to stay up.

"I stayed very clear of putting them under pressure this week. I only talked about Barnet in a very constructive team meeting.

"My players knew the Barnet players a lot better than I do as they've been in the Third Division a lot longer than I have.

"There were certain players we needed to identify and stop playing.

"A lot of the discussion and direction was about us getting at Barnet and trying to score the first goal.

"I didn't dream that we'd be 3-0 up and play so well. Then they threw everything forward at us and thankfully we held out."