watford – Around Hanwell and up the allotment

Brentford FC in the Premier League 2021/22 – episode 10

April… and a spring in the step

Chelsea 1 Brentford 4 Saturday 2 April

This morning we got an email from Brentford warning against homophobic chanting and quite right too. Though it’s a long time since I’ve heard anyone sing ‘Chelsea Rent Boys’ and never at all in my time watching Brentford. Selective deafness maybe.

Yesterday we heard the news that Vitaly ‘He comes from Germany and now he is a Bee’ Janelt has signed a new contract with Brentford until 2026. Hope it’s not an April Fool wind-up. Last month Chelsea’s assets were frozen so they weren’t allowed to sell tickets, because owner Roman Abramovich is a Russian oligarch with connections to Putin. Luckily the ban has been lifted so here we are, on a tube train bound for West Kensington.

We walked to ground in the sunshine. Had lunch on the way in a familiar café. Reached the ground with 30 minutes to spare before the 3pm kick-off. We’d heard that Chelsea fans would be staging a protest against the possible future owners of the club. Don’t know if it actually happened.

No programme sellers were visible at the away fans entrance to Stamford Bridge. They must’ve been somewhere behind the masses of security personnel. Literally hundreds, dressed all in black with deep orange hi-vis. We were funnelled through the ranks of them like we were being swallowed up.

A crowd of 39,061 awaited the Two-Thomas-Tussle between managers Tuchel and Frank. Both of them good value in interviews. The stadium is impressive and the away section is very good. One of the best. We were high up in the corner of the all-blue-painted steelwork. A good view from spacious seats with standing rails behind.

‘Where were you when you were shit?’ the Brentford enquired of their West London near-neighbours. Well I was there a few times in the 80s, with my Chelsea fan uncle. When they certainly were shit – getting thrashed at home to Rotherham, narrowly escaping relegation to the old third division. The chant has a point. These fans are a different kettle of fish. Some say the old school fans got priced out, which is ironic, given that they used to wave wads of cash at northern away fans, Loadsamoney style. Maybe there’s a bit of what goes round comes around.

In the away end the mood was bright. Balloons – red, white and yellow – were launched regularly. Not to everyone’s taste and a fair few got popped. Meanwhile, down on the pitch, Brentford were playing well. Easily the equal of Chelsea and 0–0 at half time.

At one point it was only 2–1 to Brentford

In the second half Chelsea made the mistake of scoring. Or to be more precise, of losing concentration after scoring. For Rudiger’s excellent goal at the far end of the pitch was followed minutes later by one at our end by Janelt. It was followed by another three: Eriksen, Janelt again and Wissa. Every single Brentford player was brilliant. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.

‘Fulham get battered, everywhere they go’ alternated with ‘Chelsea get sanctioned…’ and the occasional ‘Bus stop in Hounslow…’ My voice was hoarse for three days.

After the game we walked in the sunshine. It still hadn’t sunk in by the time we got to Hammersmith and stopped for a pint. Our tickets had SHED UPPER printed on them. So on the way we sang the Joe Dolce classic: It’s-a not so bad, it’s-a nice-a place, Ah SHED UPPER you face!

Ordered a programme online. Good to see Pat Nevin’s a contributor. Junior section a bit disappointing – not a lot to it really. Surely everyone would rather a spot the difference than a spot the ball?

Brentford 2 West Ham 0 Sunday 10 April

We had won the reverse fixture back in October. And as the 2pm kick-off approached we wondered whether we could do the double over the Hammers. Would be nice, especially since relegation cushion teams Everton and Leeds both won yesterday. Brings added piquancy to our game today as well as Burnley’s at Norwich.

Among the substitutes Said Benrahma is West Ham’s ex-Bee. Will David Moyes bring him on?

Kurt ‘Cat Kicker’ Zouma was booed and miaowed at every time he touched the ball. Whenever he went down he was treated to ‘That’s how your cat feels’ and ‘Put him down, put him down, put him down’. He was taken off after half an hour. Seemed to be carrying a hamstring injury?

West Ham had most of the possession in the first half but never seemed to threaten. Both sides playing a good passing game. Eriksen pulled the strings for us but the whole team played well. West Ham’s Declan Rice is a useful player.

After Bryan Mbeumo scored at the start of the second half, David Moyes did not look pleased – you could say he had a face like a cat’s arse. Ivan Toney headed-in on 64 minutes.

Seven minutes earlier Said Benrahma had come on to a standing ovation. ‘He wants to come home, he wants to come home. Said Benrahma, he wants to come home.’ But no matter how much he buzzed, prodded and dazzled, he couldn’t bring it home for West Ham, who before this game had hopes of the top four. A measure perhaps of how far Brentford have come.

We’ve just dealt the opposition a hammer blow

After the game we strolled up to South Ealing with friends, for a pint at the Rose & Crown. Where we celebrated Brentford’s first Premier League double in a spring sunshine beer garden.

Watford 1 Brentford 2 Saturday 16 April

We won the reverse fixture in December. Could the Bees do the double over the Hornets as we did to the Hammers last week?

In a perfect storm of London Underground disruptions and hordes heading to Wembley for the FA Cup semi-final, we decided to go by bus, leaving early to get through Wembley before too many Man City and (mostly) Liverpool fans had filled its sunny streets and pubs. We talked about the game, and about Burnley manager Sean Dyche’s sacking a couple of days ago.

We arrived in Watford ages before 3pm kick-off so had a walk around the town centre. Watford’s a nice place, though I hardly remembered it from my only previous visit, when Vicarage Road hosted an Elton John/Rod Stewart concert in 1974, and Rod was still with The Faces.

Andre Gray is the Hornets’ ex-Bee, currently out on loan to QPR. Before the game, the 16,861 gate saw the Watford mascot Harry the Hornet parade the outside of the pitch, except for the away fans section. I used to work with a previous Harry the Hornet, whose antics were often hilarious, especially the notorious Zaha dive. He hung up his costume in 2018. Watford also have a set-piece drummer who only drums when Watford get a free kick or corner. Didn’t hear too much from him in the first half.

The shadow is aligned with the portal and the players – surely a good sign

Norgaard scored for Brentford after just 15 minutes. Roy Hodgson, legend and Watford manager was not pleased. Even from where we were sat you could see the sleeves of his white shirt doing angry windmills on the touchline. Then Brentford sat back. A hint of complacency?

While Roy presumably waved his white shirted arms even more during half time, we perused the matchday programme. Square not A5. Had to bend it to fit in pocket. A great junior section as would befit the original family-friendly football club. A pull-out sheet with loads of quizzes, name checks and stat sheet on one side, and a poster of Ismaïla Sarr on the other.

Whatever Roy waved at half time, it certainly worked. Watford were much better in the second half. We were poor. We started to hear the set-piece drummer more and more. Watford got an equaliser, given after VAR overturned the ref’s offside decision. We got a late winner deep in time added on.

This photo lacks focus – as did Brentford at times

I and a few others around me actually felt sorry for Watford, who will probably go down now. I was impressed by the loyalty of their fans.

However, on MOTD highlights their goal did look offside. I can understand officials getting it wrong in the rush of play, but VAR? They took long enough…

Felt less sorry for Watford after that. Another Premier League double for the Bees!

Brentford 0 Tottenham Hotspur 0 Saturday 23 April

Unfortunately, we were in France for this one. What lightweights. But you can’t miss your life-long penfriend’s wedding when you’re one of the witnesses. We lent our season tickets to some friends who’d been unable to get any as members. They very kindly took a photo of the portal of potential victory.

We followed written commentary on the BBC website from a garden in Normandy. Some of the French followers of footie present hadn’t heard of Brentford, but they had heard of Christian Eriksen. We guessed it was gonna be an emotional occasion for him, and presumably, it was.

We watched the highlights on catch-up when we got back. And what highlights they were. Brentford had more chances than Spurs, Ivan Toney hitting the woodwork a couple of times. What you might call an entertaining 0–0 draw.

So proud and impressed with how we kept Spurs out and maybe even could have beaten them.

Next

The media is full of speculation that Christian Eriksen and Ivan Toney will each move to a ‘bigger club’ at the end of the season. I hope they both stay at Brentford, and I can think of several reasons why each would benefit by staying. But if one or both of them moves on, it’s not the end of the world. Eriksen has already helped us to stay up, when we might have struggled otherwise. And all of the players have improved under his influence. Brentford has always sold good players and then moved on and up.

Brentford FC in the Premier League 2021/22 – episode 6

December’s games – thick and fast

Tottenham Hotspur 2 Brentford 0 – Thursday 2 December

‘Spurs fan?’ asked security outside the Blue Coats pub near the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. ‘No.’ But he let us in anyway. Inside it was loud and friendly, and the service well organised and super-efficient. The positivity and optimism of these fans confounded my abiding memory of the Spurs fan I worked with in the 1990s. He wore a replica shirt to work on every shift, and even when they won was oh so glum, ‘We’ll probably lose next week.’

White Hart Lane has long been a distant memory of a couple of visits many years ago. This was my first time at the new stadium, and… it’s amazing. Big, bright, spacious. At most grounds, programme sellers are cash-only, even now. Here, they’re contactless-only.

Light show like something out of Close Encounters.

Waiting on the concourse involved playing our little game of managerial merry-go-round guess who’s the opposition manager this week. And of course, this evening it’s much-travelled heart-throb Antonio Conte. We also enjoyed a mega sausage roll and a pint or two. At our seats the pre-match light show was worthy of Glastonbury.

The stadium has a capacity of 62,850, including an away fan allocation of around 3,000. The attendance was 54,202. I wonder how many were Brentford. A glance at the match day programme; nice and glossy with a couple of almost-amusing caption errors under Sergi Canos’s photo.

My sheltered upbringing means I’ve never heard of the Spanish position, nor have I ever met someone who was Forward.

Tottenham cruised much of the game; they looked like they could’ve stepped up a gear had they needed to. Son Heung-Min was the stand-out player. So quick and skilful. He got an assist for Sergi Canos’s own goal on 12 minutes and scored one himself on 65 minutes. He also took all the corners, bouncing the ball like a tennis player before placing it on the corner quadrant.

It was a philosophical trudge that we made to Wood Green tube in the cold night air.

Leeds United 2 Brentford 2 – Saturday 4 December

We arrived in Leeds the night before the game, to be greeted by cold, wind and rain. Revisiting the Leeds side streets that we slipped down in our student days. Back streets and back alley pubs, some cash-only with no music, TV or wifi. Myriad Asian restaurants, many of them very good (we’ve been here before in the Championship).

We chatted about the game in prospect as we walked along the River Aire and through the railway station hinterland, then followed the hordes down to Holbeck and across the motorway footbridge to Elland Road.

Ex-Bees Stuart Dallas and Adam Forshaw are here. The popular Toumani Diagouraga, aka ‘Toums’, or even ‘Dave’ to some, left Brentford for Leeds in 2016, and is now at Morecombe. And of course our very own Pontus Janson came to Brentford from Leeds. The club have recovered well from the dark days of 2007/10 when they were down and nearly out in League 1.

The pre-match entertainment didn’t dampen our spirits.

Triangle man is sitting in front of us, blowing up red balloons and launching them above the frozen breath of the crowd. At home games he rings a triangle whenever Brentford get a corner. Been doing it for years and was one of the first Bees fans we ever met. On six minutes there was applause for Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, the child abused and killed by his father and his father’s partner who have just been sentenced. So sad and really puts things in perspective.

The match day programme is the smallest I’ve seen, but not in a bad way – it’s more pocket friendly in size. Each of the articles in the early section (the important ones that don’t usually tell you much) are signed off ‘Marching on together’, which seems to be a common theme in the signage.

On the pitch though, Leeds were marching decidedly out of step. They scored first, then we got two. As we reminded them to the tune of “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, ‘Leeds, Leeds are falling apart, again.’

‘Scoreboard, scoreboard, tell us the score!’

We were playing much better than in the previous few games. But Leeds nicked an equaliser in 90+5. From a corner at which Alvaro looked dazed and unsteady following a collision. Didn’t that happen at Spurs, too? The ground has a capacity of nearly 38,000. The attendance was 35,639. Some Leeds fans were chanting that we hadn’t sold all of our allocation.

Leeds were happy to save it at the end. We were disappointed but OK with the result. As we left the ground and into the dark streets, some Leeds fans were growling abuse at anyone in Bees colours, including youngsters. We later read that objects had been thrown at Sergi Canos and Bryan Mbeumo. This is certainly not Newcastle.

Brentford 2 Watford 1 – Friday 10 December

We usually do well on a Friday. On the way to the ground we span the wheel of managerial merry-go-round guess who’s the opposition manager – it’s Claudio Ranieri! Stand out players are Cleverley and Sissoko. Tinkerman meets Little and Large?

As usual, the cardboard portal to Premier League survival was assembled before the start of the game. Five minutes later it was dismantled.

Watford were in yellow shirts with thin black hoops. All the players took the knee and the fans applauded. We started well. Lots of possession. Winning the ball back well in midfield. Janelt safe and steady playing at left centreback. ‘He comes from Germany…’

Then Watford scored. A recurring nightmare as yellow flare smoke came wafting along the stand from the away section and our play became disjointed. Just like the Norwich game. Triangle man responded by blowing up red balloons again and punching them into the cold night air.

Watford goalie trying to put Bryan off by the penalty spot.

We got two late on to win the game. A Pontus header on 84. A Bryan penalty on 90+5. Watford were stunned, Hornets stung by Bees.

Brentford v Manchester United – Tuesday 14 December

There could be no better time to play United, a club in transition following the sacking of Solskjaer, and the immediate departure of caretaker Michael Carrick after his final game. Rangnick’s got his work cut out with an unsettled squad.

We’ve even done the Covid vaccination pass stuff. But no, the game was postponed due to cases of Covid in the United camp. B***er. Surprised to learn that top-level players at some clubs haven’t been vaccinated. Whatever the rights and wrongs, you’d have thought the big clubs would have insisted on it, when they control so much else of their players’ lives.

Southampton v Brentford – Saturday 18 December

Postponed, this time because of cases of Covid in the Brentford camp. Thomas Frank is among those calling for all games to be called off until the situation is resolved. That won’t happen.

Brentford 0 Chelsea 2 (EFL Cup Quarter Final) – Tuesday 21 December

A 7.45pm kick-off, and we arrived earlier than usual for the Covid pass checks now being introduced at all grounds. Some fans were even wearing masks, which may explain why the singing was a bit muted.

Brentford were inflicted with an unfair yellow on 11 minutes which left many bemoaning the favour referees appear to give the elite clubs. I’m not sure how true that is, but it certainly set the tone for subsequent decisions.

Chelsea dominated possession in the first half with their lovely, precise passing. But we had the best chances. Half-time entertainment came in the form of the Brentford subs (probably unwittingly) skipping and high-kicking in time to Wham’s “Last Christmas”.

In the second half Chelsea turned up the heat and brought on Jorginho and Pulisic. Ghoddos came on for Henry on 73 minutes, a decision that mystified some fellow-fans. On 74 minutes the ball was cleared, looping out of play and down into the stairway exit near our section of the North Stand. We cheered as though we’d scored. Not long after, Chelsea brought on the biggest gun, N’Golo Kanté, who immediately controlled the midfield. Ominous. His pass to Reece James led to goalmouth confusion and Pontus own-goaled. Five minutes later we conceded a soft penalty.

Chelsea players applaud their fans. Thomas Frank applauds ours.

We played well but Chelsea deserved to win. Roll on the old cliché about concentrating on the league and isn’t the FA Cup a bigger deal anyway?

Brighton 2 Brentford 0 – Sunday 26 December

The first of the return fixtures. An 8.00 pm kick-off on a Boxing Day Sunday with no trains running and several other games postponed because of Covid. Brentford fans met the travel challenge admirably, in our case by driving down the day before in unending rain and through many partially flooded roads.

A walk to the sea at Rottingdean during a lull in the drizzle and later a ride on a bus full of Brighton fans to the ground. Its capacity is 30,666 and the gate was 30,141, though many of them must’ve arrived late because the place looked half empty in the first half.

Couldn’t find a programme seller so I ordered one online the next day. It’s pretty good, with an interesting section on Brentford. There’s also a pull-out section-cum-poster on Brighton player Tariq Lamptey. We know manager Graham Potter from his time at Swansea in the Championship. Seems a decent fellow.

Sometimes it felt like we were tilting at windmills like this one on the South Downs.

A more thorough Covid pass check but still no attempt at verification. More masks being worn. A pie and a pint on the concourse. We like the ground and its cushioned seats but there was no sitting down today. After a bright start by Brentford, Trossard scored for Brighton on the counter. Then ex-Bee Neal Maupay got their second with a wonder strike.

It didn’t take Brighton’s fans long to take our ‘Hey Sergi Canos, ooh, ah! I wanna know, how d’ya score that goal!’ song and adapt it to Neal Maupay. A double stab to the heart. The top deck of the bus back to the hotel rang with choruses of ‘Albion! Albion!’

Seagulls entering the portal of imminent victory before the game.

Brighton are the first and probably won’t be the last team to do the double over us this season. They’ve had a bad run of results recently and it wouldn’t surprise me if we were the last team they beat, way back in September.

In the days after this game there was unease on social media about whether our performance suffered because of injuries, tiredness or style of play. We side with those who say this affects most clubs outside the big four, so get behind the team and enjoy this special time come what may.

Brentford 0 Manchester City 1 – Wednesday 29 December

All a bit weird, two days before the game the Premier League announced a record 103 new cases of Covid-19 among Premier League clubs’ staff and players during the previous week. But most games are going ahead nevertheless. The club was doing a more thorough inspection of Covid passes than previously, so much so that mine was rejected and it took some persuading that it was indeed not out of date.

Man City practising before the game. But they don’t really need to.

An 8.15pm kick-off because it was being shown on Amazon. The camera operator scuttled away from the centre spot and only just made it to the touchline before kick-off. What’s that all about?

City played in light blue. It was a nice change for an away team to play in a strip other than yellow, especially when Brentford’s away kit is also yellow. Whatever happened to that lovely away kit from last season (or maybe the one before) – dark grey with orange/red socks?

The game? Oh, yeah. Well we were brilliant. One of the best performances I’ve seen from Brentford, though I am starting to think there’s a grain of truth in the referees never book stars allegation. Champions and table toppers City got away with a good few bits of naughtiness.

City’s goal came from a De Bruyne pass that was so perfect you hardly noticed Foden guide it into the net.

Next time…

Well, that was some sleigh ride together for two, too. And we go again on Sunday with the second of the return fixtures, at home to Villa. Mercifully, there are just three league games and one FA Cup game in January, unless the Premier League decides to shoe-horn in some rearranged fixtures.

Stop press, the Premier League has just decided to shoe-horn in the postponed game at Southampton a few days after Port Vale.

Happy New Year!