Fire up the old Brentford. Matthew Benham is back. On Twitter that is. Whilst he has already returned after a brief mid-season hiatus, Wednesday saw him teasing us with another spin of the ‘cryptic clue generator’. On a day in which this column bemoaned the Charlton Athletic school of comms, it made a refreshing change to see Matthew at his fan teasing best .
What does it all mean? Of course his use of a video clip is traditionally associated with somebody new coming in to Griffin Park. That said, his clues are as hard to understand and unravel as Claudia Winkleman doing the maths on Countdown. Even when you know the answer.
So what can we learn from this? Is somebody coming in today? Certainly, Dean Smith has been very vocal about his desire to dip into the loan market.But any attempt to translate the sequence has , so far, proved as futile as going into a fierce London derby, away from home, with no strikers in your starting XI.
The clip is the Doctor Knee sketch, from Chris Morris’s series Jam. Soundtracked by Brian Eno, it features actors David Cann & Amelia Bullmore ( best known for playing Sonja,the Ukranian girlfriend of TV’s Alan Partridge – Don’t get Bond wrong !).
But watching the video for a scripted clue or a lead from one of the main names has, as ever, proven pointless. The only Chris Morris I know, in a footballing sense, is now in his 50s and no longer troubling the good people at Panini.
Then it hit me. What if Matthew has changed his modus operandi and is hinting at something else? Assuming we aren’t signing a player with an injured knee (when would we ever do something like that?) this could mean one of two other possibilities.
1 – That Scott Hogan is in line for a recall on Saturday following his well documented stint with the Griffin Park medical team. Has that period officially come to an end? Whilst, surely, too soon might we see him make a cameo from the bench? After all, he has been increasing his playing time for the development squad.
2 – That it may be somebody leaving us. The final scene of the sketch see the patient going through the ‘out’ door. If not the case of Scott leaving the doctor’s surgery, perhaps a departure (player or staff; on or off field) is imminent at Brentford? But who? And replaced by……?
Brian Little in for Rasmus or Phil as co-director of football? A rejig in the comms team? Peter Gilham finally hanging up his microphone?
I can’t see any of those happening and, besides, I’m normally as off target as Nick Proschwitz when it comes to unravelling Matthew’s clues.
Instead, we’ll await any update on Brentford official with intrigue. Then fail miserably to backwards translate
Chris Morris is now past the prime of his 1988 heyday – playing wise
Nick Bruzon
BrentfordFC 