Brentford kicked off their warm up for football in The Championship with a trip to Boreham Wood last night. The 253 who attended were treated to a 3-1 win for the Bees and had the added advantage over TW8 residents in not being blasted with Kew Gardens’ Abba concert.
In a marvellously ironic gesture of neighbourly relations from the World Heritage site, the sounds of their open air show reached Griffin Park, and beyond, in a note perfect recreation of what it must be like to be stuck inside of Alan Partridge’s head.
On pitch, it was always good to hear Kevin O’Connor open the scoring from the penalty spot. Mr Reliable’s strike from 12 yards (although he’d probably nail one from 18) was definitely music to my ears.
The other point of note was that, according to Billy Reeves twitter feed, Sam Saunders and new boy Alex Pritchard were in attendance but there was no sighting of Will Grigg. Even the non-playing David Button had, reportedly, been spotted . And this in a game where 23 players were in the squad.
The last time we’d heard of the Northern Ireland International, he was slapping Harlee Dean in the face with a fish. So where was Will last night ? An injury in training or had he ‘gone to the beach’, Simon Moore style ?
Was Will injured, in disguise or ‘at the beach’ last night?
Bristol City have been amongst a number of clubs reportedly interested in our man over the summer and so could a move, loan or otherwise, be in the offing? Given the Bees already thin forward line, I’d hope not. And if for no other reason than I think Grigg still has the potential to find the form that caused us to sign him from Walsall aswell as earning selection for his country.
The flipside, of course, (and remember that this is all pure speculation) is that Mark Warburton is clearing the decks ahead of any further new signing. The names of Scott Hogan and Patrick Bamford (Rochdale and Chelsea, respectively) have been doing the rounds for a while but are these simply the result of wishful thinking over a quiet summer? Or is Matthew Benham firing up the cryptic clue generator once more?
Is Will going to ask Warbs to ‘Take a Chance on Me” or will the Bees be spending the “Money, Money, Money”?
Either way, I’m sure we’ll learn more over the coming days.
‘Celebrating like they’d won the FA Cup…..’ (The story of Brentford’s 2013/14 promotion campaign, amongst other football related chatter) – is now available as a digital book. Featuring the best of the not so bad columns from last season, and some new content, you can download it here for your kindle / digital device.
Dear Kew Gardens – in future, please limit your Abba to repeats of Alan Partridge .
BrentfordFC 