Brentford walking into weekend protest at Blackburn as Charlton crank theirs up

Blackburn Rovers v Brentford. By rights we should be talking about Gary Blissett sending the Bees into a 1989 FA Cup quarter final against Liverpool or Jota sending Mark Burridge into near meltdown as he scored ‘that goal’ (#Burridgegasm). Instead, it seems that this Saturday we could be walking into the heart of a maelstrom with a supporter protest being planned against club owners Venkys. Like Charlton Athletic fans before them (and stick around to see how they took things to the next level at the weekend) it is another protest against an ownership that is deemed to have run a once successful club to the brink of disaster. And then pushed it over the edge.

Any excuse to take a look at this one again

The Lancashire Telegraph is reporting this morning how fans plan to raise red cards on both the 18th and 75th minute – a reference to the club’s formation in 1875 prior to their becoming founder members of the football league – as a sign of their dissatisfaction with team performance and the club’s rising debts.

Will this affect Brentford? Will it play into our hands ? Will we be able to get back to winning / goalscoring ways against a team who have been  rooted in the bottom three for what seems like most of the season ? Or could it even inspire the home side to up their game?

Who knows. What I can say is that it certainly puts our own ‘problems’ in perspective. In Matthew Benham and the current board, we have an outfit making no secret of the fact that the club is looking to be run in a financially sound way. For sure, the glut of sales / departures alongside Mark Warburton were tough for many to swallow but nobody could deny a subsequent Championship finish of 9th was a false or unimpressive position. The table doesn’t lie,

As recently as our last game, the Bees were a win away from hitting the play off zone. Sadly, we capitulated against Fulham with a, frankly, woeful performance that saw the Cottagers finally record a win against us at the fifth attempt.

Our biggest supporter dissatisfaction is currently in regards to the new club crest and, whilst all observations pro/against equally valid, it’s hardly in the Blackburn / Charlton category of doom and gloom.

I love the nod to the past in our new crest

As for Charlton, just when things couldn’t get any crazier at the Valley supporters took matters further into the hands in the ongoing protest against owner Roland Duchatelet. They visited his home town of St Truiden on the weekend of his 70th birthday with the intention of handing out leaflets to outline their concerns.

Not only did they do this but, likewise, stumbled across the man himself enjoying a birthday meal as his team went down 3-0 at Swindon. The Coventry Telegraph is amongst those with the story whilst you can see the video footage below.

For all that Brentford fans may be unhappy about certain aspects of life at Griffin Park, things could be an awful lot worse.

Charlton fans take protest up a notch.

Nick Bruzon  

As Sheffield Wednesday and Burnley stories gather pace, what’s actually happening?

Two days in to the dreaded transfer window period and already Brentford have been deluged with rumours and stories concerning our star players. Alan Judge and James Tarkowski have, supposedly, both been attracting interest from Burnley whilst the former has also been the subject of a derisory  bid from Sheffield Wednesday.

I’m not a massive fan of discussing transfer rumours but even by normal standards the silly season has started early. And ignoring them won’t make anything just ‘go away’. Moreso when you look at the sources. Everybody from Sky Sports to the West London websites and Beesotted have jumped on the Judge ‘story’.

I take the piece from Beesotted most seriously of all. Dave and Billy seem to have that incredible knack of knowing the right people behind the scenes and winkling out the facts from any story. Whilst I’d don’t take everything they say as 100% Gospel, recent seasons have shown us that they invariably get it right. When other sources are chucking enough mud in the hope that some sticks (followed by an “as exclusively revealed….”), the Beesotted boys generally sort the wheat from the chaff.

And their article suggests that Sheffield Wednesday have offered to triple Alan’s wages which, if correct, one would think is something that currently we’d struggle to get close to. Whilst, of course, Brentford are not obliged to sell this season’s top performer, those sort of figures are sure to turn anybody’s head and make having to listen to ‘that band’ every week almost bearable.

Any new player at Hillsborough will have to listen to this

With Burnley also reported to be after Alan, I can only see this heading to a similar bidding war as the one we saw between the Clarets and Hull City over Andre Gray during the summer. How it turns out will be a very interesting test of both Brentford’s resolve and plans aswell as the player’s own personal preferences. I have no insight on either factor so, rather than speculate, can only sit and wait for the next move. And it’s not a comfortable position to be in.

Burnley have, of course, also been lined with James Tarkowski. This after fears that Michael Keane would be on his way to Everton. However, with The Lancashire Telegraph now claiming that aswell as having a bid for James turned down, Burnley will be hanging on to Keane (“I’m going nowhere” is his purported quote) could that one die down ?

The Tarkowski story was one also reported by Beesotted (via their Northern ‘contacts’) and so seems to be one doing the rounds up that way, too. But, again, there’s nothing us regular fans can do about it apart from sit tight and wait to see what happens next or who Burnley are linked with. At this rate, I’d fancy them to go sniffing after Nick Proschwitz, such is their fascination with everything Brentford.

Tarks – hopefully us Bees fans will have better days, too

And, as ever, there is nothing out of Griffin Park. On the one hand I fully respect their stance of refusing to comment on speculation. There’s no point in adding fuel to any fire. On the other, the days of sticking your head in the sand are long gone.

The Internet makes information available at the drop of a hat and people are happy to share it, read it or speculate on it in a bid to generate headlines, satisfy their own desire to ‘be in the know’ and stir up sales. I can only imagine agents to be sitting back and rubbing their hands at present.

The alternative is we come out and make a definitive statement. To say that the club have had bids (or not) but have turned them down. That we have no need or intention to sell and both players are under contract. That we’re building this side to push for the Premier League and have no desire to sell a key player to a play-off rival.

Of course, that will never happen. It’s just not the way we operate and comms haven’t exactly been our strong point in recent years – who could forget the ‘success’ of Village-gate or the Marinus debacle? Besides, when money is involved and the window has another four weeks to run, such a statement would be as valuable as the Chairman’s ‘vote of confidence’.

But like it or not, the fans have read the stories. The websites and news outlets are talking about them. It would be nice to see us at least try.

Until then, we’ve got an FA Cup game to think about on Saturday. I can’t imagine either player will feature (and only because of the chaotic calendar that sees 3 games in 6 days). But you can bet your  bottom dollar what conclusions people will draw from that.

Press day at the Brentford media centre could be an interesting one this week.

The  Internet makes ‘hiding in the sand’ a tough option for the likes of Rasmus, Phil and the media/comms teams

 

Nick Bruzon