This could be the most crazy 24 hours in modern football. We’ve already had the farce of last night’s Checkatrade trophy opening round where the lure of West Ham and Leicester City U-23 teams (please note, your definition of under 23 may vary) was not enough to persuade supporters to drop the proposed #BteamBoycott in this most maligned of tournaments. And then today sees ‘Transfer Deadline day’ as Brentford supporters join the rest of the footballing community in wondering if any new names will be coming through the ‘in door’ or if anyone is heading out?
Jim White, Natalie Sawyer and the rest of the gang lead the madness on Sky Sports before the window eventually ‘slams shut’ (TM) . You all know the drill by now. Yellow ties, yellow dresses and lots of cutting to empty stadia where nothing is happening. Plus, presumably, archive footage of Harry Redknapp leaning out of a car (subject to his sore knee).
To read the rest of this article, season 2016/17 is now available for download on e-book in the retrospective: Welcome Home, King Jota (Brentford FC season review 2016/17)
Priced at just £1.99, all sales are being donated to the Brentford FC Community Sports Trust.
Likewise any sales from the previous titles – Celebrating like they’d won the FA Cup (2013/14), Tales from the football village (2014/15) and Ready. Steady. Go Again. (2015/16) – are also now going to the BFCCST.
We don’t do the serious stuff on these pages. It’s normally just a bit of nonsense about Brentford, perhaps with a bit of the national team thrown in. With Euro 2016 alive and kicking (quite literally) I couldn’t bring myself to do it yesterday. The scenes from the Russia fans and the attacks on England supporters, with the obvious and somewhat familiar retaliation, have left a rather sick feeling in the stomach.
More to the point, I’m not there. Who to believe? What to believe? A vile English minority or self-defence?
The media have been quick to jump on the England hooligans ‘shaming a nation’ bandwagon. Perhaps true, to an extent, but the more you read the more it sounds a bit different this time.
Gangs of French ultras roaming the streets starting unprovoked attacks on those English fans they’ve targeted. Russian thuggery. A flare gun fired at England supporters during the 1-1 draw on Saturday night (there was a game, by the way). A flare gun? Amid all the terror alerts and security. After all the violence. How on earth do you get a gun of any description into a stadium?
Talk of reactive French police. Police who had taken no advice beforehand and then waded in indiscriminantly afterwards.And come 2018 we’ve got a World Cup in Russia
All in all , whoever you believe to be at fault, some pretty depressing scenes and thought provoking stuff.
Thankfully, for us Brentford fans we have our two ‘inside men’ on the scene. Billy Grant and Dave Lane from Beesotted are out in France, trying to enjoy the football but also doing their domestic thing, continental style.
Have selfie stick, will travel
Armed with nothing more than a selfie stick, a camera and a laptop they are keeping the website running and bringing us regular reports on what is really going on. And there are some pretty shocking scenes.
Great work , chaps. Please keep it up. Here’s hoping you’ve got a happier story to report soon. And in the meantime, for those who haven’t seen it their update on the trouble in Marseille is here. The video is close to a million hits already. Understandably so.
So what else have we learned so far? Never shake hands with Joachim Low. He was caught doing the old ‘scratch and sniff’ during last night’s Germany v Ukraine. A game the Germans took 2-0, for the record.
Did the Ukraine manager shake hands at full time?
Will Grigg isn’t on fire. Despite being one of several ex-Bees involved in the Poland – Northern Ireland squads, the Poles ran out 1-0 winners. And it seems that Stuart Dallas hasn’t got the memo about #Beardclub having been disbanded. He’s looking less hipster and more Rasputin these days.
Tonight sees the first chance of that classic tournament line, “And for those of you just coming in from work, the score is…” being trotted out. The game : Republic of Ireland v Sweden. the place: BBC1. Expect that to be used at about 6.15pm tonight . Despite the score being clearly available in the top left hand corner of the screen .
As for Brentford news, well the tumbleweed continues. The most I can do is guide you towards eBay where there are a number of unusual Bees shirts on sale at the moment (and none of which this kit nerd will be bidding for on pain of death – not literally, but season tickets don’t pay for themselves).
Alternatively,The Last Word ‘season review’ : Ready. Steady. Go Again and the three year anthology : The Bees are going up remain available for download. Should anybody want to go over this nonsense, relive these moments once more and remind ourselves of the pain induced by Stroud and the fallout from that penalty’ you can do so now.
It has been a stunning few years. Here’s to more of the same. We may have had a few lows (something about a penalty, the football village, the FA Cup, the pitch, the Marinus experiment) but there have been plenty more highs as the Bees made an unexpected challenge for the Premier League.
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