From ‘the village’ to The Valley. Does paradise await?

Brentford travel to The Valley on Saturday to take on a Charlton Athletic team currently stuck in the bottom three and with a record that anybody worried about the Bees recent form should take a long, hard look at.

The Addicks have picked up just one point out of the last six league games. Indeed, they’ve only managed two shots on target in 180 minutes of football (the first in the 1-0 loss at Reading and the other last time out, when they went down 3-0 at home to Preston). Brentford, meanwhile, followed last weekend’s home win against Rotherham with the midweek triumph at Molineux as Wolves were dispatched 2-0.

That’s the positive (for the Bees – sorry Charlton fans). Before we get too carried away, just think back to last season in what was, and moreso given our league position at the time, a calamitous performance.

Last time, out. Terrible manners but what a critic

Then again, it was at the height of ‘Village-gate’. We were stuck in the no-man’s land between ‘that statement’ being issued on the Tuesday, followed by a week of tumbleweed drifting through the Griffin Park media centre.

As a rule, I don’t particularly want to draw too many parallels to that period. It has been and gone. Like it or not, Warbs is at Rangers and the Bees have a new management team and a new approach. Even better, we’ve started winning again. Yet the Charlton game, of all, illustrated how important team spirit is. And when it is missing, the consequences can be catastrophic.

Even now, looking back, I’ve had to remind myself just how shambolic we were that day. With apologies to any terrace wags / observers who may be reading, the post mortem of this ‘performance’ (and that’s almost a breach of ‘trade descriptions’) from the Last Word review of season 2014/15 still seems generous:

How about Harlee’s non header for the opening goal? Look at Jonathan Douglas, whose meandering and sorties up the pitch then left a midfield hole big enough to park an oil tanker in. This was a game crying out for his experienced head to get a grip in the middle rather than go fannying around like Matt Le Tissier looking for a packet of fags.

The normally brilliant Alex Pritchard decided to show all the delivery skills of a drunken postman whilst Andre Gray just looked plain knackered. But then, with only the ineffectual Nick Proschwitz or the inexperienced Chris Long as alternatives, it’s no surprise. Moses seemed lethargic whilst Jota barely got a look in.

I could go on but what’s the point? A 3-0 defeat was the least we deserved. Only David Button came out of it with any kudos.

The game was so bad, some fans just caught up on their i-player viewing

I take no particular pleasure in dragging this up again. Instead, it is done more to say that, if there is one game where I’d love to see the players prove a point, it is Saturday’s. Charlton cruised to the win that ended a 13 game winless streak and, to coin that most famous of phrases, we were lucky to get nil.

Interestingly, of those players named and shamed, only Harlee remains. With him and Tarks looking rock solid at the back, and Lee Carsley getting excited about the reinvigorated spirit in the camp, are we already in a better place than last time out?

Hopefully Harlee will crack out the Coldplay once more and, with it, another winning performance. There is as much about personal pride as anything else riding on this one.

And with Stuart Atwell as the man in the middle, we’d better make sure that volume is set to 11…..

Still, if Chris Martin isn’t enough to inspire us again, perhaps this is.

“Football is sometimes called a village, and in any village, gossip and rumours can spread like wildfire, whether or not such rumours are true.”

We’ve got a lot to put right on Saturday. I can’t wait to see us try.

Could it be paradise for Bees fans this time ?

Nick Bruzon

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What do you want? Information.

I can’t take credit. Looking through twitter on the way home I saw the intriguing suggestion from Tony Cross (well worth a follow on @Lokster71) that there was a crossover sketch between Brentford and TV’s The Prisoner just waiting to happen.

And he’s right. I just hadn’t appreciated, almost fifty years since the cult classic first aired, how appropriate those opening scenes are. With Brentford fans waiting for the much promised ‘statement’ in regards to the managerial situation, on Monday the club website remained frustratingly devoid of information whilst the fans begged the question, just who is number one?

To read the rest of this article, season 2014/15 is now available to download onto Kindle (and other electronic reading device) in full. Containing additional material and even some (poor) editing, you can get it here for less than the cost of a Griffin Park matchday programme or Balti Pie.

Thanks for reading and all your comments over the course of the season. For now, I need to make more space on the site for any follow up. However, ‘close season’ will continue in full, further on.

Woeful week sees Bees lurch from crisis to debacle

A dreadful week for Brentford off field ended in calamitous style on it. Instead of consolidating our play off spot and, even, aiming higher we’ve slipped to 7^th(seventh) place after this woeful defeat to a Charlton Athletic side who hadn’t won in three months prior. This, following the loss to Watford on Tuesday, has compounded a ludicrous five days where the performance at The Valley was every bit as embarrassing as ‘that statement’ and the subsequent tumbleweed out of Griffin Park.

This isn’t a question about the ‘support’ of Matthew Benham.

To read the rest of this article, season 2014/15 is now available to download onto Kindle (and other electronic reading device) in full. Containing additional material and even some (poor) editing, you can get it here for less than the cost of a Griffin Park matchday programme or Balti Pie.

Thanks for reading and all your comments over the course of the season. For now, I need to make more space on the site for any follow up. However, ‘close season’ will continue in full, further on.

The Bees fans were (mostly) focussed on the game and showing their support

The situation stinks as Bees fans leave The Valley