Right players, wrong question

Well played Norwich City. I need to say that after their 3-0 victory over Brentford left the Canaries perched at the top of the Championship table. It was a great game but one, ultimately, that came down to the side who took their chances running out as winners. Brentford may have had more possession and shots on goal but there is only one stat that counts – and that’s where we were bettered.

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 along.

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Brentford, Birmingham, Fulham and Clem. But who were the winners?

Birmingham City and Clayton Donaldson returned to Griffin Park on Saturday in a game where, perhaps, Brentford can count themselves unlucky not to have finished with all three points. With Birmingham a man (thanks, Mr Madley) and a goal up, they sat back in a second half that saw a Brentford side who, by all medical logic should have been dead on their feet, just push harder and harder for the draw and, almost, the win.

I’m not going to sour this fine performance with an overlong rant about Madley…..

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 along.

Clem makes a point as he finally earns one – as seen on the BBC Football League Show

Brentford and Birmingham given chance to relive the best and worst of football

Brentford entertain Birmingham City on Saturday with the return of Clayton Donaldson to Griffin Park already overshadowed by the return of referee Robert Madley.

“They celebrated like they’d won the FA Cup”.

Not my words but, as if anybody needed reminding, those of Leyton Orient manager Russell Slade after we’d beaten his O’s back in March.

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 along.

Who is the real Brains of the bunch? Is this our away shirt?

The atmosphere surrounding England in the forthcoming World Cup is, quite literally, electric but for me there is as much excitement in the drip feed of the new kits to be worn in the league next season. Of course, we all know what the Brentford home and goalkeeper efforts are going to look like but what about the away version?

It’s fair to say that nobody knows. Like the mid-season appointment of Warbs to the Griffin Park managerial hotseat, could it be as big a surprise? Well, the clues are out there for the eagle-eyed reader (for eagle eyed, see also: stabbing wildly in the dark).

As regular commentator Bernard Quackenbush mentioned the other day, the reveal of the Brentford kit very much resembled the opening credits of TV’s Thunderbirds. A close up of each ‘vehicle’ from which it would be impossible to recognise the final design spec until the camera pulled away for that wide angle ‘reveal’.

I quite liked this analogy, until I started to look a bit further into this year’s Adidas catalogue. Amongst their designs already released are those for Middlesborough (h) and West Ham (a). Both feature broad, diagonal sashes and, particularly in the case of West Ham, could have been taken direct from Gerry Anderson’s puppet laboratory (a more sinister sounding place, I’m yet to imagine).

The Adidas ‘sash’ template for the forthcoming season. All a bit too ‘Gerry Anderson’

I have no issues with a shirt sash if done correctly – see Peru and Crystal Palace – but the latest Adidas effort is as subtle as Adrian Chiles desperately filling 40 minutes of lightning storm delayed England football last night. “Slow down”, he exhorted Ian Wright, “you’re talking too fast. Don’t you remember Poland? We’ve no idea how long we have to talk for”.

And given we seem to have thrown a lot of eggs in the basket marked ‘home and gk’, does this mean there is any room left for something special in the away design? Recent Brentford away efforts have seen black, yellow/black, black/gold, and the two-tone blue.

I’ve always been a fan of the latter but if we adopted this, with the aforementioned ‘sash’ template, then I can only see us with something very much akin to the West Ham model. And that would not be good.

Crudely photoshopped image of how a blue/blue sash kit might look

Still – this is all pure guess work. I have nothing more to base this on beyond unsubstantiated speculation and crazy theories. But it’s one to think about in the short term.

Our club hasn’t disappointed us so far and I am sure that, whenever the announcement is made (any comment, Mark Devlin?) we could be in for a treat.

The Thunderbirds style home shirt ‘teaser campaign’. Number 4 is, erm, Gordon Tracy