The good, the bad and the ugly. Bees stung by Wasp comments as hashtags return. An (international) week in football

Brentford have redesigned their club crest for a new, less busy take on our 70’s Bee. QPR joined Newcastle United and Aston Villa in the lame hashtag stakes as, like the latter had done last month, they announced a second manager of the season. On pitch, there were no Championship fixtures , given it was an International weekend in which Cyprus – Gibraltar and England – Scotland were the two big ones. That said, we did have the return of the much maligned Checkatrade trophy.

That’s the latest football action in a nutshell. Yet there has been so much more going on in the division and beyond. In the latest of our regular, weekly feature we look back at those things you might have missed from the world of social media.

As ever, we start with Brentford where the new club crest met with praise, much split opinion and even a clarification in regards to the role of BIAS, or lack of, in the consultation process. From a personal note, I stick with my gut reaction of being very much in the pro-camp whilst the whole wasp-gate debate was, frankly, hilarious. Yet I can understand people’s reaction to change being a tough one to swallow – many of our supporters will only have ever known the cluttered clipart.

We’ve done this to death now. The only further comment I’ll make is in regards to an observation levelled at the new design from Brentford’s memorabilia guru (and do check Paul’s fantastic blog site). Specifically that it looked like a Watford cast off – with example being provided. If anything, the former accusation could be better levelled at Spiderman’s chest logo than our new crest .

The other Brentford news, as such, was a story by Tom Moore in regards to Josh McEachran. Was this an unfortunate choice of words in the headline, have we been given too much information or just deliberate click-baitery?

Down the road at QPR, the club finally dispensed of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. In his place, comes Ian Holloway (remember him, the chap who tipped us for a struggling campaign of relegation back in August). With his arrival, comes that favourite of these pages – the crap hashtag.

This season has already seen the likes of #JoinTheRafalution – Newcastle United and #welcomesteve – Aston Villa. Indeed, QPR themselves have already used #jakejoins when they signed a left back. Now we can add another entrant to the list.

Sadly, it seems nobody had told Jimmy. As of Saturday his Twitter account still claimed he was their manager whilst at close of play on Sunday he was still pictured holding the shirt.

The other domestic news was the return of the Checkatrade trophy. Something even less popular than Donald Trump and Nigel Farrage hanging out in a gold plated elevator.

You know things are bad when even the teams taking part are having a pop at the tournament.

You know things are bad when even the referee needs to be replaced from the crowd.

Yet things are also wonderful when something like this happens.

On the international front, Mexico gave a wonderful response to the week in politics. Insert your own ‘defensive wall’ comment. And what a source to deliver this news.

In the World Cup, Gibraltar went down in Cyprus but got off lightly compared to Estonia.And the boys from the Rock still did better than Scotland as at least they managed a goal. Indeed, the Scots found news of their 3-0 defeat hard to take.

Yet the same could be said about England fans. At least, those who sat through this one.

 

Roll on the return of league football.

Nick Bruzon

Is this a sign of the impending apocalypse?

Whilst this column is, primarily, about Brentford (and there’ll be more about the Norwich City game over the weekend) we aren’t afraid to look at other ‘issues’ in the world of football. And with Aston Villa due to entertain our Championship rivals Bournemouth in the FA Cup on Sunday, they don’t come much bigger than what could play out at Villa Park.

The regular reader will know of my interest in football jinxes.

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 apocalypse approaches… possibly

We go again (but not on my watch). I blame the anti-Clem

Huddersfield Town hung on to a 2-1 win over Brentford on Saturday as the Bees missed their chance to top the Championship table. In the end, impressive victories for both Derby County and Ipswich Town, who ran up 7(seven) goals between them, meant that even had we triumphed this opportunity would have remained a pipe dream anyway. But to be even talking about this scenario twenty games into the campaign still seems to be the stuff of comic books.

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.

Could the Bees go top? Or will the Terriers bite back?

Brentford head to Huddersfield Town today in a game that is loaded with significance and opportunity. I wrote yesterday about the retrospective importance of this game, going back to the pain inflicted on the Bees by Huddersfield back in 1995. However, this is now about looking forward and the fact that, quite simply, a win could see us go top of the Championship table.

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.

How’s this for a lucky omen?

Saturday sees Brentford entertain Notts County at Griffin Park, hoping to make ground on top placed Wolves (themselves, facing a tricky encounter against JPT winners Peterborough).

Flicking through the latest issue of FourFourTwo magazine, I’ve spotted two potentially positive omens. First up, is their feature on the top 50 players from the football league (i.e. Championship down to League 2).

To read the rest of this article, season 2013/14 is now available to download onto Kindle, in full. Containing previously unseen content, you can do so here for less than the cost of one matchday programme.

 Thanks for reading over the course of the campaign. For now I need to make space on this page for any follow up.  The ‘close season’ / World Cup columns continue in full, further on in this site.