The good, the bad and the ugly. Bees stung, Newcastle lose (?!),Spurs dumped and Jose strops. A week in football

Brentford lost 2-1 to Birmingham City despite doing everything but scoring an equaliser in a frenetic denouement. Our previous conquerors, Blackburn Rovers, did it again as runaway Newcastle United were put to the sword at St .James Park. The #Rafalution hitting a bump in the road as six changes proved to be a shuffle to far for the Magpies. Norwich lost their fifth on the bounce to set up an interesting one next weekend whilst at the bottom Blackburn are finally clear. Cardiff City replace them to join Wigan Athletic and Rotherham United in making up the final three.

That’s the latest Championship action in 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 former Bee Clayton Donaldson clearly felt he had been harshly treated by the home fans. And goalkeeper Daniel Bentley. Was Dan wearing spiked gloves? Or just an unfortunate coming together as the big man went down?

The difference between ‘official’ and ‘voice of the fans’ was highlighted by a man who seems to be a regular fixture on these pages – Adam Devlin. A beautiful piece of symmetry on his Twitter feed highlighting the difference between clubspeak on the match feed and the wonderful team behind Beesotted telling it how it was.

And another regular member of  Brentford Twitter, Bernard Quackenbush, is also back.

Terrace Talk is back – the last edition in the short term . You can find the full video further on but this week’s topic is ‘ What do you want for Christmas’ ? And, it would seem by looking at social media feed, most fans would be happy unwrapping Jota. Could it happen? Should it happen? Will it happen? I’m not holding my breath.

Sean asks what fans want for Christmas….

….something from Spain would be nice

It was also a special birthday this week (and I don’t mean in an Ian Moose style – we’ll get to him later). Former player, manager and current chief scout Andy Scott being the man to celebrate. Forget Jota, I’d be happy for this shirt. In the rarely seen long sleeves, certainly one of our very best efforts over the years.

Away from the Bees, it has been a quiet week on Championship Twitter. Perhaps this one from George Riley summing up how smoothly everything has gone.

Nice work George – what a step up from that first show…

It was a busy week in Europe. Spurs capitulated in the Champions’ League – a fact picked up on by just about everybody.

Still, North London rivals Arsenal didn’t have it much better. Although this was nothing to do with any matters ‘on pitch’ .

Manchester United won, heavily, (not a typo) although Wayne Rooney still had a bee (wasp?) in his bonnet over the ludicrous stories about ‘that wedding’.

Mr P. Power of Ireland was several days late to the party, with a similar observation to one made by our own Alan Judge and which featured in last weeks column.

Infact, it seems the online bookmakers are all employing comedians in a bid to generate Twitter presence. Well – it is working, to be fair. Our own club sponsors stumbling across this one from a Danish team called FC Midgetland, Walter Mitty land…? No, never heard of them.

ICYMI:

Strong winds force Midtjylland's Jordan Dahlin to catch his own long ball and give away an indirect free kick… pic.twitter.com/VNJ1P4fUj0

— 888sport (@888sport) November 21, 2016

Indeed, 888 were on the mark even yesterday. With an observation that could have been lifted straight from the West Ham United / new stadium school of reporting, they noted:

But forget West Ham as the main focus was Manchester United, again, on Sunday. Some would call him charismatic; other’s a tw*t. However, Jose Mourinho can’t help himself.

And finally (before Terrace Talk), it’s time for Ian Moose’s birthday friend of the week. Which player has been given the ultimate accolade of seeing his birthday published alongside a picture of themselves with the catering obsessed journalist. This week: Yakubu

Enough. Here’s Terrace Talk

Genius, as ever

Nick Bruzon

Bees fan Tom emulates Newcastle. Brentford badge continues to go national.

The dark part of International break. Perhaps it was the fact we last played on a Friday night but this one is dragging. The friendlies have finished and we’re now hanging out for Blackburn away on Saturday. Of course, we’ve had all the news and views about the new club crest to keep us occupied but yesterday it made national radio. Specifically, supporter Tom Lonnen whose new tattoo, and the timing of it, put one in mind of Newcastle United supporter Rob Nesbitt back in 1995.

Readers may recall how Nesbitt treated himself to a thigh length homage of the free scoring striker, only for the Toon hero to join Manchester United the very next day.

Well, now Tom has joined those ranks – at least in terms of timing if not size. Whilst some fans are still banging the ‘wasp’ drum, a story broke on the Christian O’Connell Absolute Radio breakfast show yesterday about our new badge.But there was no wasp related element (probably because it looks like a bee).

Regular readers / listeners may be aware that, of course,the Bees have featured on Christian’s show before. Primarily when the DJ interviewed Cameron Diaz during the promotion for her Sex Tape film and put the question to her as to whether she really was a fan of Brentford. The answer to that one can be found here.

Instead, yesterday’s news involved sports presenter Faye Caruthers sharing with the nation the story of how Tom had got a tattoo of our current bees on the inside of his bicep, just days before the new club design was revealed.

Fair play to Tom, he has given his thumbs up to our new design as his own tweet from earlier revealed. Moreso, given that but for a bit of warning he may have chosen a different way to honour his team.

And at least he doesn’t have to revert to Rob’s subsequent technique of having his own ink redesigned as another Newcastle legend (and former Bee), Les Ferdinand. If you’d like to hear more, the podcast of yesterday’s show can be found here – with Tom’s moment of fame coming about 35 and a half minutes in.

The other tattoo news you may have seen surrounds a very unusual piece of work and another homage (twice on one column, sorry) to a club hero. Sometimes, words aren’t enough. I’ll let the picture do the talking.

For those of you despairing about the new club crest then this is well worth a look. FourFourTwo magazine have just published their list of the 17 weirdest club crests in world football. There’s not a Bee in sight (although a couple of bunnies). Trust me, things could be a lot worse. Imagine any of these on your shirt.

And if you’d like to read more, the full article can be found here… 

But we’ll end with tattoos. It’s not just Brentford or Newcastle fans who have had their issue with unfortunate inkings. From 17 weird badges to 16 woeful tattoos. This one is a few years old but until we can get back to the proper football, why not enjoy the worst of football body art.…..    

Nick Bruzon

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

Wasp and leg related weirdness clouds Brentford’s big reveal

Brentford football club launched our new badge yesterday and, now that the shock of the seemingly sudden reveal has worn off, what is your opinion? Brilliant? Terrible? Indifferent?

Initial thoughts from myself were in the positive camp – it does happen 🙂  – and remain as such. Likewise much of the feedback to that column , whether directly in the comments or on social media. Equally though, I’m not so naive to realise there were some less than favourable initial observations out there.

That’s life. People are absolutely entitled to opinions whilst reaction to change can be a tough thing to deal with. Moreso sudden, unexpected change.

Yet, for some reason, the tabloids were lining up, lemming like,  to immediately pour scorn. Why go for the positive or just reporting the story when you can do so in such a negative fashion? Do we have a bad relationship with the media or are Brentford just a soft target?

“Brentford supporters left furious”.   

“Are we the wasps now?”  

“Brentford’s new badge angers fans who claim traditional bee looks more like a wasp.” 

These, the respective headlines yesterday from the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror and that bastion of the footballing moral high ground, The Sun. Bearing in mind these were the same sources whose leading stories yesterday included :

Why are you sitting here on the sofa?’: Alex Jones asks Cliff Richard why he is on The One Show despite SUING the BBC –Daily Mail

‘Why are you sitting here on the sofa?’: Alex Jones asks Cliff Richard why he’s on The One Show despite SUING the BBC’ –The Daily Mirror

‘THIS IS AWKWARD’ The One Show’s Alex Jones asks Cliff Richard why he’s on the sofa despite £1.5 million lawsuit against the BBC The Sun

I’m no Cliff Richard fan and please don’t get me started on The One Show (the audience of which is, presumably, interchangeable with that of Mrs. Brown’s Boys). Yet this is the calibre of apparent news our supposed badge based fury and/or anger is lined up against.

Aside for the fact this fan fury seems such a skewed perspective , I don’t even get the whole Bees / Wasp thing. The bee on our new badge is clearly a bee. Maybe more ‘bumble’ than ‘honey’ but still clearly a bee. Who could even think this was a wasp? Desperate editors, internet comedians or Mrs. Brown aside?

Wasps. Real and shirt based. Not Bees

We’ve seen wasps before at picnics and on rugby shirts. I can’t say this enough but ours is clearly a bee.  As for the claim that it only has four legs rather than six… Erm??! Not sure I follow the logic there. Presumably the ‘missing pair’ are under the wings.

Funnily enough, it IS possible to draw / photograph a bee with only 4 of the traditional 6 legs visible to the naked eye.

If nothing else, just look at the current badge and start counting.1, 2, 3, 4. I’ve no recollection of any fury / anger from Brentford supporters at what seems to be much more of a leg based inaccuracy. If, indeed, it even is one. Which it isn’t.

Have there been 20 years of marches and placards outside Mark Devlin’s office? “Give us back our legs” being shouted by an angry mob or #wewantourlegs appearing on Twitter ? (note to media team – don’t ).

The current badge. 1,2,3,4 erm that’s it..

Of course not. Because, much like the self-importance and perceived popularity of the John Lewis Christmas advert, it isn’t actually ‘a thing’ outside of a small section of cyberspace. That clickbait grabbing headline writers then chose to turn it into one is, sadly, endemic of today’s journalism.

And I say that as a football fan looking in rather than any form of journalist (which clearly I’m not) looking out. I’m just the numpty on the terrace with a bit more spare time on my hands early in the morning than is probably advisable. Oh, for some sleep..

But I digress. What I would ask is why was the release so rushed? So sudden. No fanfare. No build up. No cryptic clue from Matthew Benham. No “Big announcement coming soon” type advice. No ’strip tease’ – an annual favourite

Instead, like a bolt out of the blue it was suddenly here. An email in the inbox and a headline on the website announcing “Our new club crest” .

Much like the subject of kit, this is clearly an emotive one. Fans were apparently consulted although this is something I, and many others, were unaware of over this consultation period. “During the past 18 months we engaged with a wide range of fans and stakeholders within the Club about our crest and received a clear mandate to look at change.” Those aren’t my words yet something which could have been made clearer if it was happening. And if it was just with a select group, at least explain this in the announcement .

Whilst this is ultimately their decision as a general rule I think our club goes out of it’s way to involve the fans. Being realistic, it is one I’m presuming is a decision they had to get right for many more reasons beyond simply something to stick on the shirt and say “We are Brentford” 

Involving the supporters a bit more, even just in the build up to the release, might have been a bit of a smarter move in retrospect. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and in a village such as football, where gossip and rumours can spread like wildfire, perhaps this was just a case of wanting to get the news out there.

Either way, the badge is here to stay. I’m hoping it grows on supporters. I love it and, whilst I have no qualms in voicing a less than club friendly opinion when warranted (as regular readers will be aware), in this instance I think they’ve come up with a great design.

Certainly, it is one I’ll be proud to wear on my shirt next season. Now Bob just has to get his part of that deal right ….

Nick Bruzon