Former Brentford ‘keeper has the balls that FIFA lack. Well said Szczesny (and Poland).

Monday morning. The weekend has seen Brentford go down at home to Newcastle United, keeper Kepa take the worst penalty since Yoann Barbet found low-earth orbit against Norwich City and Leeds United parting company with Marcelo Bielsa. Yet it was dominated by FIFA proving themselves as spineless as ever when it comes to Russia. The ongoing and barbaric atrocities being committed by Putin and his lackies in the Ukraine have resulted in global condemnation, ejection from everything as far afield as the Eurovision song contest to hosting their own Grand Prix (and anything in between) whilst the footballing community have made their own feelings very clear.  Wojciech Szczesny and Poland leading the charge and refusing to play Russia next month. 

We’ve always loved the player, affectionally known as Chesney, at Brentford after his 25 game stint in 2009/10. It seems like five minutes ago he was pulling out all the stops, game after game. Ripping up tress in goal and performing last line of defence heroics that haven’t been matched until, well, probably David Raya. Now, he’s up on the global stage making his feelings (and those of his countrymen) known loud and clear.

Speaking to the DAZN Sports streaming service, Szczesny was unequivocable with his thoughts:

“We won’t play against Russia at the World Cup, that’s for sure. Let’s see if FIFA will have balls to give Russia the World Cup by forfeit – I don’t think so”.

“I refuse to stand on the pitch, wearing the colours of my country and listen to the national anthem of Russia! I refuse to take part in a sporting even that legitimases the actions of the Russian government.”

Well said, that man. With Sweden and the Czech Republic joining the Poles in their decision, FIFA have finally flinched. There has been no kicking the Russian team out. Instead, a typically half-arsed measure of still allowing them to compete but on neutral ground under the name Football Union of Russia (RFU). No flags , no anthems, no flags. But still playing. 

President of the Polish FA, Cezary Kulesza, was as forthright as Szcezny on hearing this news. He called it “Totally unacceptable” with, incase anybody was in any doubt, the commitment that.. “We are not interested in participating in this game of appearances. Our stance remains intact: Polish national team will not play with Russia, no matter what the name of the team is.“

Look. I get its not the fault of the Russian players or Russian people. Robert Lewandowski was amongst those also recognising that side. At the same time, giving a government and a dictator who thrives on his own ego, on global recognition and some misplaced macho bullshit where the world order is still rooted in the 18th century any credibility or attention, no matter how watered down it may be, is a complete and utter NO. It was an open goal and FIFA have missed. Missed it worse than Diana Ross taking a penalty.

The world looks on at a c*nt

Instead, they’re now in a situation where Gianni Infantino still sleeps with the Order of Friendship medal given to him by Vladimir Putin under his pillow. Where the head of FIFA has acted with all the speed of a turning oil tanker in swerving questions before, finally, finally coming out with this nonsensical watered down rubbish. Nobody is going to play against Russia in the current circumstances. The World Cup, already under huge scrutiny given the controversy of Qatar, could become an even bigger farce than it is already looking like turning in to. And rightly so.

The World is burning at the moment. Football had a chance to draw a line in the sand. To show strong leadership. To show support  – primarily for Ukraine but also its other members. The football community has come out and made their feelings quite clear. Even in the symbolic gestures from supporters waving banners, flags and going to games in yellow and blue. From players openly saying they refuse to participate in the charade. 

The game’s leadership, anything but. It makes me sick. F*ck Ras-Putin. F*ck FIFA. Our beautiful game is currently being made to look very ugly at the top level.

Anyway, that’s just me. For what it’s worth. Trying to bring up a young child to know the difference between right and wrong or explain what the heck is going on in the world at present isn’t an easy job. I get sleepless nights over where this could end up but, at least, I still have my principles. It’s a shame others don’t. Oh well, enjoy that medal Gianni.

I was going to talk about the League cup, about Leeds United , about Newcastle and about Brentford going to Norwich City but really can’t be bothered with any more. This stuff is written on the hoof. Made up as it goes along and having done so, I’m over football for now.  A relief for everyone. If you really want to then you can get the player / performance review from the Bees – Magpies game, here. 

I’m downing tools for a few days.

Be good.

enjoy that medal

Nick Bruzon

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One day to go. What have we missed? Your vote needed.

2019 is drawing to a close. Brentford end the decade sitting fourth in the Championship table following what have been the most consistently exciting ten years in our history. The current edition of FourFourTwo magazine has us ranked first out of the twenty-five greatest EFL clubs from 2010-2019. It would be fair to say that things are going very, very well – a most un-Brentford like scenario.  It was a subject we looked at in the article submitted for the Swansea City programme on Boxing Day. From Fulham to Preston ; Leeds to Birmingham City. What are the top ten highlights of the decade we are about say goodbye to? 

Not my words – well, the content was but FFT did the maths first

The programme piece is reproduced, and enlarged upon, below. However, the real reason for running this is as much to see what was missed out. What was your moment of the decade that should have been included? Whether awesome or awful – we celebrated both.  Personally, and even though a sneaky 11 was included, the absence of last season’s Neal Maupay goal celebration at Leeds United (and at home to Leeds United)  has had me kicking myself all the way to the printers. How did it miss out?

Come on Leeds. It WAS a penalty

 So without further ado, and to whet your appetite, these were mine. But are they right?

10 Josh McEachran’s photoshoot. A bizarre series of pictures that appeared in, at least, The Telegraph and The Mail. If the pictures were odd, and they were, it is something best remembered for the description on Twitter of his looking “Like the chief whistleblower in an expose on bullying in the world of junior golf”.

Josh McEachran looks likes the chief whistleblower in an exposé on bullying in the world of junior golf pic.twitter.com/Ywp6k5HL1H

— Football Likealooks (@FTBL_Likealooks) January 26, 2017

9 Marcelo Trotta takes a penalty. Not ‘that’ one. Come on, we’re better than going there. I’m sure somebody has already done that anyway. Instead, the game with Gillingham in January 2014. The one he scored having made a shock/ballsy return to the club after something happened late on in a game v Doncaster the previous season. I forget exactly what.

Get in!!! What Doncaster thing?

8 Chesney. It’s hard to imagine the conversation that lead to us starting the decade with none other than Wojciech Szczęsny between the sticks. Yet that’s what happened when the Polish international and Arsenal’s number 53 cut his league teeth at Griffin Park. He was immense. It was bonkers yet, if anything, it was a sign of things to come.

7 Jota. Proof that despite the sneers from outside TW8, Matthew Benham’s computer model works. And how. A luxuriantly coiffered hero, his picture still adorns the gates to Griffin Park. The last minute goals. The skill. The heartbreaking love letter to the fans when he returned to Spain (we’ll forget the second one when he left for Birmingham). The emotional second coming which saw him possibly better than ever before. My favourite player of the decade. 

Oh, Jota….

Oh, Jota…..

Oh Jota…. Any excuse

6 The Marinus experiment. Proof that even Matthew’s computer gets it wrong sometimes. Have you turned him on and off again? Have you tried banging it? Ok, then the model must be broken. He lasted 9 league games, got humped by Oxford in the league cup and ditched Jonathan Douglas. Hardly the way to endear yourself to the fans, for whom Dougie was a hero to many. Yet in his short time at Griffin Park he did inspire the unicorn that launched a thousand photoshops.

Any excuse to crowbar this one in.

5 Stuart Dallas . Specifically, scoring THAT goal at Fulham in the 4-1 win back in April 2015. The lay off from Andre Gray was beautiful but then Stuart ran on to the ball and did his thing. Oh. My. Word. One touch followed by an absolute thunder bolt of a shot from thirty yards out on the diagonal. The ball accelerating all the way into the top corner in front of the Bees’ fans. The single best hit Brentford goal of the decade, if not ever.

THE moment

4 Snowball-gate. January 2013 and a League one match between Brentford and Tranmere. The fans had earlier helped clear the pitch to ensure the game could go ahead but what to then do at half-time with all the snow that had been accumulated at the back of the Ealing Road stand?  Snowballs. Lots of snowballs. When goalkeeper Owain Fon Williams emerged for the second period he was greeted with such a barrage that the referee was forced to delay the game.

3 Ten Times Better. October 2017 and Harlee Dean panicked in front of a tv camera, telling us about his new Birmingham City team that “We’ve got quality in that squad. I’ve been in teams where we’ve finished fifth in this league and missed out on promotion by play offs. and this squad is ten times better than that.”

The response? Our 2-0 win at St. Andrews a month later was followed by the incredible 5-0 hammering in the return fixture. “Cheer up Harlee Dean” sang the supporters. In the ultimate trolling, even the club joined in and upgraded our usual ‘win music’ from Kool And The Gang to The Monkees.

He started it

2 Victory at Leyton Orient in March 2014. The most stressful, incredible, backs to the wall performance as the 10 man Bees hung on for a 1-0 win against the combined forces of Russell Slade’s Os and referee Robert Madley. It was a MASSIVE win in a promotion 6-pointer that saw the bitter boss complaining that we’d celebrated like we’d won the FA Cup at full time. He’s right. We did. And then some.  

Who did what like we’d won what now?

1 Alan Judge’s penalty v Preston in April 2014. Brentford securing promotion with a penalty? Who’d have thought it but the combination of his goal, and other results, helped the Bees to a 1-0 win and reaching the Championship. This, despite a lot of 11th hour squeaky bum time at Wolves when Rotherham started scoring. The pitch invasion and post match street party that followed were the stuff of legend with promotion to the Championship confirmed. Kevin O’Connor was at the bar in The Griffin. The players in the street, celebrating with the fans. Cliff Crown was waving Russell Slade FA Cups around. Only at Griffin Park could this happen. Thank you. Everyone.

 

Some people are on the pitch.. etc etc

And given a football team has 11 players, why not add one more for luck. The hour that is Brentford ‘Official’ trying to get down wiv da kidz on social media: #trophyfriends #bignewambitions #novemberkings . Please, let’s never talk of this again.

Instead its over to you. if you can’t be bothered, have a Happy New Year and here’s to Bristol City on ,erm, Thursday?  

Nick Bruzon

Better than Chesney? Has Arsenal wunderkind finally been surpassed?

Brentford 5. Newcastle United, Birmingham, Huddersfield 6. QPR 14. Rotherham 20. Not the odds on winning September’s manager of the month award but, infact, the total goals conceded by the respective teams after 8 Championship games. And in the case of the Bees, one man has a huge part to play in that stat – goalkeeper Daniel Bentley.

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. 

Containing the least bad of the blogs from May 2016 to May 2017 along with a smattering of new material, you can pick it up, here. Its all for a great cause and,hey, you may even enjoy it…..

Bentley – a model professional

 

Bill makes an early call. And he’s not alone

 

Chesney – the legend

e?

Nick Bruzon

A handjob from the editor? No thanks, Stan

Where do you start after yet another ‘one of the most dramatic final days of the season’ since the last one? After spending the season on loan at Brentford, Sergi Canos making his debut for Liverpool ? Former Bee Wojciech Szczęsny rubbing salt into the Tottenham wound after Spurs came perilously close to a bracketing when they went down 5-1 at Championship bound Newcastle United? Or Old Trafford where, of course, Manchester United had their game abandoned after the bomb scare?

Nobody needs my in-depth analysis of that situation. An evacuation was, of course, the absolutely right and proper thing to do. Likewise, it was reassuring to see how quickly and efficiently this appeared to take place.

But beyond that. Wow! To say “questions will be asked” is sure to be an understatement to rank alongside this whole affair being described as a “fiasco” First thoughts I saw suggested the suspicious package found at Old Trafford was a ‘seasons highlights’ DVD or a trophy. Infact, it turned out to be a training device used by a private security company to prevent exactly this sort of issue happening , left behind after a midweek drill.

Twitter reacted, of course, with the mood changing from worry, shock and horror to incredulation as the story unfolded over the course of the afternoon.

Who knows what the fall out will be from all of this. For once, “Sacked in the morning” won’t be a chant directed at the manager.  Even when the rearranged game has taken place on Tuesday, this won’t be the last we hear of it. People are jittery enough as it is. For sure we can expect even more enhanced security next season.

OK – the Brentford connection. First up,  Wojciech Szczęsny. None other than the Arsenal goalkeeper and former Bee was lining up to lead the taunts after Tottenham managed to blow an unblowable situation.

Spurs, a club who could choke on a Rice Krispie, needing only a point to guarantee second place in the Premier League came within two of a 7(seven) goal bracketing. This, to relegated Newcastle United – one of the poorest teams since Premier League records began.

The consolation of Champions League football will be little consolation to being pipped by their arch rivals, yet again. Expect the Arsenal ’smug-o-meter’ to be through the roof today. Absolute Radio DJ Richie Firth already leading the charge on this morning’s Christian O’Connell breakfast show although, for once, if not sympathise you can understand.

As Richie noted, “Only Spurs could come third in a two horse race“.

Chesney. For once, not the one and only

Liverpool. Sergio Canos.

We’ve waxed lyrical about the Spanish wunderkind many times this season.And rightly so – his achievments on pitch were legion. But with most of his Brentford team mates now on their holidays, if social media is to be believed, he had the honour of pulling on that famous red shirt in a 1-1 draw with West Brom.

Congratulations, Sergi. No doubt the first of many Liverpool appearances although, in the short term, if you want to come back to Griffin Park for another season then there’ll be no complaints from West London.

And finally, a HUGE thanks to all those who have so far downloaded both the Last Word ‘season review’ (Ready. Steady. Go Again) aswell as the three year anthology (The Bees are going up). These are both available now.

Nick Bruzon

 

Matthew Benham and Roy help lift the mood as Gibraltar are bracketed.

Very much a day of mixed emotions yesterday as former Brentford goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny (now plying his trade with Arsenal) kept Gibraltar at bay in their EURO 2016 opener against Poland. And by kept at bay, I mean barely had a look in as the boys from the Rock were on the wrong end of a 7(seven) – 0 bracketing.

Despite an even first half, it ended up being the sort of rout that nobody likes to see. It took Brentford owner Matthew Benham, who had earlier given a positive reaction to the ‘hot seat’ idea for Lionel Road, to fully lift my post match gloom with another view of one of his favourite football headlines.

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.

From Götze to Gertcha. My fantasy XI beats Arsenal and the Brits

Former Brentford goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny made a chump of himself on national TV last night after he was sent off for Arsenal against Bayern Munich in the Champion’s League.  That, or he was trying out for a role in the next Nescafe advert, judging by the hand gesture he directed towards the fourth official on leaving the pitch.

I’ve actually got a lot of time for the goalkeeper and regular readers may be aware that the Arsenal man is actually in my all time Brentford XI of the last 25 years. Maybe not always the most skillful of the players to fill their respective berths but certainly the most committed. The team that, if I could pluck from their respective seasons, I’d love to see in action.

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.

More loan action for Brentford…and our rivals?

With the  transfer window now officially open, the rumour mill is in full effect.

In the case of Brentford, for once the talk is about players coming in rather than those who could be snapped up by teams in the Premiership or Championship. So far.

Top of the list is Arsenal striker Chuba Akpom. Whilst the club is yet to say anything definitive this is being widely reported in various media sources. Even Matthew Benham, as he has also done with Blackburn winger Alan Judge, has now started to follow the Arsenal youngster on twitter.

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.

Martin Taylor extends loan – but who are Brentford’s ‘greatest’ signings?

It was announced yesterday afternoon that Martin Taylor has signed for another month on loan for Brentford.

This, in my eyes, is very good news.   A solid centre back who can add some experience to our young team and one who has already proven he has an eye for goal.  However, it got me thinking of whom Brentford’s top ten signings in recent times, loan or otherwise, have been. Not necessarily the best ten players to represent the club (although an ‘all time XI’ feature is coming soon) but just the best bits of transfer activity – whether in terms of price or impact.

So here they are:

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.