In an unfashionable part of West London, there is a football club that was firmly established as a traditional third-tier team. But Brentford have finally broken through, registering four consecutive top-10 finishes in the Championship, England’s second division.
The 92 clubs in England’s four professional divisions can combine to create some amazing stories. And Brentford’s journey to competing for a place in the Premier League has certainly had some twists and turns.
HEARTBREAK
You might know of the Bees from the brutal ending to their 2012/13 season. With two teams automatically promoting to the Championship, third-placed Brentford hosted second-placed Doncaster for the final game of the season. A Brentford win would have achieved the dream; a draw would be enough for Doncaster to celebrate.
A predictably tense game followed - a scrappy encounter with the Bees pressing but lacking the attacking nous to break down Doncaster’s defence. But in the last desperate flurry, a ball was launched into the penalty area and bounced awkwardly. Handball! Penalty!!
It should have been a beautiful moment for right-back Kevin O’Connor, the designated penalty-taker and club-captain who played a total of 501 games for the club over 16 years. But unfortunately, in the confusion surrounding the nerve-wracking moment, young loanee striker Marcello Trotta confidently grabbed the ball and took over.
Trotta went for glory, smashing his penalty against the bar, with Doncaster clearing the ball and within 20 seconds, scoring at the other end of the pitch as the bewildered and dejected Brentford players looked on.
The bizarre scenes had three interesting footnotes, for the uninitiated.
Firstly, such a “winner-takes-all” final-day match is rare, but Brentford had experienced another 11 years earlier, hosting Reading on the final day in a very similar scenario. On that day, the Bees went ahead, but Reading equalised with 13 minutes remaining and survived to claim the prize. The Bees went on to lose to Stoke in the playoffs, and both Reading and Stoke went on to have spells in the Premier League while the Bees languished in their traditional spot on the ladder.
Secondly, the Bees again failed to claim their “second chance” after the Doncaster defeat, losing to Yeovil in the third division playoff final. Any Brentford fan would have told you that was inevitable - the Bees have qualified for the end-of-season promotion playoffs eight times in their history but they’ve never succeeded, a distinction that they share with Sheffield United as the worst records in the English leagues. Preston have actually lost nine times in the playoffs, but they finally broke their barren spell with success at the 10th attempt in 2015.
And finally: Trotta obviously went down in infamy for his crazy act. He returned to his parent club, local rivals Fulham, but when Brentford struggled to find a decent striker for the next season, they concluded that Trotta remained their best available option.
Obviously the fans were amazed by his return - but once the anger subsided, Trotta contributed positively to a successful 2013/14 season, scoring 12 league goals including the only goal in a vital away victory in March at fellow Londoners Leyton Orient, who ended up finishing third behind the Bees in second.
THE WEST LONDON DIAMOND
The fortune of the two clubs diverged significantly from that point, with Orient falling into the semi-professional fifth tier of English football in 2017. They were joined by north Londoners Barnet in May 2018, but the English capital still boasts 11 clubs in the country’s top four professional divisions (and actually, all 11 are in the top three divisions).
In the west of the city, separated by approximately 14km² overall, there sits a quartet of clubs who have all been a part of the national league structure since 1920. The closest to the centre, Chelsea, have been the most famous internationally, with an exceptional run of success over the last 20 years.
The southernmost tip of the West London diamond is Fulham, with their famous stadium on the banks of the River Thames. After a 33-year absence from the top flight, they returned to the Premier League in 2001 and enjoyed a 13-year run before relegation. Four consecutive years in the Championship were ended in May 2018, when they beat Aston Villa in the Championship Play-Off final.
To the north, Queen’s Park Rangers have suffered in recent years. Three of their last six seasons were spent in the Premier League, but two of those ended in last-place finishes, and they had a 15-year spell outside the top flight prior to the recent run. They were recently reported in illustrious company, fifth behind Manchester United, Benfica, Inter Milan and Valencia - unfortunately, for the Hoops, that was in a list issued by UEFA showing the clubs that were saddled by the highest amounts of debt in Europe.
The westernmost of the quartet are the least famous, having been relegated from the top division in the first full season after the Second World War and not yet returned. Brentford settled into a groove from 1978 onwards, spending 32 of the next 36 seasons in the third division, experiencing confusing rebranding initiatives which saw the league re-named the Second Division (behind the Premiership and the First Division), and then League One (behind the Premier League and Championship).
They got promoted once but were immediately relegated; they got relegated once but were immediately promoted. They were one of only two teams in the modern era to miss out on promotion after finishing second in the league, unfortunate to choose the year (1995) that the Premiership re-aligned from 22 teams to 20, which caused a knock-on effect for promotion lower down the ladder. They lost in the playoffs, of course.
A flirt with relegation in 2004 saw charismatic manager Martin Allen drafted in, and he led a stunning revival with five wins in the last nine matches to avoid the drop. The momentum continued into two further entertaining seasons, during which the club not only challenged for promotion in both campaigns, but also reached the last 16 of the FA Cup, a feat achieved only six times overall by the club in the 70+ years since the Second World War.
Alas, the dream imploded. Allen left the club as it became clear that finances were being stretched to breaking point, and the disastrous following season saw the Bees’ relegation confirmed on 9th April, the first professional club in the country to be demoted in 2007.
There was to be no immediate bounce-back that year either, with the club losing nearly half of their games in the fourth division to finish in the bottom half of the table, their lowest league placing since 1977.
RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME
Fortunately, things were about to turn around in a dramatic way. Every club dreams of having a sugar daddy, a proper fan who’s done good, made himself some money and chosen to invest his fortune into his team. Think Jack Walker of the 1995 Premier League champions Blackburn Rovers, probably the last time that such an investment will lead to the top prize in the country.
Of course these days, the amounts needed to compete have become eye-watering, as witnessed by Matthew Benham’s investment totalling around £105m over the last 10 years just to take a traditionally third-tier team to within sight of the Premier League.
Benham was initially the “mystery investor” who provided assistance when the club needed it, and even though more details are now known about the man, he is still a deeply private individual who has not given many interviews despite his prominent role.
He made his fortune as a professional gambler and now owns two gambling businesses, Smartodds and Matchbook. His success lies in gaining a large amount of knowledge in a market and using the data effectively to gain an edge, with Smartodds employing highly educated individuals in order to analyse sporting situations as well as betting markets.
When Benham first got involved with Brentford, it was in conjunction with supporters organisation Bees United, who took over the club in 2006 after a difficult few years for the club under the ownership of Ron Noades. Concerns over Noades’ motivations had culminated in supporters organising a candidate for the local council elections, who stood and won on the basis that the club would remain in the area.
Bees United’s ownership saw Brentford become one of the first clubs in the country to be owned by its supporters, but the financial realities soon started to bite. Benham arrived at the ideal time, and without his investment, the club would realistically be looking at a fate similar to the situation that Leyton Orient are now suffering.
Benham gradually became more involved before formally becoming the majority shareholder of the club in 2012. He expanded his interests further with a similar investment in Danish club FC Midtjylland in 2014, and the Danish team have gone on to win the first two league championships in their history under his stewardship.
NEW STADIUM, NEW ERA
Brentford’s main financial drawback was their historic stadium, Griffin Park, which was surrounded by houses on all sides, meaning expansion was not a realistic option and significant redevelopment would be tricky. Without modern facilities, the club struggles to attract corporate clients or large gate receipts, which leaves it at a comparative disadvantage to many competitors.
The end is within sight, although of course many traditionalists will shed a tear when Griffin Park closes for the last time. The ground is a favourite among fans around the country with its oft-quoted reputation for being the only stadium to have a pub on each corner of the ground.
The stadium, which can be spotted by keen observers a couple of minutes before landing at Heathrow Airport, holds a maximum of around 12,700 spectators. Attendances were around 6,000 in the third division, but they’ve swelled to just over 10,000 in the Championship.
However, that was the second-lowest number in the league last season, with only relegated Burton Albion ranking lower. With Burton’s relegation, Griffin Park is now the only stadium in the top two tiers of English football to have terraced sections of the ground (without seating).
Modernisation is coming. A significant part of Benham’s investment has gone towards making a new stadium a reality, and an area of disused wasteland around one kilometre from the current stadium was identified. A painfully long process has finally come to fruition, with building work beginning in early 2018. The current plan is that the new 17,250-capacity stadium will open around Christmas 2019.
A larger stadium would be nice, but it’s not realistic. The parcel of land that was found is the only viable option in the vicinity, and it’s a small plot which barely looks able to contain a stadium. It will have the modern facilities that can generate more turnover, helping the club to sustain the playing budget.
Benham and his team have worked hard to ensure that when the stadium is ready, there will be a dynamic young team on display. But the road to sustainability in the Championship has been far from straightforward.
BREAKTHROUGH
In 2013, Doncaster and Yeovil beat Brentford to promotion. The Bees bounced back to take promotion a year later.
Five years on, Yeovil are down in the fourth division, while Doncaster celebrated promotion back to the third division last season. Both clubs found it too hard to compete with some of the heavyweights in the Championship, a strong division of clubs fighting to reach the riches of the Premier League.
The Bees have managed to compete well against these clubs with budgets, wage-bills and high-earners at double Brentford’s level, if not more! The Bees have still managed to rack up winning records over the last four years against more famous names such as Aston Villa, Ipswich, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Reading as well as, crucially for the fans, Fulham and QPR.
Benham’s investment helped of course. But it has been the quality and success rate of signings that has really started to garner attention within the football community.
In the Bees’ first season after promotion, thoughts of merely trying to hold on and avoid relegation soon changed after a perfect month in November, when the Bees won five games out of five.
The defence that season was built upon David Button, Moses Odubajo, James Tarkowski, Harlee Dean and Jake Bidwell, all young English players who ended up being sold for a profit and earning far more than when they originally signed for the Bees. Odubajo and Tarkowski were signed from the lower leagues; the other three were youth prospects at larger clubs who didn’t break through. Dean and Bidwell were both signed after successful loan spells (from Southampton and Everton, respectively). The five were all eventually sold, generating a total of approximately £13m. Tarkowski went on to make his England debut in March 2018.
Young English forward Andre Gray and Spanish winger Jota were brought in for around £2.5m combined, and sold for £15m. The club even brought in another striker, Scott Hogan, who cruelly damaged his knee on his league debut before damaging it again during his recovery. He finally made his second league appearance for the Bees 19 months later, and promptly went on a brilliant scoring run with 20 goals in 27 games, which led to a £12m transfer to Aston Villa.
Alongside that strong recruitment class, the Bees retained a stable midfield core, and the momentum nearly carried them to the promised land of the Premier League’s riches at the first try. Benham looked to invest further in the team, but he was told by the team manager Mark Warburton that he didn’t want to disrupt the balance and atmosphere of the squad.
An unfortunate public falling-out occurred, with Warburton leaving at the end of the season. The Bees stuttered in the final weeks, finishing 5th and losing (inevitably) in the playoffs.
PAINFUL PROGRESS
All eyes were on Benham after the apparently crazy decision to part ways with Warburton. He announced a new structure within the club, appointing Rasmus Ankersen and Phil Giles as Directors of Football. The astonishment continued in a country that is famously skeptical towards the DOF role, more used to the all-powerful manager such as Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger.
And the recruitment team almost made a very costly mistake with their next move. In their search for an edge that would give them an advantage over teams of similar or bigger stature, the club appointed an unheralded Dutchman who appeared to offer something different but was found wanting in some of the generally expected standards in England. Marinus Dijkhuizen lasted just eight league games, with four defeats leaving the Bees in 19th place at his departure.
Dean Smith was then recruited from third-division Walsall to take over and, despite a difficult Winter, feasted on an easy run-in to finish ninth overall in 2015/16, without ever really being near the playoffs.
As well as the lessons to be learned from the search for a new manager, the club also leaned a little too far to the foreign market in their player recruitment in the Summer of 2015. To their credit, Benham and his team have shown a canny ability to learn or adapt quickly in their search for competitive advantages.
A further example came with the decision to close the club’s youth academy, despite prior investment. They have instead installed a “B team” structure which plays outside the standard English system, thus allowing the club to organise a more varied schedule, including friendly games against quality international opponents. In justifying the decision, the club cited the vast costs of running the academy, with recent examples of quality youths leaving to join Manchester United and Manchester City for small amounts of compensation. This was simply money that the club couldn’t afford to spend with little eventual contribution to the first team.
INJURY WOES
Benham’s gambling experience taught him that luck plays a big part too, so he wasn’t put off despite losing significant player investments to long-term knee injuries. Hogan’s double setback was followed by Danish international defender Andreas Bjelland in August 2015 and young Scottish midfielder Lewis Macleod in October 2016. They were joined last season by talented young English full-back Rico Henry, who hasn’t played since September 2017. Bjelland recovered to play an effective role last season before leaving at the end of his contract, and Macleod is trying to work his way back into the team now.
Injury further hampered the team with Jota suffering a foot injury in the first game of the 2015/16 season, eventually returning to Spain for a year, before returning and playing incredibly at the end of the 2016/17 to earn a big-money move. His last-minute goal to beat Fulham and his brilliant solo goal against QPR ensured that he will live long in the memories of Bees fans.
And Irish international midfielder Alan Judge suffered a brutal break of both the bones in his lower-right leg in April 2016 after a wonderful season where he was named on the three-man shortlist for Championship Player of the Year, with ex-colleague Gray taking the top prize. Judge was set for his big move, both in terms of salary increase for the player and transfer fee received for the club, and his experience was a stark reminder that nothing is guaranteed. He eventually returned to the team after a 21-month absence, but he hasn’t yet recaptured the form that he was showing prior to his injury.
The club have to play a delicate game in regard to their transfers, with critics quick to accuse them of breaking up potentially successful teams in favour of short-term gains. But the criticism disregards the financial realities that the Bees have to contend with. Football finance blogger The Swiss Ramble analysed the club’s accounts and noted that they had the second-lowest revenue and fourth-lowest wage bill in the Championship in 2016/17, despite wages accounting for 116% of turnover. As the Swiss Ramble concluded: “Although Brentford suffer from very low revenue and wages in the Championship, they have consistently punched above their weight, finishing in the top 10 for four years in a row. The Premier League might be a bridge too far, but their smart approach should be admired.”
On the face of it, the approach is simple - buy hungry young players, improve them, sell them, reinvest the profits. But of course if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. They line up on the eve of the 2018/19 season with the Championship’s youngest squad, having possibly leaned too far towards young prospects over proven (and costly) veteran savvy.
But the formula has been successful, with Brentford attracting more high-class young talent on the back of their success so far. The club had never spent as much as £2.5m on a player until January 2017, when the chance came to re-sign lively Spanish winger Sergi Canos, who impressed during a loan spell from Liverpool in 2015/16. They have invested as much twice more in the Summer of 2018, recruiting highly rated young English defender Ezri Konsa from the division below, as well as Algerian winger Said Benrahma from France.
Like almost every club outside of Real Madrid and Barcelona, the Bees will always have to deal with players being tempted by opportunities for higher salaries or better status elsewhere. But they now have a stable squad packed with potential which has suffered relatively little churn this year, so ambition and optimism is running wild.
PLAYING THE RIGHT WAY
The recent World Cup in Russia suffered at times from the overbearing cynicism of many teams, with players timewasting, diving, faking injury and playing to stop the other team rather than taking attacking risks.
The Championship certainly sees a lot of these behaviours being mimicked as teams chase the lucrative prize of Premier League football over a gruelling 46-game campaign. The Bees make a refreshing change with an emphasis on a high-tempo pass-and-move game with their talented young squad. They are far from flawless, but they generated more shots on goal than any other team in the Championship in 2017/18, ending with 17.5 per game while the next team, Norwich, had just 14.1 shots per game.
A run of 7 defeats in 11 games between October and December 2016 led to some pragmatic selections and turgid performances, with questions being asked internally about the direction of the team. The club chose to bring in Danish coach Thomas Frank, who previously coached Danish national youth teams as well as at the top level with Brondby, to assist Smith. The return of Jota and Canos breathed life into the team as they finished the 2016/17 season on a high.
Any thoughts of competing for promotion in the following season were soon extinguished by a disastrous opening, with four draws and four defeats from the opening eight games. The record was worse than when Dijkhuizen had been dismissed two years previously, but Benham appreciated the bigger picture that the team was clearly playing well and suffering from some bad luck, so they persevered.
The Bees responded with 33 points from their next 17 games, close to the two points per game that would signify a top-quality team, and in the end they were not far away from breaking into the playoffs until defeat in their penultimate match - impressive after the bad start.
PREMIER LEAGUE OR BUST?
For a club of Brentford’s stature to demand Premier League football is difficult. The competition is fierce, but fortunes go up and down, as Brentford have experienced with many peers enjoying a year or two on the main stage.
For Benham, it’s important that this project reaches its target. At any point, promotion to the Premier League would currently instantly repay Benham’s investment. And if ever they do decide to expand the Premier League to a two-division organisation where more of the huge amount of TV money is shared around, it’s important that Brentford are considered one of the top 30-40 clubs in the country, as opposed to hovering around 50th at best, as they were before Benham’s investment.
The “Premier League 2” is an interesting argument. It’s far from inevitable, but there are a large amount of famous clubs in the Championship now, so it may make sense from some perspectives. Whether it would be a closed shop with little or no relegation hasn’t been formally considered. But it is a possibility, and Benham needed to ensure that Brentford ended up on the right side of history.
For now, incremental improvement works towards both targets. The club are cautious not to over-stretch themselves and risk any sort of collapse. They just reached a significant milestone with their first ever representative at a World Cup, Danish full-back Henrik Dalsgaard. The current squad, with its emphasis on young potential, doesn’t feature many well-known names, but Welsh international centre-back Chris Mepham and English forward Ollie Watkins, in particular, seem to have bright futures ahead of them and have been valued above £10m.
Promotion to the Premier League would have seemed like an unrealistic dream 10 years ago. Now the dream is within sight, with a squad full of hot young prospects playing dynamic football, and a new stadium on the horizon. It’s an incredible time to be a Brentford fan.