Admiration. The word I associate with Brentford F.C. A club with a proud history that have overcome obstacles to compete with the best in the Premier League. Although this club may not be the wealthiest or have the largest following, it has a community that supports them through the good times and the bad. The Premier League is the pinnacle of English football and Brentford have adapted to life in the top tier with brilliance. For any club that aspires to compete amongst the best, Brentford have provided the blueprint.
Brief History of Brentford FC
Brentford Football Club was founded in 1889 by the Brentford Local Board after the opening of a new recreation ground in the town. After many discussions by the board, it was decided that this facility would be used for sporting purposes and Brentford F.C was born. The club would soon turn professional, a decision that wasn’t entirely up to the club after they were found guilty, by the FA, for paying their players in 1899.
In September 1904, Brentford moved to their new home ground, Griffin Park and were now competing in the First Division in the Southern League in England after gaining promotion from the Second Division the previous season. With the nickname ‘The Bees’ officially being granted, it would soon prove to be a challenging period as they were relegated back to the Second Division in 1913. The first World War caused a lot of consternation amongst professional clubs in London and Brentford sought to cut down their travelling costs during war time and joined the newly formed London Combination in the summer of 1915.
Brentford became London Combination Champions in 1919 and it was this success that persuaded the Southern League management committee to promote Brentford into 22 team enlarged top division. A year later, Brentford were entered into the Third Division of the Football League, England’s premier professional competition.
In May 1926, Harry Curtis was appointed as Manager and this would transform the club. He turned The Bees from a struggling third tier club into a First Division side in nine years. The 1932/33 campaign saw Brentford become Third Division champions, which was followed by the Second Division title two years later and earned the club a place in the top tier of English football for the first time. Brentford would go on to finish in fifth place in their first ever season in the top flight, the highest of any London club including Arsenal and Chelsea.
With World War Two disrupting football in England once again, the Football League decided to run four national divisions in 1958. Brentford struggled in this post-war era and suffered back to back relegations, descending into the Fourth Division by 1962. Nottingham MP Jack Dunnett became chairman of the club and decided to buy several highly-paid players in an attempt to make their stay in the Fourth Division a short one. The decision seemed wise at the time as Brentford were crowned Fourth Division champions in 1963. This success was short lived as these costs soon put the club in a critical position.
It was arranged that in January 1967, Queens Park Rangers were going to take over Griffin Park and force the closure of Brentford F.C. The club were back in the Fourth Division by May 1966 and seemed to be at a low point. However, a consortium of businessmen and some significant help from supporters, Dunnett’s shares were bought out with Ron Blindell guaranteeing the club a significant loan to keep it operational.
In order to repay this loan, the club’s youth and reserve sides would have to be scrapped which would have a lasting effect on the club. Brentford would struggle for consistency but would eventually regain stability when the club was promoted to the Third Division in 1972 and was further boosted by the creation of the club’s ‘Football in the Community Scheme’ in 1987, which since that time has evolved into a charitable Community Sports Trust that engages with thousands of people in the local area.
Ron Noades decided to buy the club from then owner David Webb in 1998 and placed himself at the helm as as Chairman and Manager. Brentford, in turn, won the Third Division title at the first attempt. Noades stepped aside as manager but maintained control of the club. Ron Noades relinquished management control to newly formed Supporters’ Trust-‘Bees United’- in the spring of 2003.
Three years later, with financial help though loans, supporter donations and Brentford fan Matthew Benham, ‘Bees United’ bought out Noades’ controlling shareholding in January 2006 to become London’s first professional football club owned by its supporters. With the departure of manager Martin Allen in the summer of 2006, a disastrous campaign followed, arguably the Club’s worst ever, and Brentford finished bottom of the third tier. After a short spell under Terry Butcher, former player Andy Scott was appointed manager in January 2008 and eighteen months later guided his team to the League Two Championship with a 3-1 win at Darlington.
Bees United and Matthew Benham – a Brentford supporter from his teenage years – entered into a five-year partnership agreement in 2009 whereby he would invest significant amounts of capital in return for the option of owning the Club, should the Supporters’ Trust not wish to repay his investment. In 2012 the Bees United Board indicated to its members that the option be brought forward, and after an overwhelming vote in favour, Matthew Benham purchased the controlling shareholding of Brentford Football Club from Bees United. Benham still controls the club to this very day.
The Community Stadium
In the summer of 2012, the club announced it had purchased the land intended for a new stadium and they were granted planning permission in December 2013. The plans were drawn up and Brentford would have a new home- the ‘Community Stadium’- now known as the ‘G-Tech Community Stadium’. Construction began in 2018 and the club moved to their new home during the Covid Pandemic in 2020. The 17,250-seat stadium is a huge credit to the club and one that Brentford Chairman, Cliff Brown announced as a project that had been fifteen years in waiting;
“This is a momentous announcement and a great day for everyone involved with the Club. This is a project that was first conceived nearly two decades ago and that the Club has been actively pursuing for the last 15 years. It is the culmination of a lot of hard work.”
What is also so significant about this development is that it is part of a larger project for the wider community. It delivered a stadium with more than 900 new homes, a new purpose-built location for Brentford FC Community Sports Trust, and is also the new home for London Irish RFC. The determination to keep the community involved with this club is admirable. It has not forgotten its roots and shows the importance of knowing where you have come from and giving back to the supporters who helped build this club to where it is today.
Reaching the Promised Land
Leading up to their promotion to the Premier League, Brentford secured top half Championship finishes while also adopting a different mentality to most of their competitors. They pioneered the use of data as a scouting tool for recruitment, closed their Academy and formed a ‘B’ Team. Brentford B was designed to be a squad of players in the professional development phase of their careers, with a carefully designed games programme and aligned with the First Team.
Thomas Frank arrived in 2018 which signalled the dawn of a new era for this club. On the pitch, players were coming and going and with the aid of subsequent reinvestment, Brentford challenged for promotion under Frank and were successful in their 2020/21 campaign. Once again, The Bees pushed for promotion and again finished third, reaching the Play-Offs. After a battle with Bournemouth in the semi-final, they set up a final appearance against Swansea. In a challenging game, Brentford could finally celebrate at Wembley, beating Swansea City 2-0 on May 2021 and eventually reaching their dream of Premier League football.
It was nothing more than what this club deserved after years of effort and agony. Their first ever Premier League game came on Friday night in the middle of August. It was the first Premier League game in front of a full stadium for almost 18 months was played at the Community Stadium. With 74 years of waiting for a return to England’s top tier, Brentford beat Arsenal 2-0 on a memorable evening for the club. That season, Brentford maintained a position around the middle of the Premier League table for most of the season and finished 13th in the Premier League.
Brentford have secured Premier League status over the past three seasons, including a top ten finish in the 22/23 season. That has been their best period under Thomas Frank with huge wins coming both home and away. It was a critical point for the club as it avoided any relegation threat while also highlighting the quality this club possesses. Home wins over clubs like Man United, Man City and Liverpool made a big statement for Brentford while wins on the road against Man City and Chelsea cemented Brentford as a formidable side. Although last seasons 16th place finish was disappointing, The Bees showed their resilience once more in avoiding a drop to the Championship.
Efforts Off The Field
It’s worth noting that just sixteen years ago, Brentford were trying to battle their way out of League Two in the English Football League. The struggles the club faced were eased with promotion to the Premier League and the added surplus in profits that come with that prize. The decision to bring Jon Varney into the club as CEO in 2019 was a big step for this club and he helped guide and structure Brentford on the right path. According to the Sports Business Journal, Varney increased club profits substantially as well as increased the number of staff working with the club. During their summer series tour of North America in July 2023, Varney headed for New York where he undertook several meetings about commercial plans to help grow the club.
“We’re still massively under-resourced compared with our competitors in the Premier League so, yeah, we’re going through a massive growth — and that’s fun.”
Brentford have also aimed to develop their content and international presence. They have hired a new director of content strategy and have launched its own streaming service, BuzzBox.
A huge success for this club over the past few seasons has been the care and attention they have placed amongst their fans. Varney has stated that the club have aimed to create season ticket prices affordable for their loyal supporters as well as choosing a shirt that lasts two seasons to help with costs and sustainability measures.
Their innovative strategies to improve the team is most impressive and it has been compared to the film ‘Moneyball’. Rather than spend millions of pounds on players, the club have focused heavily on data to attract players to the club. They rank in 17th place in terms of club expenditure and rely on their data driven approach to avoid large debt. As Varney stated;
“There’s no point in us taking a scattergun approach because we’re going to get outgunned by everyone else in the Premier League because we, in comparison, have the smallest budgets, so to have a really focused approach on everything we do, we need to rely heavily on the data.”
Brentford have excelled in many ways. From humble beginnings to a bright future, the club has drawn up a plan for clubs to strive for similar paths. Thomas Frank has been a coach in high demand over the past year. Chelsea, Man United and Bayern Munich have all held talks with the Brentford boss but his desire to stay at Brentford speaks volumes. In blending their proud history with a forward-thinking approach, Brentford stand as a shining example for clubs striving to balance tradition with innovation.
