No. 4: Griffin Park [Brentford]

Tuesday, 11th August 2015
Brentford v. Oxford United [League Cup 1st Round] 0-4

"Greg Dyke!
Dean Gaffney!
Richard Archer of Hard-Fi!
The Drummer from Status Quo!
Cameron Diaz (apparently?!)... Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Your boys took one HELL of a beating!!!"

Well Bugger me with a stiff-wire brush, I wasn't quite expecting that score line.

Saying that, being the pessimist that I am I probably was expecting Brentford, 5th last season in the Championship, to bang about 4 past my beloved yet lowly League 2 mid-tablers Oxford.

OK, so Brentford fielded an under-strength side, including 8 new starters - but you can only beat what is put in front of you and League 2 Oxford thrashed Championship Brentford to absolute fuck.

That's the review of the game covered then - now, onto the padding!

Griffin Park: Braemar Road Main Entrance.

Brentford isn't a new ground for me. In fact, it was the very first away game I visited watching Oxford, back on New Year's Eve 1994 when I was a fresh-faced 16 year old.

From the outside, not an awful lot looks to have changed at Griffin Park in the intervening 20 years since my first visit. Indeed, the double-decker Brook Road Stand allocated to away fans, with its shallow terrace below upper-tier seating hadn't changed one bit since 1986 when it was opened.

Oxford Fans in the Brook Road Stand.

Known as 'The Wendy House' to the locals, the travelling Yellows housed in its bowels certainly had a whale of a time recreating their own London Road home terraces c.1986 - the year that Oxford won the League Cup that they were challenging Brentford in this evening. It's a long way from a Wembley return, but Oxford fans can be allowed to dream.

Neon Lucozade: Welcome to London

If you are used to driving into London along the M4 from the west, you'll recognise Brentford instantly as the bit where London really begins, as you head onto the Great West Road flyover that darts in-between and beneath the shiny glass offices of Sega and GlaxoSmithKline, the many advertising hoardings and the ugly tower blocks. I always treat the glimpse of the Lucozade sign as confirmation that you have arrived in London.

Despite a protracted time exploring the no parking zones around Griffin Park I was early enough to bag a spot in a side-street about half a mile away and set off in search of something to fill a few dead hours pre-match.

The annoying thing about mid-week games of course is I'm not going to have time to fit in anything 'cultural'. So a trip to the Brentford Museum of Water & Steam will have to wait for the next visit. As would the apparently stunning Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, somewhere I have been meaning to visit for a long time.

So what else is Brentford famous for? Well, for being the only football ground to have a pub on all four corners, of course! So what better way to start the evening than a pint in each you say? Well, perhaps a half of weak ale in each - considering I was driving post-match and didn't fancy driving off that M4 flyover into a giant neon bottle of Lucozade.

Corner 1: The New Inn.

First stop, The New Inn, a nice old-style place with plenty of sports memorabilia to gaze at as I sunk that first half of Young's Bitter. No point hanging around when you've 4 pubs to visit - straight onto the next one on the corner of Braemar Road - the Princess Royal.

Corner 2: The Princess Royal.

Well I wish I had hung around in the first pub - this was a bit of a shithole. 'Spit and Sawdust' comes to mind. Still, I was on a mission so necked my half of London Pride outside rather than linger on the sticky lino inside and set off past the main entrance of the football ground to the next corner.

Corner 3: The Griffin.

This was The Griffin, made famous by notorious football hard-man Elijah Wood in his unlikely role in the most fantastical fantasy adventure he's ever been in - Green Street. Despite this, The Griffin is as good a pub as you might wish to find on the corner of a football ground, and I decided to push the boat out and have a full pint in here as I chatted away to some old faces I knew amongst the travelling fans. It felt good to be back into football season mode, once again!

Corner 4: The Royal Oak - CLOSED!!!

Keep Brentford Tidy, yeah?

But I still had the final corner to tick off, so walked past the away turnstiles to the final pub - The Royal Oak. As I rounded the corner and saw the most tucked-away pub of the 4 and its classy faux-Tudor woodwork I thought I was in for a right treat of a place to finish up in. As it was, the fucker was closed, boarded up, ceased trading! However you like to say it I wasn't getting any alcohol from this place.

I found out later from talking to some local Bees that it shut its doors at the end of last season and doesn't look likely to re-open. What a shame - even more so for trivia fans and pub quiz compilers everywhere, Griffin Park has also lost a little of its charm as a result. Ironic considering this probably wasn't the most charming establishment in itself.

I trudged back dejectedly along Brook Road towards the Albany Fish Bar, where I had been told that the chips were 'the business' by one of the Brentford fans I'd spoken to.

Albany Fish Bar: Chips = good. Saveloy = unpopular.

The verdict? Pretty good chips in truth - worth the 20 minute queue. The less said about the sorry-looking lonely saveloys the better though.

That's enough pre-match culture then. Chips and beer - what more do you want? It was time to get into the ground and soak up the magic of the cup under the floodlights - is there anything better?

Streamers & Smoke Bombs: View from the Brook Road Terrace.

Griffin Park will soon enough be no more, as Brentford plan to move to a new 20,000 capacity ground for the 2017-18 season, about half a mile away next to Kew Bridge station. It'll be a sad day for Brentford and for all visiting fans when they do, as English football will lose another cracking old ground of character.

The basic structure of the ground isn't ancient but showing some signs of wear in places. But a lot of recent updating has made this one of those places that combines a few mod-cons such as 'seats' and a 'roof' without losing too much of the original ground's character.

A Rare Brentford Attack. Repelled.

Opposite the away end, the Ealing Road Terrace was up until 2007 an uncovered terrace that for many years housed the visitors, including on my last visit in 2005 when the Oxford fans were pelted with eggs from the road behind!

These days, the home fans aren't scraping yoke off their jackets, but instead enjoying a rare treat in this now roofed end - watching Championship football every week standing on a terrace.

If there were any eggs to be thrown tonight, it would have been from these home fans at their own players. Just 12 minutes into the game and the visitors were 3-0 up, including something of a wonder goal from Oxford's Kemar Roofe, lobbing the Brentford keeper from 40 yards having taken just one touch. It was so remarkable that most in the ground took a few seconds to realise it had actually gone in.

Oxford go 3-0 up, 12 mins gone. Delighted fans.

It was only when Roofe wheeled away to celebrate that the Oxford fans realised that yes, that did go in. Remarkable.

A humiliating night for Brentford, but they will get over it. This is very much a club on the up, and pre-war years aside most Bees fans probably feel last season's journey to the Championship play-offs was their best ever; and every Bees fan I've spoken to doesn't believe they've peaked yet.

Brook Road Stand Entrance.

The club are certainly a far cry away from the middle of the last decade when they were trying their best to get relegated out of League Two and fans were rattling buckets outside Griffin Park just to keep the club afloat.

Long-time fan Matthew Benham has slowly taken control of the club over the past five years and although not popular in all circles of fandom, there is no denying the man's love and ambition for the club having been a regular on the terraces since a child.

He has also sunk a sizeable portion of his own professional gambling fortune into Brentford (£90m since 2012, according to this article), including securing the land for the new stadium. He brings with him a statistical modelling approach to managing and recruiting players - utilising mathematical data from his own company Smartodds to draft in players that fit the team perfectly from nowhere.

Still early days but seems to be working so far, given their success last season. It'll be interesting to see how far maths triumphs over traditional methods in the long-run. Could be the future, all eyes on West London, where the premier team these days isn't QPR or Fulham - but little old Brentford FC.

Maths can't bring perfection though. Tonight the score didn't need a slide rule or mathematical modelling to work out Brentford got it wrong.

1+1+1+1 = 4. That's all the maths I need to worry about!

With thanks to Lisa O'Brien (@lobsteruk), James McGeoghan (@jimmymack84) & Sarah Packer (@Beesbabe1975)

NEXT GAME: SWANSEA CITY v. Newcastle! Saturday 15th August 2015.