Brentford: Nailed on

I’m not sure how many of you remember Brent Ford & The Nylons? They were a Birmingham-based punk band, but their name derived from the only thing people outside of London could recall about Brentford in the 1970s: Brentford Nylons.

The company was set up in nearby Chiswick and was essentially a retail mail-order firm, also opening high street shops as its success peaked. The business then went into decline and is now just another victim on the timeline of economic history.
Memories of its product are mixed – you really either loved it or hated it – and many people will only remember the brand at all these days because of a series of TV ads fronted by DJ Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman.

Brentford FC never enjoyed the same kind of brand awareness. In my case, growing up, it was because Leeds United had only played them once in my lifetime – a League Cup tie back in 1961 – when I was just one. I don’t remember it. Apparently, we won 4.1 at Elland Road.

We’d first met in November 1935 in a First Division match at Griffin Park, which finished 2.2. My first recollection of them was also in a draw – 0.0 – on 12 December 2009. That was a League One game, almost exactly 16 years ago and still at Griffin Park.

What a lot had happened in the 48 years since 1961 and 2009! We had been crowned Football League Champions three times and spread the Leeds United brand to the far corners of the world. Brentford were in the third tier.

Since then, of course, Brentford’s fortunes have changed, as has their real estate. The data-driven club now resides at the Gtech Community Stadium, and statistics show that it has continued to be an unhappy hunting ground for LUFC. We’ve only actually won four times at Brentford in all competitions, ever. It may not feel quite like Brighton, or even Fulham, but we don’t usually need the Thames Barrier to fail in order to drown in the capital.

Remember our 2.0 defeat there on Easter Monday 2019? Seeking resurrection after the Wigan disaster, we were never given so much as a glimmer of hope.

No doubt LUFC fans this week will be talking about the Great Escape of 22 May 2022, when Jack Harrison’s last-minute goal, following Raphinha’s penalty, gave us an unlikely 2.1 win and safety from relegation – the first team to start the final day of a season in the Premier League's relegation zone and stay up since, er, Wigan, eleven years earlier.

How Jesse Marsch lapped up the applause at the end of that match. I remember crying uncontrollably, the sheer relief washing over me. For a while, I saw it as a great day. Except it wasn’t really, was it? In the revisionism that history provides, it was merely a stay of execution – just as the back-to-back Liverpool and Bournemouth wins the following season would prove to be.

I never saw Daniel Farke as the one trick pony that Marsch undoubtedly was, but I had often been concerned about the timing and choice of his substitutes. There’s nothing new in this. I still wish Jimmy Armfield had brought Duncan McKenzie on in Paris. However it has happened – fan pressure or owners orchestrating a PR campaign to hide their own mistakes – Farke has recently shown the kind of tactical flexibility we suspected was always in there, just allowing stubbornness to prevent him from trying something different, albeit with the limited squad he has to choose from.

Well, we’ve looked more compact and physically aggressive since that second half at the Etihad, haven’t we? The players we recruited seem to have fitted into the new system far better, don’t they? We’re scoring more goals, aren’t we?

So why should I be looking at Sunday’s fixture with such trepidation? Brent Ford & The Nylons unfortunately did a cover of 19th Nervous Breakdown. Let’s hope we march on together to a different beat down there. Will it be emotional? Not arf!

​Read more in my book: The Leeds United Story, available on Amazon in print and digital formats, also Kindle Unlimited.​

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