[theo_luddite]

Brentford's Slightly Stingless Bees (but don't tell Southampton that) V Town's Toothless Terriers

Brentford Community Stadium



All Shiny and New and hardly been used



Not a pub to be seen on any corner
What a shame that is
Not far from Kew Gardens
It's been a good year for the roses
Kick-off 15:00 UK Time
Saturday 19/09/2020

On the tellybox
iFollow you, if
iFollow me, over
tinterweb at £10/pop

Otherwise it's dodgy feeds of Oggy and his Hairdresser wherever you can find them.

Latest news
Oh sod that, you can read it all on the Unexamined or Town's website.
Let's have a butchers 'oook at their shiny brand new home.

Brentford hand over the keys to Griffin Park, so it's goodbye to the old, in with the new.
https://www.brentfordfc.com/news/2020/se...nded-over/

Owner Matthew Bentham, a keen and successful gambler and a Moneyball follower continues to grow his investment in West Larndan Tarn by selling up the valuable plot of land that is Griffin Park to build the imaginatively named Brentford Community Stadium.  Well, it's imaginative until such times as companies (with folks on furlough and other former employees trying to get an appointment down the dole office, while being told to travel to t'other end of thee country for a Covid check before they come to the dole office) can be reckless enough again with their money to even sponsor a players boot laces, let alone a stadium.

Built in the triangle of an old railway sidings, it's hemmed in by 3 remaining remaining tracks, a few existing buildings and a new mini-tower block of what might be difficult to call affordable housing anywhere outside the M25. I've not looked too hard but I doubt they'd be called affordable in Brentford either. No idea what the current occupancy rate is tbh.

Sadly the pub on each corner of the Griffin Stadium will likely go the way of the ground, if they haven't already, and as far as I can see, there isn't a new one on any corner (4 or 3) of the new ground (yet). There will be hotdog, kebab, eel pie and mash and other Salmonella Sam and Samantha pop-up street vendors on the vehicle free areas around the ground as and when anyone is allowed close enough to watch from inside the stadium rather than from the higher storey free views around the ground.

The good news is that all those pillars that used to block the views of the home fans in the main stand have been removed. As a nod to nostalgia, they apparently have been moved to the back of the stand opposite the new main stand.



Well it wouldn't be Brentford without a few restricted views now would it?  

Now I've heard conflicting news about this game. Now't new there for this 'ere government. On the one hand I've heard it's being played behind closed doors, on t'other hand I've heard it's being used as an experiment for around 1000 guinea pigs. I hope their hutches are well disinfected before and after if that is the case.

In numbers (from their official site)

Capacity 17,250
New homes - 910
Minutes from Kew Bridge Stadium - <5

At the moment, everything "Official" seems to be a virtual stadium, so it will likely be a virtual kick-off then at 3pm Saturday. Anyone know how to log into a Playstation? never had one.

The executive catering/hostility facility has the appearance of a late 20th Century school canteen to me. Obviously designed to appeal to the yoof of West Larndan so they fink they is awl still at skool like, innit?



Built nobut a stone's throw from Griffin Park and a flat stone skipping throw across the Thames from Kew Gardens, it's good to know they are already taking on the agricultural/horticultural vibe. I applaud the naming of the nearest end to Kew as the Percy Thrower Stand.  



Apparently the land in front of the stand has been well dug in and filled with a good few spade depths of well rotted farm manure as well as some bone meal top dressing. This means the late Summer roses are in full bloom and would be a delight for the home fans sat amongst the thorns at that end of the stadium. They will at least hide the smell coming down stream from the Thames.

Watering of the pitch.
The Percy Thrower end and all other obligatory water features have, as always been designed, by the bra-less barrow wielding wonder-woman otherwise known as, Charlie Dimmock.



Now I'm not one to make a fuss, but the 24' x 8' lump of Lake District granite that thanks to Charlie comes up out of the goal line at the Percy Thrower End and fills the goal as water cascades waterfall like over the crossbar and down the facade of the impressive granite block does seem a bit of an extravagance to me. Especially as it is apparently going to be left there behind the Brentford goalie for the whole of the second half, meaning the away side has no chance of scoring. In our case, nobody would see any bloody difference anyway. If that's also where they house the away fans they won't see much of the 2nd half either.

Last time out
We both lost to teams that couldn't win a raffle prize last season if they had all the tickets between them.




Yeah, Ok their semi-reserve side beat Sarfamptons U-11's (WOT DO YOU MEAN IT WAS A FULL STRENGTH SQUAD?) in the EFL Cup but that's only because Sarfamton yoof were hyper from drinking all the post-match Caraboo-boo drinks with their pre-match and half-time tea rather than leaving them until after the game.

Tables
Previously discussed above - they need some better ones in their hostility area's if you ask me.
After one game - we ain't in the top 3.

Form
Well, they've lost their last 3 EFL games not including play-offs. They won one of three of those and The Cup game above. I'm sure we won at least one in the same period too, apart from the play-offs. At least we've got back to being average instead of the awful display we came up with against Luton last season. Now if we just had somebody we were paying good money to who could score goals for us, we might have a chance in this one.  

However it seems we''d rather let Karlan Grant rot in the stiffs and wait until the last minutes of the Transfer Window for Bilic to sh!t or get off the pot. 99.99% of the time I have no problem what-so-ever with the Baggies - but Bilic is peeing me off big time on this one.

If it ain't Bilic then it certainly is Careless Carlos, throwing potential goals and points away on a point of principle. Methinks the Cowleys digging in on this early doors with players that didn't want to be here when Big Phil had made a point of saying they will play a part if we pay'em was the thin end of the wedge for those boys.


Innies and Outies
Their big outie was a very big outie to Villa. Leading scorer Ollie Watkins


Their big Innie was Posh's Leading scorer Ivan Toney.
According to Transfermarkt (the more astute of you may have noticed I absolutely pillage their website for most of my stats, danke schoen, freundliche grüssen)  , he is worth about £300K, so why did they pay £5 million? And as such, why is their squad worth the same as ours when nobody would pay us peanuts for most of our lot?



Who's banging 'em in
When he gets up to speed that lad from Posh will probably be on fire. I don't doubt we'll help him get a hat-trick this weekend  - if he's fit. Otherwise, as you'd expect from a side that was damned close to the auto's last season, they've still got a few more than we have with an idea where the onion bag is.


Seen down the Local

A few local well knowns and a few musicians who might be buskers on the tube had they not been "discovered" at an early age.
Well - the locals would apparently prefer, Mrs Bucket style, to prefer to come from Hounslow according to Wiki - so to name drop a few of the famous and infamous
Sir David Attenborough, yes Mr. Boaty McBoatface himself.
Jimmy Carr - no, not the son of former Coventry City player Willie - that's Alan
The late Keith 'Cheggers' Chegwin used to live in the area with his missus Maggie Philbin (I liked her more than him but then again, why not?)

Phil Collins - yes him of the Cadbury's advert when he had hair.

John Entwistle - the apparently bored Who bass player who blew his nose out on a cocaine binge in a Yankee hotel and woke up dead the next morning in the middle of a Who world tour. Talking about My Generation?
Sophie Ellis Bexter - I'm sure I should know who she is. Not sure if she's a singer or an ex-Blue Peter presenter to be honest.
Mo Farah - a lad that never needs the bus, tube or a taxi - he just runs errands for his neighbours all day long. Nice chap but when you ask him round for a cup of tea he takes two sips then throws the mug across the road. What is that all about?
Fenella Fielding - frying tonight amongst other Carry On's?
Ian Gillan - Smerk on the Water, Fire in the Sky.
Hugh Grant - now there's me thinking he lived in Notting Hill  
Russell Grant - butch astrologer to the stars- what?
Patsy Kensit - used to live in them there parts.
Nick Lowe - had an album called The Brentford Trilogy - I'm assuming the 4th pub was closed when he wrote it. Apparently he Loved the Sound of Breaking Glass so likely threw a brick through a few windows for artistic inspiration.
Freddy Mercury - he Want(ed) to Break Free but went on to Tie Your Mother Down before he asked Who Wants to Live Forever?
Jimmy Page - spent a long lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely time playing Rock and Roll down here after leaving Muddled England and couldn't find his way back.
Pete Townsend - said John Entwistle was of My Generation. He jumped on a Magic Bus, but Bodgit hijacked that with some crap about the NHS and afterwards declared he Won't Get Fooled Again.
The also late Jack Wild - yes him of Chorlton and the Wheelies and the Artful Dodger himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-cSvCinTj8
(Who let a Yank narrate this one? Zee Cars?)

There's many more but here's a few more looney tunes from the locals.






Local Stuff


Remember Brentford Nylons?
The bedding of the 1970's. The "hi-tec" alternative to cotton sheets that left you waking up like a sweating pig and caused so much static, many a dutch oven was know to explode with enough force to not only lift the blankets but blow out a few bedroom windows too.
On top of the sweats you woke up with serious bedhead.

Renowned skin-flint and tax dodger Ken Dodd was sill using his Brentford Nylons sheets on his 90th birthday.


Meanwhile they did untold damage to newly married couples.


Unlike most of my waffle, snitched from the pages of TransferMarkt, as I'm sure you've sussed, I've purloined this from the pages of The Indy.
No I didn't ask them for permission but I doubt they'll argue the free subs.

"The stores, which never shrugged off the image of electrostatically charged sheets and an advertising campaign starring the disc jockey Alan Freeman, have been sold to Roseby's, a Rotherham-based curtain and household goods retailer.

Rosebys bought 90 of the 140 Brentfords stores for £4m from Lonrho, the mining conglomerate which was selling off peripheral businesses."

Best thing was, the stock was valued at £6m. Rosebys didn't think there was any value in the name anymore and rebranded all the remaining shops."

Of course there was the odd piss take, well, why not?  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h1VOgn1nQ8
(I can only use so many vids)

They can't all lose

The good news is at least one of us won't be pointless after this game. For some reason, I'm not confident it will be us.


We've played 'em before


If the goal-fests continues, I have a feeling our Number 1 will get a bad back by 16:30. How many more he'll let in in the last 25 mins is anyone's guess.

Next up?
Forest at home - moved to Friday night. Another stadium filler for the tellybox - oh, hang on a minute.

Pressers
Carlos on the Town web-site
https://www.htafc.com/news/2020/septembe...encounter/

Bacuna
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08rsyyp

Thomas Frank
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRXswGiEms8

[Lord Snooty]

Nice one, theodolite.

Can't see us getting owt from this really. Be happy if we get a goal.

[Lord Snooty]

That Roger Daltrey will have somebody's eye out one of these days swinging that mic around like that.

[Lord Snooty]

Don't know what has gone wrong there. We looked like we had a star in the making in the friendlies in Josh Austerfield. He's not even travelled to Brentford. He's playing for the u19s at Canalside, who are currently 0-3 behind against Altrincham.

---

Huddersfield Town Head Coach Carlos Corberán has made one change to his team for today’s Sky Bet Championship game at Brentford’s new Community Stadium.

Isaac Mbenza comes into the side for his first competitive start of the new season, with 19-year-old Ben Jackson dropping to the bench after making his Championship debut last weekend.

Both former Brentford men in the Town line-up hit landmarks today.

Ben Hamer, who enjoyed three loan spells for the Bees between 2007 and 2011, makes the 300th league start of his career today.

Meanwhile Alex Pritchard – a former Brentford Players’ Player of the Year from a loan spell in 2014/15 – makes his 50th league start for Huddersfield Town.

Jonathan Hogg also makes the 350th of his career today.

There are changes among the substitutes today, where Demeaco Duhaney and Matty Daly replace Aaron Rowe and Rarmani Edmonds-Green.

Young Terriers Nicholas Bilokapic, Brahima Diarra and Pat Jones have travelled with the squad today for the experience too.

Corberán is without the services of Ryan Schofield (thumb), Tommy Elphick (knee), Terence Kongolo (foot), Lewis O’Brien (quad), Naby Sarr (quarantine) and Danny Ward (hamstring) this afternoon.

Town’s team vs Brentford
1. Ben Hamer
2. Pipa
3. Harry Toffolo
6. Jonathan Hogg
7. Juninho Bacuna
10. Alex Pritchard
11. Adama Diakhaby
12. Richard Stearman
18. Isaac Mbenza
19. Josh Koroma
26. Christopher Schindler ©
Substitutes
Joel Pereira; Demeaco Duhaney, Fraizer Campbell, Romoney Crichlow, Jaden Brown, Ben Jackson, Matty Daly

---

Brentford:
Daniels, Henry, Pinnock, Jansson, Dalgard, DaSilva, Norgaard, Marcondes, Canos, Toney, Mbuemo.

Subs: Raya, Forss, Fosu, Baptiste, Thompson, Bech Sorensen, Zamburek.

[theo_luddite]

Thanks Snoots

[Lord Snooty]

S'alright theo. Don't know why but I can't post those fancy ones the clubs put out. Had to type the Brentford team by hand. That took some doing. Started okay with Daniels and Henry but soon got very tricky indeed.

[theo_luddite]

He was on loan 3x at Brentford

[Lord Snooty]

As for Bendy Hamer. Surely all them 300 games can't have been all that bad.

[theo_luddite]

Tbh Snoots, I can only do it from my laptop. I can't get them to work at all on my phone. I had a dummy thread that I played with for ages and somehow did it once, then couldn't repeat it.

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Full fancy arsed teams in full colour while I'm here

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Well they seemed to like him. He seems to have stagnated somewhat at Leicester then forgot what to do when he arrived at ours.

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Radio Leeds pre-match these days is either L666s or bloody Sadford on the t'interweb feed.

[Lord Snooty]

Oggy's commentary is in front of the pictures this week.

---

Toff off. That doesn't look good.
Brown on.

---

Schindler coming off. Hamstrung.
Crichlow on.

---

How the chuff is Nørgaard still on. He escapes a straight red card with a yellow and then a minute later clatters through the back of Pritchard and doesn't get punished. Very very weak refereeing.

Apart from that, we rode our luck early on, but not doing too badly. Good effort from Mbenza well saved.