An American travels to see Championship playoff between Brentford and Middlesbrough
Last weekend I wrote about the joys of promotion to the Premier League and the raucous celebrations at Vicarage Road when Watford were promoted after a 1-1 draw with Sheffield Wednesday. This week, however, I was in for quite a … Continue reading →

Last weekend I wrote about the joys of promotion to the Premier League and the raucous celebrations at Vicarage Road when Watford were promoted after a 1-1 draw with Sheffield Wednesday. This week, however, I was in for quite a different experience, the tooth and nail drama that I was denied when Watford went up a week early as I travelled to Griffin Park in West London to see Brentford take on Middlesbrough in a Championship playoff semi-final first leg.

While it may not originally appear that way this was a matchup of David against Goliath. The visitors, Middlesbrough, although they have not been in the Premier League since 2009 and are overshadowed in the Northeast by their rivals Newcastle and Sunderland, have spent 60 of their 105 seasons in the top-flight and won the League Cup in 2004. Middlesbrough play their home matches in the modern 35,000 all seater Riverside Stadium, which was constructed in 1995 and is the 14th largest club ground in England and the third largest in the Championship. They spent most of this season challenging for one of the two automatic promotion bids and looked to be in really good shape after beating Norwich at Carrow Road in the antepenultimate match of the season, but lost to struggling Fulham at Craven Cottage and then drew at home to Brighton on the final day of the season and had to settle for a playoff spot.

On the other hand, the hosts Brentford have a much less illustrious history than their counterparts from the Northeast. Brentford have only spent one season in the second division since 1954 and have not been in the top-flight since 1947. Out of the four clubs in West London (Brentford, Chelsea, Fulham and Queen’s Park Rangers), Brentford are by far the smallest. They play in 12,300 seat Griffin Park, which is the third smallest in the Championship. Because this is Brentford’s first season in the second tier since 1993, they have not yet conformed to the standards laid out for stadiums by the Taylor Report. Griffin Park still has terraces at both ends of the pitch and is the only stadium in England to have a pub at all four corners of the ground. This Championship playoff semi-final was probably the biggest match ever to be staged at Griffin Park and tickets were almost impossible to come by.

Despite the differences between the resources and history, both teams were still 180 minutes from Wembley and a further 90 minutes from (at least one) season in the Premier League full with mouthwatering clashes with the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal. The next 180 (or 270) minutes could mean the difference of 150 million pounds and because of this the playoffs are the most stressful and lucrative anywhere in world soccer (including the Champions League). For Middlesbrough, it is a yearning to be back in the big time where they spent nine years at the turn of the century and to be reunited with old foes Newcastle and Sunderland (provided one of them do not go down). For Brentford, this was an extension of a dream; they were tipped by many to be relegated from the Championship and instead finished fifth and in the position to be the second “David” (along with Bournemouth) to go up. After 46 matches over nine months and the classic Tuesday night away trips during the winter to cold, windy grounds the whole season would come down to this. One match at Griffin Park, one match at the Riverside and maybe one match at Wembley; that is all that separates the two sides from fame and fortune.

After a 30 or so minute train ride from London Waterloo, I reached the London neighborhood of Brentford about an hour-and-a-half before kickoff. Like Barnet (who coincidentally also have the nickname of “The Bees”), it was not immediately apparent that there was a major soccer match occurring with millions on the line as the neighborhood of Brentford is a strictly residential neighborhood and the walk from Brentford train station to Griffin Park was just a procession of small townhouse after small townhouse. Griffin Park is sandwiched in between these residential streets and the only things that are not houses in the immediate vicinity of the stadium are the four pubs that surround the ground. After picking up my ticket from the ticket office I decided to wait around the entrance as the Middlesbrough fans were waiting for their team’s coach to pull in. As the coach pulled in and the players filed out of the bus and into the changing room the fans cheered them on and shouted words of encouragement like “let’s do this”. To be honest, the Middlesbrough players did not really pay attention to this as they were almost all listening to music on their iPods and had a cool look of determination on their face. The Brentford fans gathered outside the stadium were very calm, collected but not very cool. There was a lot of nervous pacing and quiet conversations amongst themselves about the match were taking place around me. There was no singing, no chanting it was almost like a funeral procession.

I then made my way to my seat and truly began to realize how unique Griffin Park was. I mentioned the terraces at both ends (although in the away end the upper tier is all seated), but there were many other nuances that made Griffin Park. Because Griffin Park was built in 1903 and has not really been upgraded since, it has a sort of Fenway Park effect. The seats are extremely cramped and I found my knees basically on the seat in front of me. Also, there are many poles obstructing views (but fortunately I was OK) in both stands. Because Griffin Park is very close to Heathrow Airport, Brentford decided to cash in by selling advertising space on the areas above the stands. So any time a plane flies into Heathrow they are greeted with the advertisement “Big Bets for High Flyers” from the betting agency Matchbook. There were also some banners hung up at the back of the opposite stand that said “Jakarta Bees” and “Danish Bees.” How a small West London club like Brentford has a fan club in Jakarta, Indonesia is very strange but also kind of an illustration as to how soccer is a global game enhanced by this global media age. The scoreboards were so small I could barely make out the letters on them and did not have the space to write out the full word “Middlesbrough” and instead had to shorten it to “M’boro.”

Many fans on the two terraces arrived super early to ensure they could be at the front and 20 minutes before kickoff both terraces were full to capacity. Both sets of supporters went through their various set of sings completely independent of one another as they were too far apart to hear each other. This led to the quite comical (at least for me) instance when both teams were singing “And it’s (insert team name here), (insert team name here) F.C., we are by far the greatest team the world has ever seen” at the exact same time just out of sync by a couple of seconds. Another thing to note about the pre-match chanting was that when Middlesbrough sang their rendition of the “Hello, Hello we are the (insert team name here) boys” chant, the line that usually goes “And if you are a (insert rival team name here) fan surrender on your life” was not how I expected to hear it. I had expected to hear either Newcastle United or Sunderland inserted, but instead they put Brentford in. Although there is almost no history between the two clubs (they have played against each other 10 times since World War II), the tie is so important to them that Brentford are now referred to as the enemy. Many of the songs sung by Middlesbrough had references to “going up” and the classic chant of “Que Sera Sera” which I had not heard since Tottenham’s run to the League Cup final. The singing before kickoff was so loud that none of the public address announcers’ words (although the PA system was not very good) could be heard. The atmosphere was unlike any other I have experienced, hardcore fans packing terraces making as much noise as possible. This was the closest I will ever come to replicating the atmosphere of an English soccer match before Hillsborough and the subsequent Taylor Report.

The match kicked off and the opening exchanges were very nervy. Neither team wanted to concede and when there were chances the players often made abnormal mistakes. Middlesbrough started the game off very rough, hard tackling and picked up four yellow cards very early on. It was classic Championship soccer; hard tackling, hardcore support and sometimes lacking in cutting edge quality. After one particularly daft challenge the Brentford faithful were up in arms, chanting “you dirty Northern bast*rds” at the Middlesbrough players and supporters. On a day when most of the headlines were occupied by the general election where the Labour Party got decimated in every part of the UK besides London (where they gained seven seats), this was another display of the cultural differences between London and the rest of the country and how they really do not agree or like each other. After Middlesbrough striker Patrick Bamford made a mistake on a counter-attack the Brentford fans chanted, “you’ll never play for Chelsea” which I found pretty comical and even more comical when I subsequently found out that Jose Mourinho was in attendance at Griffin Park. Nothing like taking a shot at a player that is owned by one of your West London rivals.

But then out of almost thin air, a failed clearance from a free-kick led to another cross being whipped in and turned in by Middlesbrough’s Jelle Vossen and the visitors were one up. Three sides of Griffin Park went absolutely silent; it was as if the collective air of all the Brentford supporters’ was deflated like Tom Brady’s footballs. The fourth side went absolutely mental, the celebrations were so wild that some fans were almost forced over the barrier and onto the pitch by celebrating fans on the terrace. The Wembley and “going up” chants soon returned. Soon after the goal a Brentford shot went out for a goal kick and a young Middlesbrough fan in the front row of the terrace got hold of the ball and threw it to the back of the terrace to waste time in the first half. The goal did bring an increase in tempo to the match and in the 30-second minute Middlesbrough appeared to have scored a second goal that was not given (no goal line technology in the Championship). Brentford then raced up the pitch and within 15 seconds of the disallowed goal Brentford had a penalty shout that was also turned down. The match got more and more fast paced as half-time approached and that was just to serve as an appetizer for what was to come in the second half.

During the interval I found out that Mourinho was in the house and was sitting in my stand but I was unable to locate him and I settled back to get ready for the second half. By this point the sun had set and the match was now being played under total floodlights, which added to the atmosphere. As the second half started the lights in all the stands were turned off and the Middlesbrough fans started singing, “we’ll sing in the dark” before a large group of them turned on their iPhone flashlights. The Brentford terrace responded by singing “what the f*cking hell is that”. In the 54th minute, Brentford equalized and Griffin Park exploded into a cauldron of noise. All of a sudden the promotion and Wembley dreams that had seemed gone when Middlesbrough went a goal up were back. They really could do this – two successive promotions and 150 millions pounds of cash were within striking distance. Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge and Anfield were now creeping into the collective minds of the Brentford supporters. They chanted “who are ya!” at the Middlesbrough supporters and then exploded into their own chorus of “Que Sera Sera” as the place slowly came back to life and the stage was set for a sizzling final 35 minutes.

It would be remiss of me not to mention how enjoyable it was to watch Brentford play. Most teams in the Championship often rely on big, physical, ungainly strikers and their modus operandi often becomes the route one long ball to the target man. Brentford play an attractive style under their manager Mark Warburton, who will leave the club at the end of the season regardless of how the playoffs turn out after a dispute with the club’s owners. They only resort to long balls as a last resort and instead rely on slow build up play out of the back. After watching Spurs play all season and seeing match after match where the only creativity in attack was a pass out wide to Danny Rose, Andros Townsend or Kyle Walker followed by a cross into the box, it was refreshing to see the Brentford wingers (including on-loan Tottenham player Alex Pritchard who was magnificent and I cannot wait to see at White Hart Lane in the future) try cutting in and making some great passes to set up chances. They thrived off the energy of the crowd and really took the game to Middlesbrough after the goal. They won corner after corner after corner but could not turn that into a decisive goal. By the 80th minute I was secretly hoping that the match would never end as I was so won over by the atmosphere and Brentford’s free flowing attacking football. Mourinho, if you ever read this this, I hope you were taking notes from the Braemar Road Stand because that is how soccer is supposed to be played, even if your team lacks the quality to become serial winners. The Middlesbrough fans were very silent during this period but this was more than made up by the noise created by the Brentford terrace. Although I had never seen Brentford play before this match, I found myself biting my nails and breathing heavily every time either team entered the attacking third. I willed Brentford on with everything I had. That is how tight this match was. The stakes so high that every action means millions of pounds. The fans were on a knife-edge. It was more intense than any of the London derbies I had attended with Spurs. I found myself wanting Brentford to win more than I ever had with Spurs. It’s not normal I know, but that’s what the playoffs do to people even if they are supposed neutrals.

As the referee flashed for six minutes of stoppage time, I was really excited as Brentford was the only team that looked like winning the match. There was six additional minutes in this engrossing atmosphere and potentially more drama. Six more minutes for me to experience Griffin Park and all its glory. Then, Middlesbrough won a corner. The ball was whipped in and Fernando Amorebieta met the end of the corner and the ball was in the back of the Brentford net. 2-1 to Middlesbrough. No one in the Brentford ends moved, it was too heartbreaking. The Middlesbrough end did not even celebrate that wildly because I think they were too shocked to believe that they would be heading back to the Riverside with a lead. A child two rows behind me started openly weeping. I couldn’t believe what I had just witnessed and neither could anyone else around me. Brentford had played so well for long periods of the match and really deserved to win the match but instead found all their hard work undone by one moment. Goliath had just slayed David even though David had looked so close to emerging victorious.

At the full-time whistle both sets of supporters stayed to applaud their teams and both sets of supporters sang the “we’re by far the greatest team” chant at the same time in tune (just with ‘Middlesbrough’ instead of ‘Super Brentford’) which was a really nice touch. It is not often you see a team get a standing ovation leaving the pitch when they lost but the Brentford fans were immensely proud of how their team has performed all season and would never in their wildest dream have thought that the Bees would be in the playoffs. And for that, the fans showed their appreciation. They also showed their appreciation for outgoing manager Mark Warburton in what will definitely be his last match at Griffin Park with a chant of “Warburton” as he walked down the tunnel. The Middlesbrough fans stayed for a full 10 minutes after the players left the pitch and continued with their promotion and Wembley singing. None of them wanted to leave Griffin Park on what surely was one of their most memorable nights as a supporter of Middlesbrough Football Club.

While Brentford still have a chance of promotion, it looks really unlikely and most of their fans have already accepted defeat after losing the home leg in such gut wrenching fashion. Brentford lost 4-0 at the Riverside in September and the chances of a two-goal victory are very slim. With that being said, the Championship (in my opinion) is one of the most exciting leagues in the world because of its unpredictability so Brentford overturning this deficit is still possible. You really never know what is going to happen next in this league. Last weekend Watford were cruising to the title and then all of a sudden Sheffield Wedensday stole it from them in injury time. Brentford even got into the playoffs when Derby lost 3-0 at home to bottom half Reading.

For every moment of extreme joy and jubilation like the ones I experienced the last two weekends at The Hive and Vicarage Road, there are going to be even more moments of despair and wondering what could have been. I really felt for the Brentford fans when Middlesbrough went in front. It is the most awful feeling to be so close to the biggest achievement in your club’s history and then have it snatched from you at the last. With that being said, any true soccer supporter has to have those moments because when the extreme highs do come, it makes it all the more sweeter and memorable. Roll on the second leg of this amazing tie, and best of luck to Brentford Football Club in their bid for promotion to the Premier League. I will definitely be supporting them and will continue to do so in the Championship if they do not go up. Brentford Football Club, thanks for an amazing night and some amazing memories, even if the end result was not what was desired.